Can We “Hack” Our Way to Some New Solutions for Lyme?

By Bay Area Lyme

Reflections from a Promising Dialogue at the AAAS Conference in Washington, DC, November 17-18

by Lia Gaertner, BAL Science Committee

AAAS_Logo and magSome weeks ago, two members of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Science Committee, Wendy Adams and Lia Gaertner, attended a leadership symposium in Washington, DC, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and entitled, “Innovations-X: Rising Above the Politics for Progress in Science.”  The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, with more than 125,000 individual and institutional members, and the publisher of Science magazine. Its mission is “to advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.” At this event, there were three “wicked problems” discussed over two days: climate change, global/mobile health, and Lyme disease.  This blog, written by Lia Gaertner, will focus only on the Lyme portion of the conference.

The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation Grants $6.5 Million to Bay Area Lyme Foundation

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation Grants $6.5 Million to
Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Gift is part of the largest private donation for Lyme disease research—100% of grant will go directly to Lyme disease research programs.

SILICON VALLEY, California, December 17, 2015 –The Bay Area Lyme Foundation today announced that it received a $6.5 million grant from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, the largest private donation ever given to Lyme disease research. The gift will support Bay Area Lyme’s mission of using new scientific research and innovations to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure.

“I was shocked to learn how many people suffer from Lyme disease in silence, and how much we still need to do to raise awareness and help find a cure,” said Alex Cohen, President of the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. “This gift is incredibly personal to me as I have experienced, first-hand, the chronic and debilitating side effects of this relatively unknown disease. We share Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s desire to find a cure for Lyme disease and hope that this gift will help pave the way to that important work.”

Suffering the Silence and Finding a Voice

By Bay Area Lyme

Allie CashelBy Allie Cashel

The following is a guest post by a young author and Lyme patient who has turned her experience into a catalyst to help others find their voice and break the silence around long-term struggles with Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses. You can read more about Allie in our Faces of Lyme section and on her own website, sufferingthesilence.com.

Allie has a new book due out in early September, Suffering the Silence: Chronic Lyme Disease in an Age of Denial. Bay Area Lyme Foundation will be co-hosting a reading and book signing at Books Inc. in Mountainview, CA on Tuesday, September 15th at 7:00pm.  Come join us at the event and meet this engaging young speaker!

Everyone knew about Lyme disease in the town where I grew up. “Easy to diagnose and simple to treat,” people said. “As long as you get the medicine in you, you’ll be fine.” As a kid, I was always hearing stories about someone who had recently been diagnosed with Lyme – parents, cousins, siblings, pets – and in almost every case, the stories I heard were short.