AUGUSTA, Maine - The Maine House has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe the long-term use of antibiotics to treat Lyme disease without fear of disciplinary action by the medical licensing board.
Despite a division in the medical community over the use of long-term antibiotic treatment, supporters of the measure were able to make a strong argument for the bill that is modeled after similar legislation in other states.
Maine continues to cope with ticks that infect about 1,300 people each year with Lyme disease, a condition with painful early symptoms that include chills, fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. Advanced stages of the disease have been known to produce temporary paralysis of facial muscles and numbness in the limbs.
"Ticks are here to stay, they're in every county in Maine now," said Rep. MaryAnne Kinney, a Republican from Knox. '"They carry diseases, one of which - Lyme - is treatable today."
During a public hearing in April, a legislative committee was told that the medical community is divided over treatment for Lyme, which physicians say can be hard to diagnose and difficult to treat. One approach involves a long-term regimen of antibiotic therapy, but that's something that is not recommended in the most recent guidelines developed by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Rep. Deborah Sanderson is a Chelsea Republican and the sponsor of a bill that would allow Maine doctors to prescribe long-term antibiotic therapy without being subject to potential disciplinary action from the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine. She says the infectious diseases society fails to recognize advances in treating the disease with antibiotics beyond the standard 28-day regimen - even if advocates of the approach represent a minority within the medical community.
"That's exactly why we need this law," Sanderson said. "It's not prescriptive; it doesn't tell a physician they have to treat. It doesn't tell a physician how to treat. It merely allows a physician to treat. And I think that's what we should do with our physicians - allow them to treat. No one says you have to."
Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Patricia Hymanson, a retired York physician, supported an amended version of the bill that would permit non-traditional treatments of Lyme disease for doctors who obtained a patient's informed consent prior to prescribing the treatment. Hymanson says Sanderson's bill is an attempt to circumvent well-established, evidenced-based medical guidelines. And he says patients need to play an active role in their treatment.
"If I wanted to treat someone for a severe sinus infection after four weeks of antibiotics and it wasn't recommended in evidence-based protocols, I would explain that to the patient but tell them that I think this is a good idea and I could document it," Hymanson said.
Opponents said the informed consent provision posed too many obstacles to Lyme patients seeking treatment. The House approved Sanderson's bill in a 106-34 vote. The measure now moves to the Senate.