I'd like to thank all of you for supporting this petition, and urge you to continue to circulate it to others until LDA and Dr. Brian Fallon at Columbia retract their invitation to Tim Brooks. To fully understand Tim Brooks we need only look at his description of the chronic Lyme patient community in his report to the Health and Safety Executive ACDP/99/P6: Brooks: “RIPL and HPA staff will discuss with Simon Wesseley’s group and other interested parties the development of guidance for clinicians on dealing with the disaffected group with unprovable Lyme Disease. This will cover the therapeutic approach, investigation of cases, and “disengagement” strategies when further investigation is counterproductive.” Please note Simon Wessely is the infamous psychiatrist who notorious for his decades-long insistence that M.E./chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War Syndrome are simply a psychological problem where patients display "illness behaviour" in order to gain sympathy, attention etc.. Although very recently Wessely has (without so much as a whiff of apology) performed a sudden about-face, admitting that ME/CFS is a physical condition, nevertheless his stance condemned thousands of adults and children to a lifetime of suffering and stigma when so many had a treatable physical illness. What Dr. Brooks is saying is that people with a chronic Borrelia infection simply have a psychological problem and are imagining or pretending that they are ill. The reference to the "disengagement" is very revealing. As a biological warfare scientist, Dr. Brooks thinks in military terms. In military parlance, "disengagement" is a tactic that is sometimes used against the Enemy. It's very sad that a man with an extremely important position in public health sees the patients he is supposed to serve as the Enemy. Please return the favour and sign/further circulate this petition. Thank you.