SHARE THIS ARTICLE:
Advocates Bring ‘The Quiet Epidemic’ of Lyme Disease to DC
Fox5 News, Washington DC, covers the recent efforts of Lyme advocates calling for a congressional hearing to bring the problem of Lyme disease into the spotlight. Actor Chris Meloni, who has a personal connection with chronic Lyme disease in his family, has teamed up with Lindsay Keys, the director of The Quiet Epidemic, a documentary film about the real impact of Lyme disease. These two advocates state that they hope to influence lawmakers to get the recognition, diagnosis, treatment options, and research that chronic Lyme disease deserves.
Meloni said, “They’re just now understanding how incredibly complicated this disease is. How it presents itself… My family saw eight different specialists because it presented itself as ‘oh this is a GI issue.’ The headaches, maybe he has brain cancer, so you get a CAT scan and you get needles shoved into your head. They take samples of your spinal fluid.”
Keys stated that this campaign with Congress is the follow-up to The Quiet Epidemic. She states, “It’s an invisible illness. So, we’re coming here to make some noise and hopefully they’ll join us and we’ll be able to get this on the record and what’s happened, how we got to this point, and where we go from here…We need a test that works to let people know they have Lyme disease. We need treatments for all stages of the illness. And we also need more research into overlapping tick-borne infections because ticks carry far more than just Lyme disease.”
Keys and Meloni were accompanied by Julia Bruzzese and her family. Julia is a young girl from Brooklyn that was featured in The Quiet Epidemic film. Julia Bruzzese says, “This documentary is a very powerful tool to get the word out about this disease, and we’re hoping that with this documentary we can bring about change and hopefully make a difference.”
Meloni warns about chronic Lyme, prohibitively expensive…I mean if you get chronic Lyme, even if you have insurance, you’re in a boatload of trouble because insurance companies won’t cover it because it’s not officially recognized.”
To view The Quiet Epidemic go to Apple TV and Prime Video, or locate one of the many in-person screening events being hosted by advocacy groups throughout May.
For More Information:
Watch the Fox5 News Video Coverage
For More LDA Lyme Awareness Resources