NEWS: Lyme Disease Foundation ceases operations
Founder Karen Vanderhoof-Forschner spells out reasons in letter posted on the group’s website.
The Lyme Disease Foundation (LDF), founded in 1988 in Connecticut by a husband and wife seeking help for their desperately ill child, has ceased operating.
In a letter posted on the group’s website, Karen Vanderhoof-Forscher cites personal health and other reasons for the decision. She also writes about what the group has accomplished over the quarter century:
“The LDF was established at a time when only a handful of researchers and patients knew of the “new” illness known as Lyme arthritis. The illness was considered harmless, affecting only joints, could only be contracted in several towns in Connecticut, and one where one cured oneself without medication. The LDF shattered that paradigm and many more that were subsequently proclaimed. Remember when people thought one dose of oral antibiotics cured everyone at any time during the disease? That was proved to be inaccurate. Remember when the disease was considered to have “stages” and it took months to years for the disease to move from one “stage” to the next? That was proved to be inaccurate when our scientists proved dissemination could occur within minutes.”
Click here to read the letter in its entirety.
Karen Vanderhoof-Forscher is also the author of the book Everything You Need to Know About Lyme Disease and other Tick-borne Disorders.
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Thank you fOr your pioneering work. You made a huge difference for those of us who were infected… Peace…
Heartfelt thanks for all that you have done for the lyme community. It is time for you now to spend time with your loved ones and pass that baton to others to take up your cause. I can not imagine the herculean efforts that went into the early days of lyme disease advocacy. Your efforts have made a difference and you will never be forgotten.
Thank you, LDF, for all the years of hard work you’ve done for the Lyme disease community and in educating the public about tickborne diseases.
Offhand, does anyone know if someone has archived the content from the LDF web site somewhere, because there are a lot of important milestones and events in Lyme disease history which were recorded there? Those who are new to Lyme disease may not know the history of what happened – including the Senate hearings on Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment – and it would be good to have that information available online somewhere for a timeline.
I am on this site because I’m looking to see whether anyone is interested in old clippings, circulars, etc. from the mid-80s -mid-1990s. I have finally cleaned out the old Lyme box. So, I, too, am wondering whether there is an archive I can contribute this history to.
Thanks for all your work on Lyme; I read your book and it was such a help; I have two daughters now with Lyme disease.
Thank-you for your good wishes. I just found this!
The LDF website and journal are being reposted in the coming weeks. So, you will find them at lyme.org…
Dawn, I hope your daughters are doing better!