Focus – Opinions and Features

Phyllis Mervine, Founder and President of LymeDisease.org, delivered the following public comments at the recent meeting of the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. I live in a high-risk county for Lyme disease that doesn’t appear at all on the CDC’s new Lyme maps. The... Read More »

by Kristina Bauer and Cozette Moysa Disulfiram is a chemical compound first synthesized in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, it was used as an industrial agent in the manufacture of rubber. The sulfur-containing substance also had some medicinal uses, such as treating... Read More »

By Dr. Steven Phillips For patients, there is often nothing more soul-crushing than being inexplicably sick with doctor after doctor having no answers, or getting the wrong diagnosis and being led down the wrong path with the wrong drugs. But for patients with Lyme disease,... Read More »

By Kristina Bauer I contracted Lyme disease and co-infections in 1980, in Fairview Heights, Illinois. I remained undiagnosed and untreated until 2012. One year later, my husband and I discovered that all four of our children had been infected at birth with congenital Lyme disease... Read More »

By Ian McCartney One bright, sunny day in August 2008, a bug no bigger than a raspberry seed attached itself to the back of my leg. I had no idea that my life was about to change forever. I knew little about ticks and had never heard of Lyme disease. And, I couldn’t imagine... Read More »

Advocates on behalf of patients with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases made some headway on Capitol Hill in 2019. Of course, much work still lies before us. Bruce Fries is President of the Patient Centered Care Advocacy Group. He provides this summary of what... Read More »

By Phyllis Mervine Thirty years ago, when I started this organization, I never dreamed we would still be fighting the same battles three decades later. Accurate tests, physician education, and patient access to proper medical care are still at the forefront of what... Read More »

Neil Spector, MD, is one of the most highly regarded presenters in the Lyme disease community. He is a professor and researcher at Duke University School of Medicine.  He also wrote “Gone in a Heartbeat: A Physician’s Search for True Healing” – a memoir about his own battle with... Read More »

Minnesota’s state medical board recently lifted a moratorium on prosecuting physicians for treating Lyme outside of the strict guidelines of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Now, doctors who prescribe long-term antibiotics for Lyme disease risk losing their... Read More »