Recently, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker vetoed the bill that requires insurance companies to cover the cost of long term antibiotic treatment for Lyme Disease.
His statement being: "'There is considerable uncertainty in the medical community...as to the clinical effectiveness and the safety of long-term antibiotic therapies to treat this illness'” (BostonGlobe).
He also went on to say that this doesn't mean that he does not care about individuals suffering from Lyme Disease. It seems that his alternative is to discuss the possibility of other treatments for Lyme.
Before I continue, I agree that prolonged use of antibiotics to treat anything can be dangerous. There is a risk for taking any antibiotic. From my own experience, the use of antibiotics has severely impacted the state of my gut health. However, both of the Lyme Literate Doctors I have had used a combination of Western and Eastern approaches to treat Chronic Lyme.
And in fact, many of the medications prescribed to treat my symptoms, when I wasn't properly diagnosed for Lyme, were prescribed by doctors in the general medical field. Not to mention, in order to try to treat me, I was redirected to countless different so-called specialists before I actually got a proper diagnosis. The first LLMD that I went to see was always hesitant to prescribe me medication. And I find that it is more of a practice of doctors who focus solely on Western medicine to give out antibiotics to try and treat the patients symptoms.
I am not sure of Baker's true intentions or whether he is trying to get more coverage for alternative medicine. But is it wise to veto a bill that is helping people afford the only relief they have?
While there is a chance that they may override Baker's decision, we may still be letting lives hang in the balance.
Personally, I've found antibiotics and tests for Lyme sometimes aren't fully covered by insurance companies in the first place. You still have to pay a good chunk of money out of pocket. This is partially the fault of the CDC (Center for Disease Control), and its regulations on Lyme Disease. The tests aren't identified by CDC's regulations as tests for Lyme, and therefore, aren't covered by the insurance companies.
Often times patients get caught in the crossfire of medicine and politics. Unfortunately, much of medicine has become more about money than it has about helping people.
Another problem with the merge of medicine and politics has to do with Big Pharma, as well as the CDC's involvement in Big Pharma. Big pharmaceutical companies spend more time trying make more money off of covering up the root cause of an illness than they do actually researching for a cure.
For example, an article from Pain Concern notes that "Big Pharma makes billions a year on MS symptom relievers and they trickle millions down to their footsoldiers, the “MS experts”. A cure would be a severe financial blow" (PainConcern).
The article expresses that the underlying cause of MS is actually Lyme Disease: "Several older but also recent autopsy findings linked to in this article found that all deceased MS patients’ brains harbored living Lyme spirochetes. Even when tests, notorious for their large percentage of false negatives were used on living MS patients, staggeringly many tested positive for active Lyme borreliosis" (PainConcern).
Is it true that MS is actually Lyme Disease? I'm not sure, but the fact remains that this is at least a sign that there may be something more that we're missing in terms of medical research. And it certainly raises suspicion as to what the medical community is doing about it.
Sources:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/28/gover...
http://painconcern.co/multiple-sclerosis-is-actual...
