PETITION: UK Government should respon... - Living with Lyme ...

Living with Lyme Disease UK

PETITION: UK Government should respond to John Caudwell's £1M offer to help fund Lyme Research

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MdaisyAdministrator
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Recently (26th & 27th June 2019), John Caudwell has offered the UK Government over £1M for Lyme Disease research on various media sources, on the understanding they (UK Government) will match or ring fence a substantial amount to initiate the research process.

Businessman, philanthropist and founder of Caudwell Lyme co Charity (caudwelllyme.com) , John Caudwell - who also made millions after setting up the Phones4U said:

"That he's willing to pledge more than £1M of his own money to help fund Lyme Disease research, on the condition that the NHS match his investment"

Several of Mr Caudwell's family have been affected by the disease and he understands the impact the lack of research is having on thousands of patients in the UK.

Please read these excerpts from a research paper from 2018 called ‘Better drugs for Lyme Disease: focus on Spirochete’. Spirochete being the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease, although Tick Bites can transfer other co-infections and are known as ‘nature’s dirty needles’

“Twenty-five years ago, the AIDS epidemic was wreaking havoc around the world. Although “HIV denialists” threatened to undermine research efforts to combat the epidemic, development of targeted antiviral therapy eventually provided effective treatment for the disease. Now the Lyme disease epidemic is wreaking havoc around the world, and “Lyme denialists” are undermining efforts to combat the epidemic.”

“What does this mean? It is time for the pharmaceutical industry to train its sights on Borrelia burgdorferi in the same way that it has attacked HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV). Because a safe and effective Lyme disease vaccine is presently out of reach for technical reasons, we need targeted designer drugs to treat the Lyme spirochete, and we can use the HIV and HCV models to develop these drugs. Designer drugs would avoid the overuse of 60-year-old antibiotics that are marginally effective to begin with, and targeted therapy would provide more rational treatment for the tick-borne disease. Development of designer drugs for Borrelia would also open the door for research into more effective treatment for tick-borne bacterial, protozoal, and viral coinfections. Furthermore, if Borrelia is proven to be sexually transmitted, targeted drug therapy would theoretically be more effective in preventing the spread of the spirochete, given the success with preexposure and postexposure prophylaxis for HIV disease’” (Stricker & Middelveen 2018)

Source: Better drugs for Lyme Disease: focus on Spirochete

(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

There are thousands of people living with Chronic Lyme in the UK, who are being left untreated partly due to the “Lyme denialists” and as the NHS & NICE recommendations are for recent tick bites (3-4 weeks antibiotic treatment) As the two paragraphs from research highlight currently we are unaware of the scale of the silent epidemic.

Researchers are unsure of the exact methods of transmission of the disease ie human-to-human sexual contact and research reports it is likely shared from mother to child in the womb. Spirochete bacteria in Chronic Lyme is stealth as time passes, showing ‘false negatives’ with the current NHS testing and is also seemingly becoming resistant to antibiotics which is extremely worrying.

We, the Lyme Community within the UK strongly urge the government to take immediate action to address the issues surrounding this silent epidemic and to respond to John Caudwell's offer of £1M asap. The UK Government is responsible for helping the thousands of patients suffering the devastating effects of this illness partly due to “Lyme denialists” but largely due to lack of Lyme Research.

We are asking you to ACT now to prevent any further generations being afflicted with this debilitating often severely disabling disease and those with Chronic Lyme are hoping this catalyst (John Caudwell offer £1M). We hope Lyme Research findings will put an end to the stigma we experience due to “Lyme denialists” and offer us some hope for the future of treatment so we can have a better quality of life.

Please can the Lyme Community SIGN & SHARE this across all social media using hashtags #CaudwellPetition #CaudwellOffer #LymeDisease #Lymetoo and any others you'd like to add to increase social reach or even get this trending!

SIGN HERE>>> bit.ly/2XfLMBq

If you want to 'tag' Matt Hancock or John Caudwell, please do ..... as we need to lobby the MP's to support the decision to ring fence funding for Lyme Research.

Thank You for reading :)

LWLD

P.S. This post is unlocked as it is a petition that needs signatures due to sharing on social media :)

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