To assist the public, officials and medical professionals learn more about tick-borne diseases, Congressman Chris Smith will host a Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Forum on Wednesday, June 2.

    Smith, a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, said featured speakers will include national experts on treatments and testing for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, on ticks and pathogens, and on the impact on patients. An audience question and answer session will follow presentations from expert speakers.

    Over the last decade, New Jersey has ranked 3rd in the U.S. in the number of reported Lyme disease cases and has shown an increase in other tick-borne pathogens.

    The event will take place at 7 p.m. the Wall Township N.J. Municipal Building, 2700 Allaire Rd, Wall, NJ 07719 (behind the Wall police station and Wall library). Click here for directions. Presentations are scheduled from the following speakers: 

Dr. Joseph Burrascano, MD, an internal medicine physician, is recognized internationally as a skilled Lyme disease clinician and founding member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society. He has authored a number of papers and three textbook chapters on Lyme disease and has provided expert testimony before state legislatures and before Congress. He will focus on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of tick-borne diseases.
Nick Harris, PhD, is the founder and CEO of IGeneX, Inc., a specialty laboratory devoted exclusively to patient testing and research related to Lyme disease and its associated co-infections. He has spent over 25 years researching and developing tests in this underserved area. He will focus on the role of the laboratory in the diagnosis of Lyme and its co-infections.
Ellen Stromdahl, PhD, is an Entomologist with the Tick-Borne Disease Laboratory for Entomological Sciences with the US Army Public Health Command. She will focus on tick species found in the US and the pathogens they carry, focusing on New Jersey and the Northeast.
Pat Smith, President, national Lyme Disease Association (LDA), is a Member of the Columbia University Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center Advisory Committee and former chair of the Governor’s Lyme Disease Advisory Council (NJ). She will focus on the spread of Lyme disease, its impact on patients, and what is being done. 

    Congressman Smith, who will host the event, is the author of the “Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Prevention, Education, and Research Act of 2009” (HR 1179). Provisions of his Lyme disease legislation were incorporated in almost identical fashion into the FY 2010 Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education Appropriations bill, which passed Congress in 2009.

    Provisions incorporated from the Smith bill into the Labor HHS-Education  Appropriations bill encourage the CDC to expand federal efforts to combat Lyme disease, including developing more accurate diagnostic tools and tests, increase epidemiological research on tick-borne diseases and set the goal of determining the long-term course of illness for Lyme disease, and improve surveillance and reporting of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in order to accumulate more accurate data on their prevalence. The bill, which is now law, also incorporates Smith’s provisions calling the National Institutes of Health to intensify research on understanding the full range of Lyme disease processes and to conduct a scientific conference on Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, which would provide a forum to foster public participation and input from Lyme disease patients.

    Another provision, similar to one in the original Smith bill, directs the Secretary of HHS to review the coordination of activities across CDC, NIH, and other agency components to ensure a broad spectrum of scientific viewpoints is represented in public health policy and to report back to Congress by September 30, 2010.

    The bill also increases the CDC’s budget for Lyme disease by $3.6 million over 2009 year’s funding.

    The prevalence of Lyme is increasing in the U.S., with about 220,000 Americans developing Lyme disease each year. While Lyme accounts for 90 percent of tick-borne diseases in the U.S., the same tick species spreads other diseases, such as anaplasmosis and babesiosis. Other tick species spread diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever and southern tick-associated rash illness.

    The CDC estimates only 10 percent of Lyme cases are reported. The CDC has determined that from 1992 to 2006, the incidence of Lyme disease was highest among children aged 5 to 14 years of age.

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