She comes from a state with fewer than 10 Lyme disease cases a year. She has not been involved in Lyme disease causes, but rather in funding cancer research.
Yet she has been named "consumer representative" on a panel that will rewrite treatment guidelines for a tick-borne illness with 20,000 reported cases in the mid-Hudson Valley from 2007 to 2013 — and 300,000 nationwide annually. This while federal standards say the panel should include not one but two people to represent the public: "a current or former patient and a patient advocate." ..As it stands now, it has neither....
...The guidelines update .. 11 medical societies are represented on the panel; however, no members were appointed from the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, or ILADS, the leading tick-borne diseases medical group...
"How can these panelists be impartial when they have staked their reputations on the position that chronic Lyme does not exist?" ...advocates say have significant intellectual and financial conflicts of interest....
...The Institute of Medicine said the controversy was "illustrative" of the need for a uniform process across diseases, involving doctors, patients and scientists with diverse viewpoints. Its report made clear that conflicts of interest could lead to bias by, among others, "specialty societies, which might benefit or whose members might gain from guideline recommendations."...
Hudson Valley Lyme Disease Association, Chairperson
Dutchess County Legislative Tick Task Force, Member
Stop Ticks On People (S.T.O.P.), Board Member
NYS Coalition on Lyme and Tick-borne Disease, Member
"What's the problem? Well it's the ticks of course!"
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