Lyme
Guidelines Ignore Research
By
Sandy Berenbaum
Courant.com
August 28, 2007
I was appalled to
read the Aug. 24 article highlighting Durland Fish's defense of
the Lyme disease guidelines set forth by the Infectious Diseases
Society of America [Page 1, "State Joins Dispute Over Lyme"].
These guidelines ignore much of the research and dismiss the
suffering of thousands of chronic Lyme patients who received no
diagnosis or treatment until they found a courageous, highly
competent physician (most International Lyme and Associated
Diseases Society members) to diagnose and treat them.
Many of those patients went months or years without a diagnosis
until Lyme had taken over their bodies and in some cases, their
brains. Many are children who struggled for years to regain the
ability to attend school, do their schoolwork, interact with
peers and accomplish the developmental tasks of childhood.
As a psychotherapist, I have seen the suffering of these
patients in my practice over the past 16 years (since I began to
understand Lyme) and the damage that undiagnosed chronic Lyme
could do. Words cannot describe my outrage that IDSA
researchers, many of them physicians, would turn their backs on
these patients, dismiss their pain and suffering and attack
their physicians.
I applaud Dr. Raphael Stricker and ILADS for their courage and
perseverance.
Sandy Berenbaum
Southbury
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