Lyme Time
It was a great honor for me to have worked at the 20th Annual Scientific Conference on Lyme & Other Tick-Borne Diseases on September 21 & 22, 2019 in Philadelphia, PA. It was jointly co-hosted by the national Lyme Disease Association (LDA) and Columbia University. Working this conference gave me backstage insight and a front row seat to the transformation of medical minds. I saw that because I worked the registration table and had interactions with all the speakers, scholarship winners and attendees all day long. I witnessed the shift in thinking as the conversations evolved during breaks and lunches. When presented with science, many medical providers struggle with what they know and what they’ve always done with what is new. It takes time for all this to settle in and for them to absorb how to implement this new science in their practices and with their patients. To say they were overwhelmed would be putting it mildly.
The conference itself was packed full of scientific presenters. I stress the word scientific because all too often, the Lyme community gets attacked by medical providers who use the term “quackery” and “witch doctors”. I am choosing to share the speaker line up and topics to hopefully put that to rest once and for all.
The conference featured faculty consisting of clinicians and researchers from across the US and other countries. Brian A. Fallon, MD, MPH, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Conference Director, spoke on Clinical Trials: Biologic & Clinical Measures of Change. Other speakers included Charles Chiu, MD PhD: Multi-Omics approaches to diagnosing Lyme & TBD; George Chaconas, PhD: Intravital imaging to study Lyme dissemination; Adrian Baranchuk, MD: Lyme carditis diagnosis & management; Emir Hodzic, DVM, PhD: Post-treatment persistence of Bb in mouse model; Mark Soloski: PhD, LD host immune response; Holly M. Frost, MD: Pitfalls of LD serologic assays; Ingeborg Dziedzic, MD: Lyme disease & the eye; Lance A. Liotta, MD, PhD: Shedding of urinary tick pathogen-specific proteins in patients with tick borne diseases; and Osama Haddad, MD: Mitral Valve Endocarditis: A Rare Manifestation of Lyme Disease.
Speakers represented Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, Mayo, Harvard Medical School, Uniformed Services University, CDC, UCSF School of Medicine, Queens University Canada, University of Calgary Canada, Northeastern University, University of Colorado School of Medicine, UC Davis Veterinary Medicine, Rockefeller University, UCSD School of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Old Dominion University, George Mason University, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Baylor College of Medicine and an ophthalmology practice.
Highly educated professionals from some of the most ivy-league and prestigious colleges and universities. These are the people who have taken the time to do the work and to find the connections whether it be in diagnosing or treating tick-borne disease. These presenters and the conference attendees absorb this new science and return to their practices with a better understanding.
New science isn’t quackery and it’s not witchcraft. If it were, we would not have researchers who continue to work to find new strains of disease and new treatments. Without researchers, we would all have succumbed to something long before now. It’s time to accept the epidemic of tick-borne disease because we’re living in it. It’s time to step up and acknowledge one’s knowledge and limitations for the sake of your patients. It’s time for medical providers to work together for the betterment of their patients, to put aside differences, stop the attacks, stop mocking the patients and start behaving as the professionals you profess to be. It’s time to remove the roadblocks for patients accessing care services. The science is there even if you choose to ignore it.
Paula is the President of the MLDSE, former co-chair of the Access to Care Services and Patient Support subcommittee of the Federal HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group, the Maine-partner of the national Lyme Disease Association, member of Maine’s CDC Vector-borne Workgroup and active in Maine’s Lyme legislation.
You can reach her at: paula@mldse.org or visit: www.mldse.org.
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