Post by alyeska on Jan 26, 2019 17:25:13 GMT
Does anyone know anything about this? This is the first I’ve heard of it.
www.presspubs.com/white_bear/news/national-lyme-disease-bill-leads-charge-for-new-control-strategy/article_9cd4f4a2-19b1-11e9-b6c8-23e2ca0d0fd6.html?fbclid=IwAR31KFfHWTAKrH2nChQSCTOVM5tYxW7zoDwvFLlkFiM_0URvfVwr-cEJjkg
WASHINGTON, DC — A Minnesota Congressman was part of historic legislation aimed at Lyme disease that was introduced Jan. 3 at the beginning of the 116th Congress.
The bill would create a new national strategy on Lyme disease and strengthen federal efforts to fight, treat and prevent tick-borne illnesses.
Co-sponsored by Rep. Collin Peterson, lead Democrat, the legislation's key provisions include:
• Creating an Office of Oversight and Coordination for tick-borne disease at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to oversee federal efforts to prevent and treat Lyme disease.
• Calls for a new national strategy on tick-borne diseases that requires the HHS Secretary to report to Congress on federal efforts to diagnose and treat Lyme and ensure collaboration between various agencies.
• Promotes coordination of federal tick-borne disease activities with the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group.
• Mandates that the HHS Secretary act to support better and expanded research on tick-borne diseases and the improvement of diagnostic testing, and promote education and public awareness of tick-borne diseases.
Peterson is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and founder of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus. Their bill came shortly after the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group released its first annual report to Congress that stated that tick-borne diseases have rapidly become a serious and growing threat to public health in the United States.
Smith said in a press release that the bipartisan legislation creates a new national strategy on Lyme disease and better coordinates efforts across federal agencies to make sure the response is targeted and effective. “We must have all hands on deck to combat these diseases,” he said.
Nationally known expert Pat Smith, president of the Ocean County, New Jersey-based Lyme Disease Association, is on the HHS Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. She said of the legislation, “Everyone deserves protection against Lyme disease, yet Lyme has marched forward unchallenged across the U.S. for decades, disabling many including our most precious resources, our children, who are a high-risk group.
“CDC (Centers for Disease Control) announced in its Vital Signs monthly report that tick-borne disease case numbers have doubled between 2004-2016, and the U.S. is not prepared to deal with this threat —a fact substantiated by the 2017 record number of CDC-reported Lyme cases: 42,743. Factoring in under-reporting, 427,430 new Lyme cases occurred in the U.S. alone in 2017, a staggering number, which does not include other tick-borne diseases (TBD) and disorders facing Americans.”
Continued Pat Smith, “Tick vectors of disease continue to proliferate unchecked, and the recent emergence over last year of a new self-cloning tick in the U.S. that can lay up to 2,000 eggs, longicornis — that has already spread to nine states — should signal that we have a new enemy, yet we still have no idea what damage this one can do. This bill provides a plan for a national strategy under HHS to help, through research, patients already debilitated by Lyme/TBD — fighting for diagnosis, treatment and for their very lives — and to help prevent others from facing the same fate by developing methods of tick control. The time for Congress to act on this bill is now! Losing this war is not an option: everyone is a potential casualty.”
www.presspubs.com/white_bear/news/national-lyme-disease-bill-leads-charge-for-new-control-strategy/article_9cd4f4a2-19b1-11e9-b6c8-23e2ca0d0fd6.html?fbclid=IwAR31KFfHWTAKrH2nChQSCTOVM5tYxW7zoDwvFLlkFiM_0URvfVwr-cEJjkg
WASHINGTON, DC — A Minnesota Congressman was part of historic legislation aimed at Lyme disease that was introduced Jan. 3 at the beginning of the 116th Congress.
The bill would create a new national strategy on Lyme disease and strengthen federal efforts to fight, treat and prevent tick-borne illnesses.
Co-sponsored by Rep. Collin Peterson, lead Democrat, the legislation's key provisions include:
• Creating an Office of Oversight and Coordination for tick-borne disease at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to oversee federal efforts to prevent and treat Lyme disease.
• Calls for a new national strategy on tick-borne diseases that requires the HHS Secretary to report to Congress on federal efforts to diagnose and treat Lyme and ensure collaboration between various agencies.
• Promotes coordination of federal tick-borne disease activities with the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group.
• Mandates that the HHS Secretary act to support better and expanded research on tick-borne diseases and the improvement of diagnostic testing, and promote education and public awareness of tick-borne diseases.
Peterson is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and founder of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus. Their bill came shortly after the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group released its first annual report to Congress that stated that tick-borne diseases have rapidly become a serious and growing threat to public health in the United States.
Smith said in a press release that the bipartisan legislation creates a new national strategy on Lyme disease and better coordinates efforts across federal agencies to make sure the response is targeted and effective. “We must have all hands on deck to combat these diseases,” he said.
Nationally known expert Pat Smith, president of the Ocean County, New Jersey-based Lyme Disease Association, is on the HHS Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. She said of the legislation, “Everyone deserves protection against Lyme disease, yet Lyme has marched forward unchallenged across the U.S. for decades, disabling many including our most precious resources, our children, who are a high-risk group.
“CDC (Centers for Disease Control) announced in its Vital Signs monthly report that tick-borne disease case numbers have doubled between 2004-2016, and the U.S. is not prepared to deal with this threat —a fact substantiated by the 2017 record number of CDC-reported Lyme cases: 42,743. Factoring in under-reporting, 427,430 new Lyme cases occurred in the U.S. alone in 2017, a staggering number, which does not include other tick-borne diseases (TBD) and disorders facing Americans.”
Continued Pat Smith, “Tick vectors of disease continue to proliferate unchecked, and the recent emergence over last year of a new self-cloning tick in the U.S. that can lay up to 2,000 eggs, longicornis — that has already spread to nine states — should signal that we have a new enemy, yet we still have no idea what damage this one can do. This bill provides a plan for a national strategy under HHS to help, through research, patients already debilitated by Lyme/TBD — fighting for diagnosis, treatment and for their very lives — and to help prevent others from facing the same fate by developing methods of tick control. The time for Congress to act on this bill is now! Losing this war is not an option: everyone is a potential casualty.”