Members of the Illinois House overrode Gov. Bruce Rauner’s amendatory veto of a bill on Wednesday that would allow physicians to more aggressively treat Lyme Disease.HB4515 was passed unanimously by the Senate its first time around and passed overwhelmingly in the House.
Gov. Bruce Rauner in August amended the bill to remove language that would prohibit a doctor from being disciplined for treating Lyme Disease more aggressively than prescribing 10 to 21 days of anti-biotics.
Swanson says sometimes that’s not enough.
It wasn’t enough for Lauryn Russell, who the bill is named after.
“Lauryn Russell’s a 12-year old, now 13, a young lady with Lyme Disease from Mercer County, Illinois,” Swanson says. “Lauryn, along with her mom Jennifer and many others have worked tirelessly on this legislation.”
Swanson says that there were an estimated 59,000 lyme tick-related disease in the U.S. in 2017, an increase of 11,000 over the previous year.
“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) also acknowledges their estimate may be ten times underestimated, so in fact we’re growing at a rate of 593,490 tick incidents a year,” Swanson says.
Russell had to travel out of state for treatment since her Illinois doctor could be disciplined for treating her chronic Lyme Disease.
The veto override was unanimous, including yeas from the two representatives who were no’s in the initial floor vote.
