Mitt Romney's New Campaign Issue: Lyme Disease

The Romney campaign has been sending out direct mail to Virginians with an unusual subject: Lyme Disease.

It's a disease that begins from a small bug...

But Lyme Disease has quickly become the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, devastating our families and our pets.

It's a serious problem - that demands immediate attention.

As president, Mitt Romney will ensure that real action is taken to get control of this epidemic that is wreaking havoc on Northern Virginians.

IMPROVE SYNERGY Ensure that government agencies have an open line of communication and work with patients, researchers, doctors, and businesses in an objective, comprehensive manner.

INCREASE AWARENESS Work with federal and state health agencies to support Lyme Disease awareness efforts to help prevent further spread of the disease.

So far this is what I would consider a typical Romney effort, that is, it sounds serious and talks action but doesn't actually say much. But then:

SUPPORT TREATMENT Encourage increased options for the treatment of Lyme Disease and provide local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics that are required.

Here Romney is taking sides in ongoing scientific and medical debate. Besides its acute form, Lyme disease can cause long-lasting, very serious symptoms that include persistent fatigue, crippling joint pain, memory loss, and mental confusion. The CDC says that "aggressive" antibiotic treatment does not help people with long-term, Lyme-related symptoms, and that people given the maximum safe antibiotic doses did not recover any faster than people who were left alone:

There is no convincing biologic evidence for the existence of symptomatic chronic B. burgdorferi infection among patients after receipt of recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease. Antibiotic therapy has not proven to be useful and is not recommended for patients with chronic (>6 months) subjective symptoms after recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease (E-I).  

A growing group of doctors and patients says that the CDC's studies did not involve high enough doses of antibiotics or go on long enough to wipe out the Lyme bacteria that burrow deeply into the tissues of infected people. This is the significance of Romney's mailer; he is calling for the government to support these aggressive treatments even when the amounts of antibiotics involved exceed the levels generally considered safe.

I wonder if he thinks insurance companies should be required to pay for these treatments.