The Melbourne Lyme Awareness protest is being held at Federation Square on the 17th of May. I am too sick to participate but I hope there is a big crowd and lots of news coverage. The protests are trying to highlight the need for:
(I copied the dot points below from the Worldwide Lyme Protest Facebook page that you can visit for more information.)
tick-borne infections, such as Babesia, Bartonella, Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, are
serious, and sometimes fatal illnesses.
pathogens, such as borrelia, babesia, rickettsia, via blood transfusion is of
global concern.
as a notifiable infection. Notifiable status will aid in ensuring that the
incidence and spread of this disease are monitored, a necessary precursor to
determining the human suffering and socioeconomic impact of the disease.
diagnosis of Lyme, which in some cases may be limited to clinical presentation
due to limitations of serological testing.
CDC caution pertaining to criteria for blood tests for Lyme: “This surveillance
case definition was developed for national reporting of Lyme disease; it is NOT
appropriate for clinical diagnosis…Surveillance case definitions are created
for the purpose of standardization, not patient care.”
diagnosis when considering other illnesses that are also reliant on subjective
clinical presentation, or have no known cause. This includes, but is not
limited to: Motor Neurone Disease (MND) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or Amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS) ; Multiple Sclerosis ; Alzheimer’s; Parkinson’s
disease; Sarcoidosis.
and effective treatment of both acute and chronic Lyme and other tick-borne
infections. This includes the need to update the outdated treatment guidelines
of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and to take into account
the treatment methods of other Societies such as: The International Lyme and
Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) and the German Borreliosis Society
(Deutsche Borreliose-Gesellschaft : DBG)
Funding for medical research into accurate Lyme testing and treatment ; Funding
for research into vectors and reservoir hosts to determine what diseases they
may carry and transmit.
I also found a recent Perth News article about Lyme that is worth a read. Lyme Disease is slowly being picked up by Australian news reporters.
I hope that you will share this post and my Instagram giveaway (@alintamcmurdo) so that more people can find out about Lyme Disease.
![]() |

No Comments