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About CALDA

The California Lyme Disease Association (CALDA) is a non-profit corporation acting as the central voice for all tick-borne disease issues in California and a supporting voice for national issues. Through research, advocacy, and education of the public and healthcare professionals, CALDA seeks to prevent tick-borne diseases, encourage early diagnosis, and improve the quality of healthcare provided to people with tick-borne diseases.

Education and Outreach

CALDA offers grants to actively practicing MDs, DOs, NDs, NPs or PAs to attend the ILADS and LDA annual conferences and also for first year ILADS membership. To learn more, click here.

CALDA educates physicians and nurses by hosting booths at professional conferences and organizing medical conferences in collaboration with local health agencies. CALDA educates the public by setting up displays and distributing information at regional health fairs.

Community Building

CALDA shares best practices with other state and national organizations and provides support for local education and advocacy efforts. CALDA enables local groups to educate their own communities by providing support for booths at fairs and other events. CALDA is hosting an activist/advocate/leader training program in conjunction with the Lyme Disease Association and International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society annual medical and scientific conferences. CALDA’s network of online support groups serves more than 1,500 people and is growing at a rate of 50 per month. Support group leaders are helping each other on another CALDA-hosted online group. CALDA’s educational brochure is available for groups to use as a template for creating their own brochure.

Lyme Times

CALDA publishes the Lyme Times, which reaches the patient and medical community nationwide. The Lyme Times has been widely recognized as the best information source about Lyme disease since 1989. The Lyme Times publishes two regular issues a year, covering news and events as well as articles of general interest. In addition, it publishes two Special Issues a year focusing on areas of special interest, including the Patient issue, the Insurance issue, the Children’s Issue, the Children’s Education Issue, the Integrative Medicine Issue, and the Alternative Medicine Issue.

California Legislation

CALDA was instrumental in establishing the Lyme Disease Advisory Committee (LDAC), which advises the California Department of Public Health on matters concerning Lyme disease, and on which CALDA has a representative. In 2004 CALDA supported legislation that made Lyme disease reportable by laboratories starting in January, 2005. CALDA contributed to legislation amending Section 3212.12 of the California Labor Code to include Lyme disease as a compensable disability for public workers like policemen and forestry workers. In 2005, CALDA’s contribution to an amendment of Section 2234.1 of the California Business and Professions Code extended the physician protection provision in an alternative medicine legislation to include physicians who treat people with persistent Lyme disease, provided certain conditions are met. Recently, CALDA’s legislative advocate was able to increase the number of meetings held by the LDAC, which had been cut as a result of fiscal constraints in the state budget.

National Advocacy

CALDA Executive Director Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA, played a central role in the launching of the investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General into possible antitrust violations by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). This effort required the cooperation of many organizations nationwide working together, including CALDA, Time for Lyme, the national Lyme Disease Association, and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society. The investigation was based on abuse of monopoly power and exclusionary conduct on the part of the IDSA in the drafting of its Lyme disease guidelines. A settlement was announced May 1, 2008. CALDA issued this press release (click here to download press release).

CALDA developed the “two schools of thought” advocacy strategy, first published in the peer-reviewed article co-authored by Attorney Johnson and Dr. Ray Stricker, Lyme Disease: A Medicolegal Assessment (Expert Rev Anti-Infect Ther 2004; 2:533-57). Dr. Stricker and Attorney Johnson have co-authored more than ten published letters or articles advancing the viewpoints of physicians who treat Lyme disease. Attorney Johnson has been involved in a number of unprofessional conduct actions involving Lyme physicians.

CALDA representatives have also spoken before the Pennsylvania Legislature, met with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), served on an NIH advisory committee, participated at the request of the Canadian government in the Canadian consensus conference on Lyme (with Canada Lyme). CALDA is a central voice in writing letters to governmental agencies and newspapers. CALDA also established and moderates 51 state websites to foster local and national advocacy efforts.

Research

CALDA funds research that benefits California by focusing on state issues or funding California researchers or institutions. CALDA also supports nationally focused research, such as the project at Stony Brook developing proteins arrays which could potentially lead to vaccines or diagnostic tools, jointly funded by LDA, TFL, and CALDA. CALDA is currently pursuing a number of other research projects.