Dear all In a few days' time, Britain's chief Lyme Denialist, Dr. Tim Brooks, will arrive in Rhode Island, USA, where he has been invited to address the joint LDA/Columbia Continuing Medical Education conference for doctors. He will be speaking on Lyme Disease in the UK, in a session scheduled immediately before the break, so there will be no opportunity for questions or rebuttals to the false statement he will undoubtedly make. In September Brooks addressed the Lyme Disease Action conference here in UK, where he continued to claim that the C6 Elisa was an excellent test, even though 91% of those tested with it in this country have received negative results. He continues to claim that the C6 detects all strains of Lyme Borrelia, despite the fact that there is no scientific basis for that claim. ILADS has clearly stated its position on this: the C6 elisa is insensitive, just like all the other Elisas. Recently there has been an unprecedented spate of coverage in the UK media of issues relating to the validity of chronic Lyme and its connections to many illnesses including Alzheimer's, MS, ME/CFS and autism. This has come about as a result of UK billionaire John Caudwell speaking out about his inability to get proper diagnosis for his family, nine of whom have chronic Lyme disease. Dr. Brooks immediately hit back by instructing Public Health England to tell the British media: ‘There is no scientific evidence to support the suggestion that Lyme disease is caused by anything other than ticks. There is no scientific evidence that Lyme disease causes ME, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.’ This is absolutely false. (For example, see evidence by Drs. Alan MacDonald (2), Brorson and Brorson, and Samuel Shor, as well Pubmed for multiple peer-reviewed papers proving that Lyme can be passed from mother-to-child across the placenta.) As members of the Lyme community, we need to raise our voices, and tell those who presume to represent us when they have got it badly wrong. Dr. Brooks should not be invited to the LDA/Columbia conference to address physicians on ANY Lyme topic. Please urge others to sign this petition too. Thank you. Elena Cook www.elenacook.org (1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3258353/Secret-epidemic-s-devastated-family.html (2)www.durayresearch.wordpress.com