​Very serious allegations have been made that Public Health Agency of Canada is interfering with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s process for the new ICD Codes by requesting the WHO delete the code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis. 

Please see:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/breaking-news-public-health-agency-canada-secretly-act-luche-thayer

Regardless of whether these allegations are true, the code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis appears to have been inappropriately removed from the WHO ICD-11 platform despite being declared stable as of June 2018. 

Attached FYI is a pdf of our letter this morning to our Prime Minister, Health and Justice Ministers and Public Health Agency of Canada and opposition leaders.  We are calling on Canada, as a United Nations member state, to protect the integrity of the WHO process and insist that the WHO immediately reinstate the ICD Code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis and allow the WHO process to proceed uninterrupted and without interference.

Update: On December 21st and 22nd, 2018, Ms Kimberlie Elmslie, Vice-President, Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada wrote in an email response to LymeHope and others:

“I am writing to indicate that the Public Health Agency of Canada did not request that the WHO remove congenital Lyme disease from ICD-11.  The WHO has a well-established process of scientific evaluation used to update and revise the International Classification of Diseases.  You may wish to seek information from the WHO on this process.”

And
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“I can confirm that PHAC did not make representations to ‎WHO MSAC at their September 6th or October 25th meetings. PHAC did not have advance knowledge of the outcomes of these discussions and only became aware through the postings on the ICD portal. The fact that we have never contacted WHO on congenital Lyme disease has also been confirmed directly to us by WHO officials.”

The purpose of this update is to share with you our most recent letter to Public Health Agency of Canada executives and Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas-Taylor. Our December 3, 2018 'Open Letter' outlines our requests for PHAC and Ministry of Health to take urgent action regarding in-utero transmission of Lyme disease.   Letter below.

We are also sharing this link and letter to every single MP and Senator we have met in the last 18 months (from all parties) - all 63 of them as this issue is of great concern.
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Please consider sending this link and letter to your MP with a short personalized cover note indicating you are concerned and ask him / her to raise this in Parliament. 

You may look up your federal MP here (plug in your postal code in the search bar on right): http://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/constituencies/FindMP

As always, thank you for your continued engagement and support.  Should you feel our work is valuable, we would gratefully accept donations of any size to assist us in continuing to raise the voices and concerns of Canadians and to effect change in Canada and around the world.  We cannot offer tax receipts at this time.

With Thankfulness and Hope,
Sue Faber RN BSc(N)
Jennifer Kravis BA, LL. B
Tamara House
​LymeHope

In June 2018, PHAC hosted an in-person Multidisciplinary Round table Discussion on Lyme Disease. This was attended by diverse representation of provincial Public Health representatives, healthcare professionals, allied healthcare/veterinary, medical/nursing societies and associations and Canada-wide representation from patient advocacy groups and organizations.  

On October 24, 2018, PHAC hosted a web-ex Multidisciplinary Round table discussion on Lyme disease.