only medical issue where you have half the doctors against the patient.”
“I think there is evidence that repeated antibiotic therapy can be helpful,” said Brian A. Fallon, a psychiatry professor and director of the Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “We don’t know enough about therapeutic approaches that are helpful … to start accusing doctors of doing the wrong thing when studies have not been done.”
“Physicians who care for patients with chronic Lyme disease are often ‘red-flagged’ by insurance companies” for incurring big costs, said Dr. Kenneth Liegner, a Pawling Lyme specialist, at a May conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. They “risk being subjected to sanctioning and ‘de-selection’ if they participate with insurance companies.”
Dr. Kari Bovenzi, one of few pediatricians who treat advanced cases of Lyme disease, believes longer antibiotic courses are necessary to beat back the hearty Lyme spirochete.
“There is something about this bacteria … it is a survivor,” said the Albany physician, who began treating Lyme after her own bout in 2009. “It took lots of antibiotics and other treatments for me to feel I could think again.”
Gibson, who with Smith and Blumenthal is sponsoring the legislation to form a federal advisory committee on Lyme disease, said New York needs to change priorities.
“The focus should not be going after doctors,” he said. “Some (patients) are getting treated. But the issue is there aren’t enough doctors that are treating them.” He said the guidelines should be changed and doctors made “privy to some of the successful protocols.”
Lyme patients, meantime, believe it shouldn’t be so difficult to get the antibiotics they believe have helped them.
“I thought I was dying, and then all of sudden you start to gradually feel better,” said Doreen Peone, 51, of Saugerties, who was on intravenous treatment for a year.
“No one will ever know what Lyme pain is like,” she added, “until they experience it.”
“I think there is evidence that repeated antibiotic therapy can be helpful,” said Brian A. Fallon, a psychiatry professor and director of the Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “We don’t know enough about therapeutic approaches that are helpful … to start accusing doctors of doing the wrong thing when studies have not been done.”
“Physicians who care for patients with chronic Lyme disease are often ‘red-flagged’ by insurance companies” for incurring big costs, said Dr. Kenneth Liegner, a Pawling Lyme specialist, at a May conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. They “risk being subjected to sanctioning and ‘de-selection’ if they participate with insurance companies.”
Dr. Kari Bovenzi, one of few pediatricians who treat advanced cases of Lyme disease, believes longer antibiotic courses are necessary to beat back the hearty Lyme spirochete.
“There is something about this bacteria … it is a survivor,” said the Albany physician, who began treating Lyme after her own bout in 2009. “It took lots of antibiotics and other treatments for me to feel I could think again.”
Gibson, who with Smith and Blumenthal is sponsoring the legislation to form a federal advisory committee on Lyme disease, said New York needs to change priorities.
“The focus should not be going after doctors,” he said. “Some (patients) are getting treated. But the issue is there aren’t enough doctors that are treating them.” He said the guidelines should be changed and doctors made “privy to some of the successful protocols.”
Lyme patients, meantime, believe it shouldn’t be so difficult to get the antibiotics they believe have helped them.
“I thought I was dying, and then all of sudden you start to gradually feel better,” said Doreen Peone, 51, of Saugerties, who was on intravenous treatment for a year.
“No one will ever know what Lyme pain is like,” she added, “until they experience it.”
