Disbanding the Clinical Advisory Committee on Lyme Disease that the previous Labor Government set up was one of those short-sighted and unhelpful decisions that the Abbott / Turnbull Government made as soon as it assumed office.
Labor expected, by ensuring that the Lyme Disease Association Australia (LDAA) as well as general practitioners, pathologists and other professionals involved in public health were represented on it, that the Committee’s composition and remit would go a considerable way towards solving any testing and diagnosis difficulties.
We also made sure that its terms of reference tasked the Committee to find appropriate ways to disseminate information about Lyme Disease among health professionals and the public generally and to investigate the most appropriate treatments and requirements for further research into the condition.
In my view, the Committee as it was set up might well have been extremely useful in dealing with some of the definitional and other questions about Lyme and Lyme-like Disease that are now worrying health professionals and researchers.
I urge you to join with me and show your support by signing below to convince the Turnbull Government to change its mind in this particular case and restore and support an advisory group that had been an essential tool in dealing with an illness that, as the LDAA’s Patient Strategic Action Plan points out, is affecting a rapidly-growing number of Australians.
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