On May 1st, 2015, a protest will take place at the Infectious Diseases Society of America headquarters in Arlington, Virgina, headed by nonprofit The Mayday Project. Send a pair of shoes to stand alongside your fellow Lyme Fighters at the IDSA protest. (Patients, friends and relatives) Instructions for mailing your shoes can be found here: Standingupwithus.org http://www.standingupwithus.org/instructions About The Cause The Mayday Project is requesting the following from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 1) Recommend the development of a definitive test to identify both initial and continuing active infection of all identified virulent Borrelia species. Until such test is achieved and made available, the debate will continue, as none of us can avail ourselves of the truth. 2) Recommend vigorous external research efforts be conducted to better understand the biochemical nature of the Borrelia bacterium so that effective in vivo treatments may be developed, and 3) Recommend that sufficient research funding be allocated to discover and develop an effective medical treatment to eradicate active Borrelia infection, utilizing currently available or yet-to -be-developed pharmaceutical agents, 4) Revise the current IDSA Practice Guidelines for Lyme Disease to reflect the following facts: a) the current test for Borrelia infection measures only antibodies, thus only indicating exposure, not proof of treatment success, and b) that an unacceptably large percentage of patients receiving the (past) recommended treatment do not significantly improve in symptomatology, and c) there is no currently available test to prove that treatment has been successful that the patient is free of active Borrelia infection (or is still infected), d) revise the current and any subsequent revisions of the IDSA Practice Guidelines for Lyme Disease, in such a way as to allow treating physicians to exercise their clinical judgements in treating and diagnosing their own patients, as there is no substitute for clinical judgement in the Art of Medicine. The current IDSA Practice Guidelines for Lyme Disease are too restrictive and are being abused by third-party companies (non-physicians to dictate medical practice to physicians and to deny treatment to patients.) This is simply unacceptable when dealing with such a serious disease. ________________________________ Please continue to forward this petition to educate others! Thank you, -Carl Tuttle