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Petition to change IDSA treatment guidelines
Hi all,
I came across this petition on a local support group website, and haven't seen any posts about it here yet (sorry if I missed it and this is a duplicate). We need 25,000 signatures by February 10th for the petition to even be reviewed by the White House. Let's try to get there!!
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-infectious-disease-society-america-treatment-guidelines-lyme-disease/Pj9jG0pX#thank-you=p
I came across this petition on a local support group website, and haven't seen any posts about it here yet (sorry if I missed it and this is a duplicate). We need 25,000 signatures by February 10th for the petition to even be reviewed by the White House. Let's try to get there!!
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-infectious-disease-society-america-treatment-guidelines-lyme-disease/Pj9jG0pX#thank-you=p
If you go to Jenna's Lyme blog at http://lymediseaseresource.com/wordpress you get good information on what the petition is about, why we urgently need it, and what the reader
needs to do to get his name added to the petition. However it's unclear
why Jenna's Lyme blog gives a deadline date of Feb 20th. Whitehouse.gov
says the deadline is Feb 10th.
The IDSA panel and the CDC stubbornly insist on continuing to impose
outrageous diagnosis and treatment guidelines which are based upon dogmatic medical ignorance and the desires of certain special interests who couldn't care less about the best interest of patients. Please sign this petition if it's still listed as a viable petition when you read this comment.
needs to do to get his name added to the petition. However it's unclear
why Jenna's Lyme blog gives a deadline date of Feb 20th. Whitehouse.gov
says the deadline is Feb 10th.
The IDSA panel and the CDC stubbornly insist on continuing to impose
outrageous diagnosis and treatment guidelines which are based upon dogmatic medical ignorance and the desires of certain special interests who couldn't care less about the best interest of patients. Please sign this petition if it's still listed as a viable petition when you read this comment.
I am reading in the news that the White House, within the last few days, upped the minimum number of signatures required to 100,000 from 25,000, because they were getting too many petitions (some portion of them being total jokes like requiring Obama to build a Death Star).
Setting the jokes aside, I am doubtful about the effectiveness of such a petition aimed at the IDSA guidelines. The IDSA is not a government agency, and while the government likes to throw its weight around generally, there really are limits as to what the government can -- and should or should not -- do. The first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and the IDSA would, even if its scientific arguments are shaky in the view of some of us, still have a right to express its opinions.
The Feds would likely have to go to court to force the IDSA to change its guidelines, but on what basis? Lyme is still a great mystery to everyone, and there is no final answer yet, so a judge would be unlikely to force the IDSA to change its guidelines. And on the flip side, if the gov't can force IDSA to change its own guidelines, then the gov't could also force ILADS to change its own guidelines.
Dueling petitions to the White House are not the way to advance the knowledge and practice of medicine or much of anything else. The president and his staff are not all-knowing, all-seeing visionaries, and squelching ANYone's free speech -- no matter how much you dislike what they say -- is not the way to go.
The cure for false speech is more speech, not appealing to the government to make more and more decisions for us.
Setting the jokes aside, I am doubtful about the effectiveness of such a petition aimed at the IDSA guidelines. The IDSA is not a government agency, and while the government likes to throw its weight around generally, there really are limits as to what the government can -- and should or should not -- do. The first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and the IDSA would, even if its scientific arguments are shaky in the view of some of us, still have a right to express its opinions.
The Feds would likely have to go to court to force the IDSA to change its guidelines, but on what basis? Lyme is still a great mystery to everyone, and there is no final answer yet, so a judge would be unlikely to force the IDSA to change its guidelines. And on the flip side, if the gov't can force IDSA to change its own guidelines, then the gov't could also force ILADS to change its own guidelines.
Dueling petitions to the White House are not the way to advance the knowledge and practice of medicine or much of anything else. The president and his staff are not all-knowing, all-seeing visionaries, and squelching ANYone's free speech -- no matter how much you dislike what they say -- is not the way to go.
The cure for false speech is more speech, not appealing to the government to make more and more decisions for us.
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