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