June, 2007

News about the Protest Go==>

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists have found a way to stop the Lyme Epidemic by
FURTHER RESTRICTING REPORTED CASES!

The Lyme Rights group is staging a protest to raise awareness about the problems associated with the proposed amendments to the current surveillance case definition for Lyme disease. The case definition is used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to count and track the number of cases. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) is the organization that proposes surveillance case definitions to the CDC, which usually adopts them unchanged.

Reasons we are protesting the proposed amendment:

THE CSTE PROPOSED REPORTING CRITERIA AMENDMENT WILL:

• Eliminate EM rash as diagnostic in non Lyme endemic areas.
• Further restrict current Surveillance criteria and increase under reporting.
• Hinder prevention efforts by giving a false sense of security with inaccurate numbers to evaluate true risks in an area. 
• Result in more undiagnosed cases, more severe chronic infections & LESS funding.

References: (if you want to dig into the details). 

• 1995 CDC Lyme Disease Case Definition  Link to PDF ==>
• 1996 CDC Lyme Disease Case Definition    Link to PDF ==>
• Proposed amendments to the case definition:  Link to pdf ==>
• Supporting documents on Information page: Link to page ==>