Lyme Disease Controversy Comes to the Capitol
Lyme Disease action groups have gained momentum and the winds are at their backs. In January, the state of Virginia took action by submitting legislation to defend Lyme doctors treating patients with long-term antibiotics. Shortly afterwards, similar action appeared in Maine. Now, State Representative Gary Daniels, a Republican from Milford, New Hampshire has sponsored a bill to protect doctors from prosecution by the Board of Medicine should they choose long-term treatment.
Excerpted from NHPR ( Posted: 2/01/2010 )
One of the most vitriolic debates in medicine has come to the State House.
Desperate Lyme Disease patients say they are fighting for their lives.
They say doctors who treat their illness with long-term antibiotics are persecuted by the medical establishment.
They want lawmakers to pass legislation that they say will free doctors to treat Lyme Disease as they see fit.
On the other side are doctors equally convinced that long-term antibiotics are both ineffective and dangerous.
NHPR health reporter Elaine Grant has more.The conflict has become so nasty over the last two decades, advocates say, that doctors in many states, including New Hampshire, are afraid to treat Lyme patients.
Representative Gary Daniels: “This has had a chilling effect on the number of Lyme literate physicans who are trained or willing to treat Lyme patients…Many of our state residents are forced to travel beyond our state borders to find the treatment that they need.”
That’s State Representative Gary Daniels, a Republican from Milford.
He says doctors in other states have been prosecuted by medical boards for prescribing long-term antibiotics.
And although it’s never happened in New Hampshire, Daniels wants to make sure it won’t.
He’s sponsored a bill to protect doctors from prosecution by the Board of Medicine should they choose long-term treatment.
More at: http://www.nhpr.org/node/29157
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