A few quick facts on Lyme disease I covered while twittering from the screening:

• Lyme is the most common vector-borne disease in the USA – it’s a national epidemic.
• The number of Lyme cases has doubled since 1991, even though 50% of Lyme sufferers probably go undiagnosed.
• Undiagnosed and untreated cases of chronic Lyme can lead to Multiple Sclerosis, ALS (or Lou Gherig’s), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

Yes, there is such a thing as chronic Lyme, though insurance companies insist that there is not and have gone so far as sue doctors who have saved lives from Lyme for providing “unnecessary medical treatment.”

“Under Our Skin” suggests that conflicts of interests have led to an organized effort to keep the facts about chronic Lyme disease and proven methods of treatment from the public and the medical community.

Luckily, there seems to be a lot of local organizing around this issue to provide support for Lyme sufferers – whose stories of chronic pain and sometimes severe neurological damage, not to mention constant criticism and denial of care by lyme-illiterate doctors are heart-breaking – and lobby local elected officials, some of whom have weighed in helpfully by introducing legislation in Hartford.