LYMEPOLICYWONK: Recognizing the problem is the first step—Persistence.

In the meantime, let’s give doctors the right to use their clinical judgment to find the most effective treatments.  Many treatment innovations are discovered by physicians in the field when best practices fail, particularly when treatments are off-label as they are with Lyme disease.  The FDA endorses off-label usage of drugs for this very reason:  “Valid new uses for drugs already on the market are often first discovered through serendipitous observations and therapeutic innovations, subsequently confirmed by well-planned and executed clinical investigations.”   This is how it is supposed to work.  The one hand (medicine) feeds the other (research) until a solution becomes clear.

You can read the blow-by-blow conclusion of the study here.  (Highly recommended to the despondent, despairing and disenfranchised!)

You can contact Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA at lbjohnson@lymedisease.org.