FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 12, 2000

California Lyme disease patients plan support meeting and demonstration in Ventura.

A meeting of Southern California Lyme patients and their friends will take place at the Holiday Inn, Ventura, California, on Wednesday, January 19, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The patient support meeting, in the California Room on the first floor, will coincide with the Gordon Research Conference on Biology of the Spirochetes at the same location.

Allen Steere is scheduled to speak at 9 a.m. on the 19th, as part of the Gordon Conference - Steere's subject: "Autoimmune aspects of Lyme disease". Allen Steere, MD, who has been credited with "discovering" Lyme disease a quarter century ago, is a pivotal figure in Lyme disease research, known for promulgating a conservative ideology on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. Steere has given testimony against physicians who do not follow his stringent guidelines. His mantra is Lyme disease is "overdiagnosed and overtreated". Patients are turned away, denigrated publicly, denied adequate treatment and insurance coverage, and generally stigmatized as a result of these predominant beliefs; and their doctors have lost their licenses and medical practices.

Lyme disease, a tick-borne bacterial infection, is the second fastest growing infectious diseases in the US. With over 16,000 cases reported in 1998, the actual figure easily may be much more according to the CDC. Although publicized chiefly on the East coast, Lyme disease occurs nationwide, as well as, worldwide. There are many high risk areas for Lyme disease in California including northern, central, and southern California.

"Steere's "overdiagnosis and overtreatment" school of thought promotes narrow, ethically suspect viewpoints and medical guidelines which, more and more, ignore a growing body of scientific evidence and patient tragedy." - Marleen Oetzel, patient advocate.

[end of press release]

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