Thank you for helping to raise awareness about Lyme. A lot of people are still not informed about how serious it can be. If left untreated it can be terrible. I found this website to be another good resource if you have questions about Lyme: http://www.lyme-disease-research-database.com

Be very careful out there. This disease can make your life a living hell and has many very bad neurological affects.

IDSA (Infectious Disease Society of America) is corrupt, and their doctors are useless. If you have or suspect Lyme, ignore them and go straight to an ILADS doctor. http://www.ilads.org You can get a referral here: http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/referral/LogIn.php?setcookie=yes

The IDSA panel who vaguely discussed this issue and decided that the guideline's should not be changed should hang their heads in shame. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands world wide whose treatment for Lyme disease is effected. 28 days or less of any antibiotic for some with Lyme leads to a life or torment or even death. Lyme disease is not a disease to be taken lightly. People who have acne get more antibiotics than those with Lyme and no panel,scientist,or group of doctors raise an eyebrow. Why is it that doctors who prescribe over 28 days of oral or IV antibiotics can't help their Lyme patients ?

The doctors who make up this panel should be ashamed of themselves. They are corrupt. They have accepted money from insurance companies for saying that chronic Lyme does not exist and that gives a reason for insurance companies to refuse treatment. They harass doctors who treat Lyme aggressively. They have financial interest in seeing that Lyme Disease is NOT treated properly. Somehow, they have taken out a patent on the Lyme bacteria (I didn't know it was possible) and from what I understand, they don't don't care about finding a cure...they want to make money from discovering a vaccination. And somehow this prevents other researchers from trying to find a cure. There is a huge conflict of interest going on here. IT IS CRIMINAL and something must be done now. Meanwhile all of us suffering with the disease are having extreme difficulty finding proper treatment. I don't know how these doctors can live with themselves. My life has been taken away since I got sick almost 2 years ago. They call themselves healers????

The IDSA spent an inordinate amount of time side-stepping its obligation to admit that these guidelines amount to the medical abandonment of the significant percentage of Lyme patients who do not test positive with the currently available inaccurate tests, who do not respond to short-term antibiotic treatments, and who need long-term antibiotic treatment to avoid a life of disability and despair. These guidelines do not allow physicians any clinical discretion in diagnosis and treatment and deny patients the right to choose the only treatment that could make them well. If they do find a doctor willing to risk their license in order to give them adequate treatment, insurance companies, citing these guidelines, will deny payment.

Physicians with experience and expertise in treating chronic Lyme with long-term antibiotics were excluded from the IDSA review panel. In reaching its conclusion, the panel dismissed over a hundred studies demonstrating persistence of infection, numerous case studies by experts demonstrating improvement with long-term antibiotics, and controlled studies demonstrating improvement with long-term treatment. In light of incontrovertible evidence of the high false-negative rate of all Lyme diagnostic tests, they insist that the 2006 guidelines recommendation to withhold treatment without a positive test wasn’t really a recommendation after all.

My daughter Victoria (13) has been suffering from a Lyme/babesia co-infection for over a year. These guidelines are so restrictive that if Victoria’s doctor were following them she would not have been diagnosed with Lyme disease until January leaving her without any treatment for 9 months. She would not have received more than 4 weeks of antibiotics despite the continuation of severe life-diminishing symptoms. It is possible that Victoria will go on IV antibiotics in the coming months. If she does, the length of her treatment will depend on her clinical response. If these guidelines stand then our insurance company, citing the IDSA guidelines, could deny payment after 4 weeks leaving my husband and me to pay for this extremely expensive treatment on our own.

I challenge any reporter to dig deeper to uncover the facts behind this report.

I had lymes about 20 yrs ago and was lucky to get quick care.It took awhile for the tests to come back positive but they did.I was on antibiotic for 21 days at that time.

This is just one more example of these criminals in action. As usual, they are not dealing with reality, just GREED.

When you combine this with the physicians' "Cabal", which is lack of treatment (for anything), you end up with a deteriorating patient, me.