May is Lyme Awareness Month!

The purpose is to spread awareness of tick-spread disorders and “Wake-Up Washington” to the critical need to focus on the disease.

Senator Joseph Lieberman and LDF Board member, Karen Vanderhoof-Forschner,a created this national/international day of awareness in the 1990s. At first it was a resolution that required members of the house and senate to sign on to specific legislation. Many of our support groups too this time to have their state’s Governors issue a resolution.  The LDF designed a DC rally and a Kids poster campaign around that time. It started out a day, evolved into a week, and when the Republicans eliminated Resolutions (for cost reasons), we expanded it to a full month in order to give people more time to do something in their community and to keep media involved in reporting about all aspects of tick-borne disorders.

The Good News is that the LDF’s new website is coming … with a lot of information. This includes: 27 medical conferences and their compendiums; two award-winning TV programs; K-12 CDC-funded and approved educational programs; items for downloading (e.g. brochures, tick-cards); two books (MS & Lyme by Bonnie Bennet, Borrelia by Oscar Felsenfeld of Tulane University) for reading; all the pregnancy & Lyme articles; the Journal of Spirochetal and tick-borne Diseases; several Media articles; and more! Keep watch as the new website is coming! 

Lastly, this is a great time to say thank-you to two people who have helped you on your journey to awareness, diagnosis, and recovery.  I am sending a thank-you card to two people who have helped me on this journey. . . two support groups who have been here for years –Gregg and Monte Skall and the others at the National Capital Lyme Association in Virginia and Linda Lobes at the Michigan Lyme Association. They are getting cards from me with handwritten notes of thanks. 

Right now, our gift to you all is the LDF’s award-winning documentary “Faces of Lyme.” This was the first Lyme documentary ever produced. 

Happy Awareness Month! 

The Lyme Disease Foundation, Inc. Team