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  • What is Lyme?
    • Lyme Symptoms - Adults and Children
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Official Public Health Response to Lyme Letters Campaign and LymeHope response.

11/28/2017

7 Comments

 
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-public_health_agency_of_canada_letter_sept_2017.pdf
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letter_to_dr_tam_and_dr_mithani_oct_25th_2017.docx
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letter_to_health_minister_petitpas_taylor_oct_25_2017.docx
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 ​On August 22, 2017, we met with then Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott, and Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam to deliver 2,700 personal Lyme Letters, 12,000 Ticking Lyme Bomb Petition comments and scientific literature on maternal – child transmission of Lyme Disease.  In that meeting, we spoke to the intense and widespread suffering that is occurring across Canada due to the unacceptable denial of proper testing, diagnosis and treatment and care for those stricken with tick-borne diseases.  

In this meeting, Minister Philpott and Dr. Tam invited us to continue working alongside the Health Minister’s office and Public Health Agency of Canada, and we believe this partnership is crucial to effect much needed change for all Canadians.  

If you click the link above, you can read the response we received on September 29, 2017 from Dr. Tam and Dr. Siddika Mithani, President of Public Health Agency of Canada regarding the Lyme Letters.  We responded back on October 25, 2017 and that response is also posted.  

While we appreciate the engagement of the Public Health Agency of Canada, these letters were personally addressed to then Health Minister Jane Philpott.  We are disappointed that former Health Minister Jane Philpott has not yet responded.  She opened her doors to meet with us and receive the Lyme Letters.  These letters are significant in the depth of the anguish, emotion and suffering conveyed by thousands of Canadian men, women and children, and we believe a personal response from Minister Philpott would be appropriate and appreciated. 

We will continue to request this response and engagement, from both Minister Philpott and the new health Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor.  We think it is important that our elected officials remain responsive to the voices and needs of the Canadians that voted for them.  

You can also read our October 25th introduction letter to Minister Petitpas-Taylor.  We have not yet received a response from her office and we will be following up.

We appreciate your ongoing support as we continue to engage with those who have the power and responsibility to protect the health and welfare of Canadians.  The unacceptable narrative in Canada around Lyme & related diseases continues, and we therefore continue to encourage all Canadians to sign, comment and share this Petition.  
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7 Comments
Brian Hart
11/28/2017 01:42:24 pm

Please post the replies in PDF format so all can read.

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Kevin Kelch
12/12/2017 09:38:01 am

The Infectious Disease Society of America's "Lyme Diagnostic and Treatment Guidelines are currently being legally challenged in the United States. In Canada, we need to do the same! "Nice guys finish last!" We've tried the "nice guy" approach. It's not working! We need to organize a class action suit against our government for neglecting our basic civil health rights, as tax paying citizens, as outlined at The United Nations.

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na
11/28/2017 04:48:21 pm

The letter from the Public Health doctors seems like nothing more than a patronizing response. They say they would like to have more conversations like this but provide zero commitment as to how they might ensure that this happens and how patients’ views are going to be used to inform the “Federal Action Plan”. Sorry but it sounds like they’re just trying to appease us for now and hope we just go away.

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doug knight
11/28/2017 05:52:16 pm

We do not need more conversation we need action.
Typical Government response to not have to actually do something

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Jim
11/28/2017 06:29:09 pm

Looks like no response to me. It is an epidemic in South Western Ontario. Everyone has to go to the United States to get tested and then our government refuses to treat us when we come back to Canada. So not only are you not recognizing the urgency of Canadians being affected by Lime disease, but you refuse to get proper diagnostic tests, which you can get at any veterinarian by the way, (so Canada will help animals, but not humans) and you refuse us health care if we take matters into our own hands and have to go out of country for testing. Shame on our government for dragging their feet on this.

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Jo Perdue
11/28/2017 11:24:53 pm

I'm writing this in support of fellow sufferers of Lyme disease in Canada, though I'm British and am about to move to Ireland, where Lyme is also endemic. Everywhere. The attitude of both the Canadian and British governments appears to be the same. I have yet to discover the stance of the powers that be in Ireland, but there is at least an infectious diseases doctor in Dublin who is prepared to treat patients with Lyme and/or co-infections. He saved my daughter's life and I'll be forever grateful to him.

I've just received blood test results myself from ArminLabs in Germany. They confirm what I've suspected for years; that I don't have 'fibromyalgia', diagnosed 9 years ago. I have Lyme Borreliosis, babesia, bartonella, erlichia, mycoplasma pneumoniae and chlamydia pneumoniae. Which is why I'm now so ill. At least I know now and hope to find treatment from somewhere. It should NOT be like this.

Guidelines need to be changed and clinicians need to be educated. NOW. If it's possible to give teenagers a strong, systemic drug (isotretinoin) for 12 months to treat moderate to severe acne (a drug which is known to cause suicidal ideation) and prophylactic penicillin to patients to prevent recurrent cellulitis of the leg (I know these two things to be true because I worked in clinical research before I became too ill) then it's possible to give patients suffering from Lyme disease antibiotics or other therapy for as long as is needed to get them well.

What are governments afraid of? I have my own thoughts about that. As, I am sure, do many other sufferers of Lyme.

In the UK, the groundswell of opinion amongst the medical profession appears to be that there is no such thing as chronic or late stage Lyme. There most certainly is and it manifests itself as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, ME, MS, Parkinson's disease, dementia etc etc. Patients are repeatedly told that they can't have Lyme disease as it's so rare. No, it is not rare; it is rarely diagnosed and that's a massive difference.

This is already an epidemic. It will soon become a global catastrophe unless politicians get their heads out of their backsides, admit the truth and allow clinicians to treat Lyme sufferers properly without threatening them for doing so.

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Colleen
11/29/2017 03:56:16 am

My neighbor is disabled due to lyme disease. I would love to find help. I don't even know if they can cure her now that she has it. She is getting treatments constantly. We were never afraid to go outside when I was a child and we should not be now.

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