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Amend the bill by striking out the title and substituting the following:
‘Resolve, To Inform Persons of the Options for the Treatment of Lyme Disease’
Amend the bill by striking out everything after the title and before the summary and inserting the following:
‘Sec. 1 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention; alternatives for treatment of Lyme disease. Resolved: That the Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention shall include on the publicly accessible website established pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 22, section 1645, subsection 3 the following information regarding Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment:
1. Lyme disease may be difficult to diagnose and treat;
2. Some patients seem not to respond to the usual antibiotics used for treating Lyme disease and seem to have post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. Scientific studies suggest that longer doses of antibiotics to treat Lyme disease are not helpful. There are some doctors who believe that longer doses of antibiotics may sometimes be helpful. Some patients believe that they have benefited from extended treatments of antibiotics;
3. Antibiotics can be lifesaving medications but can have serious side effects, such as the development of drug-resistant organisms. A patient who contracts an infection from a drug-resistant organism may never fully recover; and
4. Information on treatment alternatives for treating Lyme disease is available through Internet search engines.’
 
SUMMARY
This amendment, which is the minority report of the committee, replaces the bill. It requires the Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to include on its publicly accessible website information that informs users about the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, that scientific studies suggest longer doses of antibiotics are not helpful but that some doctors and patients believe they are helpful and beneficial, that antibiotic use can lead to the development of drug-resistant organisms and that information on treatment alternatives for Lyme disease is available through Internet search engines.