TOUCHED BY LYME: Latest in anti-IDSA/insurers lawsuit: Kaiser settles.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, two documents were filed electronically in the case of Torrey vs. IDSA et al.

That’s the federal lawsuit filed by a group of Lyme patients against six members of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and eight insurance companies.

The named individuals are all authors of the IDSA Lyme disease treatment guidelines. The suit essentially charges that the six have been in cahoots with the insurance companies to deny appropriate medical treatment to patients with Lyme disease.

Both sides have been meeting with mediator David Folsom, a retired judge from Texas. Folsom is the one who filed the documents.

Kaiser Permanente settles

The first document says that Kaiser Permanente (one of the eight insurance companies named in the suit) has SETTLED with the plaintiffs! Read it here: Torrey et al, Kaiser settles

The second one says that the mediation session between the plaintiffs and the rest of the defendants has been suspended.  It notes, “the undersigned mediator will continue to work with the parties in an effort to settle.” Torrey et al, mediation suspended

At this point, that’s all we know. Raises lots of interesting questions, doesn’t it? Like what did Kaiser Permanente agree to? And what are the sticking points with the other defendants?

Thanks to journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer, for alerting the Lyme community to this development via Twitter. Pfeiffer maintains an information hub about the case on her website.

UPDATE 2: @KaiserPermenent is no longer a Torrey defendant; terms/amount of settlement unknown—but this is encouraging. Other parties still must work out issue of discovery/provision of documents. The suit lives. See filings etc here: https://t.co/l9JLUZHB6k

— Mary Beth Pfeiffer (@marybethpf) December 3, 2019

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