Ms Nicci St. George Smith:

With the greatest of respect, I would love to address what Senator Colm Burke said. I am a patient who is in remission. I was bitten in 2000 and had a bullseye rash. I was tested and diagnosed with Lyme disease and given doxycycline for ten days. I took the antibiotics and never thought about it again, but I continued to have low grade pain and health issues until I developed Parkinson's disease like symptoms and, in my late 20s and early 30s, Alzheimer's disease like symptoms. I was unable to read, found speaking very difficult, found it very difficult to walk, had no energy and was in constant pain all over my spine and body. I was an aid worker and made documentaries, but I could no longer work. It was then brought to my attention that I might still have an infection. I was the biggest sceptic and cynic and thought it was crazy talk and ridiculous, that the infection did not exist and could not remain in my system. It was the last idea on the list of possibilities, but I went to be retested and tested positive. After 15 years the infection was still in in my body. I went for treatment and made a full recovery. I have gone back to work and I am currently making a documentary on Lyme disease in a global context. We are talking to people involved in the latest research on Lyme disease, Borrelia, tick borne co-infections and vector borne infections. The people who signed off on what members have in front of them should be listening to those to whom we are talking. We are with science which does not deny this. It would deny what the people mentioned have signed off on. Change is coming and will trickle down, but we have a choice. We can do what Deputy MacSharry suggested and become pioneers, be ahead of the curve and contain the disease or we can be late to the party and watch as the world changes and we are still dinosaurs. As Dr. Lambert said, I ask that there be open discussion here and that we bring in some of the experts to address the people mentioned because they do not have this information or they are choosing not to-----