LymeAID getavisionFUND
50% of all funds generated for the LymeAID getavisionFUND go into direct assistance funds for people living with Lyme Disease.
The remaining funds are earmarked for Lyme Disease awareness and prevention programs.
The first recipient is Palm Springs area resident Greg Kole.
getavisionCHANNEL ON-DEMAND: "Under Our Skin" Theatrical Trailer -- WATCH HERE
We have established the LymeAID getavisionFUND in response to the Lyme Disease epidemic. The International Lyme Associated Disease Society (ILADS) believes that Lyme Disease has become an epidemic and that possibly more people in the U.S. each year are contracting Lyme Disease than HIV. Despite this, the tests used to detect Lyme Disease are either old and outdated and/or terribly inaccurate.
Even more startling, the treatment of Lyme Disease is often outdated and ineffective, notably in the case of Chronic Late Disseminated Lyme Disease. If physicians used the types of inaccurate tests they now use on Lyme Patients on HIV patients, it would be totally unacceptable.
Even worse, the mainstream treatment for Chronic Lyme disease is faulty, outdated, inaccurate, and most often ineffective. ILADS proposes new guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme Disease which offer more hope to those afflicted with this debilitating disease. Right now it is the only hope we have. Even so, the lack of scientific evidence and closely controlled clinical studies on these newer therapies severely complicates the issue often leaving the Lyme patient caught in the middle struggling to find any kind of effective relief and treatment. Long-term antibiotic usage while effective for some, presents itself with its own set of very dangerous side effects. Frequently mainstream treatment fails and the Lyme patient is sent searching for outrageously expensive alternative treatments that may or may not work.
Since the Infectious Disease Society's outdated treatment guidelines are used by the insurance boards to determine payment of benefits for patients, frequently the newer long-term treatment options set forth by ILADS is not paid for by the insurance companies.
This is the day-to-day battle for Lyme disease patients. If the illness was n't enough for them, they have to constantly battle to find effective treatment and the money to pay for it out of their own pockets.
The getavision program hopes to draw national attention to this epidemic and the political and medical debates that surround it and demand that our legislators fight to create funding and new research to find an effective treatment and possible cure for Lyme Disease.
Hence, as this website grows, we hope to bring to light the immense need for more federal funding and research into coming up with FDA approved testing that is as close to 100% accurate as possible and to encourage the development of effective and generally accepted treatment guidelines for Lyme Disease. New research into drugs that can more effectively treat Lyme disease is crucial.
To compound matters, this is a silent epidemic!
Lyme Disease, per se, generally does not kill people, rather it debilitates them, although there are some cases of fatalities. Patients are frequently too debilitated to protest the lack of research, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme Disease. They are also frequently financially devastated (as in my case), as my insurance company has not been covering much of my treatment costs since I am forced to go "out of network" to seek effective treatment.
While HIV treatment has developed rather efficiently to offer relatively affordable, accurate and effective diagnosis and treatment, this is clearly not the case with Lyme Disease. It has been over 35 years since the cause of Lyme Disease was identified and patients are still facing an uphill battle to get properly diagnosed and treatment. How can this be? Many chronic Lyme patients today do not have any hope of ever being fully cured.
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