LYME DISEASE ASSOCIATION FOUNDER PROMOTES AILMENT AS REAL

In 1979 Janice Beers was bitten by a tick that carried Lyme disease. For 10 years she was plagued by migraine headaches, fatigue, irritability and joint aches, commonly associated with the disease.

Beers was married to a physician and put three sons through medical school during that time. Still, no one could tell Beers what was ailing her, causing this deterioration of her mind and body.

In 1989 her husband attended a seminar at which the lecturer talked about Lyme disease, its symptoms and the drugs with which it could be treated.

By then Beers had given up almost everything.

"In 1984 I gave up my law practice," she said. "In 1989 I could barely walk, had trouble talking, was confused easily and was bed-ridden most of the time."

Tuesday night she had no problem talking to about 55 area residents in the Harrison Room of Southeast Missouri Hospital, many of whom are inflicted or who have a loved one inflicted with Lyme disease.

In May Beers founded the Lyme Disease Association of the United States, a support and informational organization designed to get the word out to potential victims and doctors alike, about the little-understood disease.

On Tuesday, Beers spent a great deal of her lecture combating the views of a Tufts University -professor of medicine Alan Steere, who believes the disease is over-diagnosed and over-treated, as published in a medical report in April.

On Aug. 5, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy arranged for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee to hold an oversight hearing on Lyme disease to investigate and learn about the topic.

Beers told her Missouri audience that the original panel consisted of "forces that would not adequately nor honestly portray the true effects and nature of Lyme disease."

So the LDAUS group began a phone campaign on Kennedy's office, the likes of which have never been equalled, she said. Within two days, representatives for LDAUS and doctors who treat Lyme disease on a daily basis were added to the list of panelists.

Tuesday she gave the audience a brief overview of the testimony offered at the Senate hearing.

"I believe we had an effect on the senators at the hearing," Beers said. "I sincerely believe that more studies will be commissioned to find cures or better treatments for chronic Lyme disease."

Beers said that presently there exists a split in the medical community in the identification and treatment of Lyme disease.

"You have your university-based doctors and tertiary doctors on one side versus the family doctors the doctors in the trenches who treat Lyme disease every day," she said. "The first group believes that Lyme disease can be effectively treated in three to four weeks of oral anti-biotic treatment; the other believes that it can take months to years to kill the agents of Lyme disease."

Beers herself was on medication for more than three years and suffered three relapses as a result of the medication being withdrawn.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., has not yet classified Missouri as a state where Lyme disease has been recognized.

"The CDC said that Missourians suffer a `Lyme disease-like ailment, but further studies are needed,'" she scoffed. "So all of you out there are just suffering from a flu-like ailment of undetermined cause not Lyme disease."

In the end, Beers encouraged the group to become active in the fight for research and understanding of the disease.

"If we work together, we can make ourselves known; we can prevail," she said.