TOUCHED BY LYME: Pfeiffer electrifies at MyLymeData2018…and online

Investigative journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer speaks in quiet, steady, well-modulated tones. But her message packs a powerful punch. It is at once riveting, deeply moving, and profoundly disturbing.

Pfieffer, the author of “Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change,” spoke at Saturday’s MyLymeData2018 conference in San Ramon, CA. In addition to the audience in the room, thousands more have watched the speech online.

“A Scandal”

“The management of Lyme disease by American medicine and government is, to use a word that investigative reporters do not use lightly, a scandal,” Pfeiffer asserted. “American medicine pretends to understand this epidemic. It pretends to have a handle on it. It does not.”

She talked about many different aspects of the Lyme disease picture: infected ticks, who are showing up around the globe in places they’ve never survived before; differences among research scientists; the myths embraced by the medical establishment that make it difficult for Lyme patients to get appropriately diagnosed and treated.

Most compellingly, she shared heartbreaking examples of individuals and families impacted by these wrong-headed policies.

Pfeiffer started reporting about Lyme disease when working for the Poughkeepsie Journal (a newspaper in New York’s Hudson Valley, one of the most Lyme-endemic areas in the country.) In her research, she read more than 300 scientific studies, and interviewed scientists, doctors, patients and advocates literally from around the world.

Her message is a vitally important one. I urge you to carve out 40 minutes to watch the recording of it here, and to share it with friends and family members. (Note: the first person you see is me, introducing her.)

(If for some reason the above link doesn’t work for you, you can also access the video from our homepage.)

To purchase the book at a 20% discount, click here and enter the code 4LYME.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, LymeDisease.org’s VP for Communications. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org .