Lyme Disease Forum - May 3rd

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To: Interested 10th District Citizens
From: Rep. Frank Wolf
Date: April 21, 2010
Re: Forum on Lyme Disease Set for May 3 in Loudoun County
I wanted to make you aware of a free forum I am hosting for area residents to learn about Lyme disease and the dangers of tick borne-illnesses. It will be at 7 p.m on Monday, May 3, at Heritage High School, just off the Dulles Greenway in Loudoun County. More than 300 people attended a similar forum in August 2008 at the Loudoun County School Board office.

Loudoun County, particularly the rural areas, and parts of Fairfax County are ground-zero for Lyme disease. The Loudoun County Health Department reports that the incidence of Lyme disease in the county is about 20 times greater than that of the Virginia average. If not diagnosed and treated early, Lyme disease can lead to chronic illness and affect every system in the body. Symptoms include a bulls-eye rash, fever and fatigue.

Deer and rodents, particularly the white-footed mouse, are the most common reservoirs of Lyme disease. Deer are like the Metro for ticks. They transport them everywhere. Where there are deer, there are ticks.

Speakers at the forum will include Dr. David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department, and Dr. Christine Coussens with the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. IOM is putting together a workshop to assess the state of the science of Lyme disease and other-tick borne diseases. Coussens will report on the progress of the project. Legislation approved in Congress last year requires both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to step up their research on Lyme disease.

The forum will address how to check and protect yourself from ticks, what to do if you find one, and the symptoms of acute Lyme disease and its treatment. A 13-minute version of the film “Under Our Skin” also will be shown.

For more information about the forum, contact Mira Lezell in my Washington office at (202) 225-5136 or online at wolf.house.gov/Lyme.

I hope you will come.