The next meetings of the federal Tick-borne Disease Working Group will be held in Philadelphia on March 3 and 4.

In-person attendance is limited to space available. Therefore, if you want to attend in person, we highly recommend you pre-register (details below).

If you want to provide in-person public comments, you must submit your request by midnight Friday, Feb. 21, Eastern Time.

If you want to submit written comments, those also must be submitted by midnight Friday, Feb. 21, Eastern Time.

From the Health and Human Services website

The 12th meeting of the Tick-borne Disease Working Group will be held at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 S 22^nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

For this meeting, the TBDWG will be discussing and voting on recommendations for the 2020 TBDWG Report to the HHS Secretary and Congress. Most of the recommendations the TBDWG will consider are from the reports of eight TBDWG subcommittees, which were created to examine critical topic areas related to tick-borne diseases.

In-person attendance at the meeting is limited to space available; therefore, preregistration  for public members is advisable. People who have not preregistered will be accommodated on a first come, first served basis if additional seats are still available 10 minutes before the meeting starts.

Members of the public may also attend the meeting via webcast. Instructions for attending via webcast will be posted about one week prior to the meeting.

Federal Register Notice

Public Comment – Information and Instructions

The public will have an opportunity to present their views to the Working Group during the meeting’s public comment session or by submitting their views in writing.

Verbal comments:

• Requests to provide verbal public comment must be submitted via email by midnight Friday, February 21, 2020, ET to tickbornedisease@hhs.gov. In the email Subject line please enter: Verbal Public Comment – March 3-4 Meeting. In addition, please indicate if you will be providing verbal comment in person or by phone. If by phone, you will be provided a call-in number and time to call.
• A total of 60 minutes has been set aside for verbal comments on Wednesday, March 4. Each person will be limited to 3 minutes in order to accommodate as many speakers as possible. If more requests are received than can be accommodated, speakers will be randomly selected.
• Your remarks will be heard over a live webcast and will become part of the archived recording and meeting summary that will be posted on this website.

Written comments (posted on this webpage and accessible to the public):

• Written public comments must be submitted via email by midnight Friday, February 21, 2020, ET to tickbornedisease@hhs.gov. In the email Subject line please enter: Written Public Comment – March 3-4 Meeting.
• When you submit your written comment, please include a statement letting us know how you would like to be identified with your comment. You may choose to use your name or to be anonymous. You may also list your city and/or state. If you are providing comments on behalf of an organization, please include the name of the organization. We cannot post your comment until you let us know how you would like to be identified.
• Comments should either be provided in the body of your email, or in an attachment in Word format and equivalent to no more than 4 pages in Calibri or Times New Roman, 11 point font. Text that exceeds the 4 pages will be deleted.
• We do not post graphics, images, text boxes, or tables. If included with your comment, we will not be able to retain them.
• We can only create hyperlinks to “.gov” sites (local, state, or federal). For all other reference sites, please insert the full URL (e.g., http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics).
• We are also unable to include attachments as supporting documentation to your written comments.

Click here for more details.