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CALL TO ACTION #2
Autumn, 2006
from Pat Smith, President, Lyme Disease Association, Inc. (LDA)
"Crime against Lyme"

ONGOING ACTIONS!
* Continue to get signers onto the petition
* Continue contacts with your local media about Guidelines impact on you/family/friends.
NEW PRIORITY!
* Contact (phone/email) all of your FEDERAL legislators: your own US Congressman and your two US Senators by November 15 at Washington, DC office only.
* Groups should contact all Congressmen within their range (area they cover).

US Reps. & Senators DC contact information http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Tell them how Guidelines impact you/family/friends.

November 2, 2006 finds us on a path taking specific action concerning the reprehensible IDSA Guidelines, but we have along way to go. The International Lyme & Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) has sent a letter to IDSA demanding retraction of the Guidelines. LDA has continued to push for the national petition which now stands at about 10,000 signatures. We need many more since only numbers will show we have the clout necessary to turn this situation around and regain control of the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. We believe 50,000 is a number which shows strength.

Help is on the way. Thanks to advocates working in their states to contact newspapers as we asked last time, articles are beginning to appear about both the guidelines retraction and the petition. Please remember these are only beginning steps which lay a foundation for other activities which already are occurring or will occur. When you contact the media, talk about your problems with the guidelines, (or your group's objections) and mention in a sentence that ILADS, the International Lyme & Associated Diseases Society, a professional medical organization, has written to have them repealed, and that the national Lyme Disease Association has a petition on its website for all to sign (add in web address).

Rocky Allen of NYC's WPLJ 95.5 radio is promoting the petition each day on his ShowGram weekdays 3-7PM and on his personal website http://www.rockyallen.com/. Barbara Ficarra, RN, host of Health in 30, Fridays, 5:30-6:00pm EST, WRCR AM 1300 Radio Rockland & Streaming Live On-Line at wrcr.com.in Rockland County, is also promoting the petitions and the plight of patients on the show and her website.

Thanks to a number of people writing in with helpful suggestions about the petition, it will get a larger font, be paragraphed, and will have the one typo fixed (thanks to those with eagle eyes out there). An explanation about the petition will appear on the homepage addressing some of the questions we have received: the petition on the LDA website http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/ is for those 18 years and older to sign. Names and addresses will NOT appear on the internet but will be printed out with the petition when it is ready to be presented to the appropriate entity. LDA never sells names or shares them with marketers. The petition will be used to influence government action. Remember, like you, LDA is all patients and families of patients - and all volunteer. Keep the faith, the road is long, but we will prevail.

Pat Smith, President
Lyme Disease Association, Inc.
PO Box 1438
Jackson, NJ 08527
888-366-6611 information line
732 938-7215 fax
www.LymeDiseaseAssociation.org

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Call to Action #1
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