Legislation Aims to Fight Lyme Disease Using National Strategy
A new bill would help fund research and speed up diagnosis on the disease.
An effort to fight Lyme disease is getting a push on the national level from a group of lawmakers, according to a recent report on MyFoxBoston.com.
New legislation is aimed at speeding advances in diagnosis and prevention, and would look to establish an advisory committee of researchers and patient advocates, as well as coordinate support developing better research and surveillance,according to the report.
The bill would allegedly help channel more money to research on how to treat and prevent the disease, said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. The legislation has also received support from Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
Lyme disease has certainly been a topic of discussion in the Dover-Sherborn area over the years. Last September, the Dover Board of Health Lyme Disease Committee discussed preparedness and a possible controlled burn in Dover to curtail tick population.
Then, in October, Dover's second annual deer culling program began earlier in an effort to try and reduce the rate of Lyme disease in the region.
More recently, the mild winter this past year, coupled with the warmer-than-usual spring, brought forth an early start to deer tick season in the area.
Just last month, on June 4, author Katina Makris made a special visit to the Dover Town Library to discuss her memoir and guide on how to heal the mind, body and spirit from chronic Lyme disease.
Would you support a national strategy that would aim to help fight and prevent Lyme disease? Let us know in the comments section below.
Alexander Davis
10:02 am on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
We need a federal plan to help us reverse the deer epidemic which has caused the Lyme epidemic. As Tufts Professor Sam Telford stated in the July 13 Vineyard Gazette, the large deer population is responsible for the large numbers of ticks which cause Lyme disease. He has counted 300 ticks on a deer, and a tick can lay 2000 eggs. Government could help by changing laws to make deer removal easier and less expensive. Deer are invading people's yards dropping off hundreds of thousands of ticks whose eggs develop into the immature ticks which bite Lyme-infected mice and spread the disease to us. Deer should be reduced to at least 6-8 per square mile and kept at that level. Deer populations can potentially double in 1-2 years. On Monhegan Island Maine, the wise residents ended their Lyme epidemic by removing all the deer.