The House of Representatives today approved a package of spending bills that includes $20 million in Lyme disease funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Fiscal Year 2021 amount represents a 43% increase over CDC Lyme funding from the previous year. The Lyme funding is part of $42 million designated for CDC efforts regarding vector-borne diseases.

Bonnie Crater, of the Center for Lyme Action, sent me the following timeline of what happened to Lyme funding in the past couple of weeks. (Note: a “minibus” bill is when several measures are bundled together to be considered as one item.)

Recap

• July 7  The Labor-Health & Human Services appropriations bill included a +$2M increase on the Lyme item to grow that from $14M to $16M in FY21.  See page 67 for a chart that shows this.
• July 13  The House Appropriations Committee passes Labor HHS appropriations bill and is combined with five other appropriations bills in a “minibus” to be reviewed by the Rules Committee.
• July 24 Representatives Chris Smith and Collin Peterson, Co-chairs of the Lyme Caucus, proposed Amendment 13 to increase the Lyme item by $4M.
• July 28 Amendment 13 was “made in order” (passed) out of the House Rules Committee for House Floor consideration.
• July 29 Amendment 13 was bundled in En bloc #4 and renamed Amendment #289.
• July 30 En Bloc #4 was approved by voice vote on the House Floor
• July 31 All the approved Amendments and the main Minibus bill were approved by a vote of 217-197.

Now the action on this moves to the Senate. Though Bonnie tells me Senators are unlikely to start work on it until after the election.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, LymeDisease.org’s Vice-president and Director of Communications. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org.