NOTE: THIS HAS PASSED

LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN
May, 2003

Hi folks,

Time for a very important letter writing campaign from Lyme disease patients from ACROSS THE COUNTRY to help our New York State efforts to protect our doctors from OPMC persecution.

An excellent article appeared on THE FRONT PAGE of the Albany Times Union on Friday April 25th. This is the newspaper that is read by all our New York State legislators! Please go to "Infected ticks marching northward" (Link expired) to read this article.

A number of Lyme patients have already written letters to the editor, and the paper has already printed a letter that you can read at: "Doctors need tools to treat Lyme disease" (Link expired) but we need to continue the letter writing campaign to the newspaper so that we draw attention to our story. We are in a race against time to get this law passed before the OPMC can bring down any more of our doctors, so we need to use every possible avenue open to us.

You can write your letter by filling out the form at:
http://www.timesunion.com/forms/emaileditor.asp

If you can cover the points below, all the better, but please don't get hung up on writing the perfect letter. The important thing is to just write a letter of thanks as a Lyme disease patient.

SOME SUGGESTED POINTS:

1) First. of course, let the editor know that you are writing in appreciation of the excellent article on Lyme disease by Claire Hughes on 4/25/03

2) The article acknowledges that a significant percentage of people do not get diagnosed early, and that the standard treatment must be given early if it is to work.   LET THE EDITOR KNOW THAT YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO DID NOT GET DIAGNOSED EARLY AND/OR DID NOT RESPOND TO THE STANDARD ANTIBIOTIC TREATMENT. Let him/her know how serious chronic Lyme disease can be, by very, very briefly describing your condition.

3) Let them know that you have been helped by longer term treatment. Tell them that this treatment that has given you greater functioning has been endangered by the actions of the New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct. If you are not from New York State make it clear that there is a ripple effect throughout the country when doctors in NYS are persecuted from treating Lyme disease.

The OPMC is currently targeting for investigation the MAJORITY of those doctors in NYS who treat chronic Lyme disease with more than the standard 3-4 weeks of antibiotics.

4) Let them know that there are currently two bills in the State legislature that will protect those doctors from persecution. (A4274 and A07365).

5) Add that New York State Lyme disease patients lobbied for these bills in Albany on May 6th.

Thanks folks. The timing of this article so close to lobby day is very lucky for us. It is one of those lifeboats that floats by just when you think you are drowning. So let's not ignore this opportunity.   Please write letters.

Thanks,
Ellen
Voices of Lyme

[PS. Another article appeared in this same paper on May 5. You can read that article, "Prevent Infection from Tick", at: http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum3/HTML/007896.html ]

For background info, please see
www.lymeinfo.net/opmcissues.html

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