Lyme disease becomes political battleground
Excerpted from BUFFALONEWS.COM ( Posted: 0/13/2012)
WASHINGTON – Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., plans to briefly suspend her campaign for re-election Aug. 30 to slip across the Connecticut border to testify in Stamford about a serious health issue that almost nobody understands.
It is the growing menace of tick-borne disease, Lyme disease mainly, in America, particularly in the Northeast. She and Sen. Charles E. Schumer are among 12 sponsors of a bipartisan bill that advances a modest idea:
To create a federal committee to advise the Department of Health and Human Services on how to better combat a brace of dangerous, sometimes deadly, diseases.
The field hearing, one of those semi-official affairs, will be chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whose state is among the three hardest hit in terms of cases per population. New York has had the most confirmed cases a year, running to as many as 5,000.
For more: www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/columns/douglas-turner/article1002417.ece
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