Aug152009

What to do with Lyme treatment guidelines?

Recommendations on whether or not to revise or rewrite expected later this year

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Last May, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launched an anti-trust investigation into the potential conflicts of panel members who led the writing of the Infectious Disease Society of America’s (IDSA) 2006 guidelines for treating Lyme disease. “Medical guidelines have profoundly powerful consequences for countless lives, driving doctors’ treatment decisions and insurance company coverage determinations,” Mr. Blumenthal said in a statement released the day of the hearing. “Such significant clinical standards deserve the most intensive scrutiny from all perspectives — physicians, scientists and patients — before they are published.”

Shelter Island has among the highest Lyme disease incidence rates in New York State.

Mr. Blumenthal’s findings of actual conflicts of interest led to a public hearing in Washington D.C. last Thursday during which a new panel heard testimony on why the guidelines should or should not be changed. Most at issue was whether, or how, chronic Lyme disease could be defined. If it cannot be defined, definitive guidelines cannot be written on how to treat it.

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Aug152009

Massachusetts: State underreporting Lyme disease incidence

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The Brewster Lyme Disease Support Group, along with Denise Zevitas of the Brewster Ladies’ Library reference department, has been monitoring confirmed areas of Lyme disease in Brewster for more than a year.

In July 2008 the VNA took over the task of counting confirmed Lyme disease cases on Cape Cod. The town of Brewster in 2007 had a confirmed count of 77. The health officer in Brewster, Nancy Ellis Ice, signed off on this number.

The state lab in Boston has reduced this number to 23. In so doing, the credibility of Cape Cod Healthcare and the VNA is on the line. Brewster worked hard to get an accurate count of confirmed Lyme disease cases. So did its physicians. The VNA has cast this aside. How 77 cases becomes 23 is alarming.

The Lyme Disease Support Group in Brewster is challenging this development. We have alerted state Rep. Cleon Turner and U.S. Rep. William Delahunt. We ask the VNA to verify its assertion along with the state lab in Boston.

This defies credibility. Let’s get an honest count. This disease is taking a terrible toll.

Source: Cape Cod Times