I know our collective political attention is focused on the presidential election at the moment, but the day to day acts of government and citizenship also deserve our attention. The Lyme community is mobilizing once again to try to pass legislation, which is very much needed. Please help. In the past, it has successfully passed legislation that helps to address needs such as education, informing patients that there is more than one standard of care, and asking insurance companies to pay for long term antibiotics. A summary (last updated in 2014) can be found on lymedisease.org, which gives a sense of how long this has been a focus of the community:
Every year since 1998, advocates have tried to pass federal bills to create a balanced advisory committee and a federal program to address the growing epidemic. None of the bills even made it out of committee until 2014.
The time has come again to move this effort forward — by attaching an amendment to a major piece of health care that the Senate is voting on. You can help by calling or emailing your senator and asking them to co-sponsor the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education and Research Act (S. 1503) with Sen. Blumenthal (the link has all the information you need and a way to send an email).
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
