Introduction to Second Round of Lobby for Lyme!

Whether you have already lobbied your MP or you are a First Time writer - it’s definitely not too late to lobby your MP about Lyme!

Sample Letters to help inspire you to get writing!

Many of you will have had a reply from your MP with a response from the Minister for Public Health, Caroline Flint MP, dated 29/3/07. It is standard procedure that MPs will have had the same letter, whether they initially wrote to Caroline Flint, Andy Burnham or Patricia Hewitt on your behalf. Lyme Disease Action was very concerned by many of the points contained both in the main response of the Minister, made to Lyme Disease Action, and the similar points that were contained in the letter issued to your MPs .

We are now asking you to write back to your MP, again expressing your concerns about the Minister’s reply. Any letter you write is your letter, but we have written a Abridged Version Response containing points that LDA feels need to be included in any further letters you write to your MP. You may like to print this out and enclose it with your personal letter. Please tell your MP that there is a much fuller Long Version Response from the charity, directly to the Minister of State for Public Health, Caroline Flint MP, on our website http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/releases/flint.htm.

Our Abridged Version Response is followed by some suggested sample letters:

Choose the one that is closest to your situation for inspiration, but we are not asking you to copy the samples. We’d prefer you to use the various points in your own letters of reply to your MPs.

The sample letters are there to help inspire you to get writing!

If your brain is not working at the moment, and you wish to copy our suggested sample letters, then LDA would much prefer that you copied a letter rather than do nothing! We need as many letters as possible to go to your MPs.

We have got a long way with this lobby in a short time span. Many well-placed MPs have expressed support. Some on the front bench, for whom it is common practice not to sign Early Day Motions, have nevertheless expressed their interest and support.

Please now go to our Abridged Version Response, and consider printing this off and enclosing it with your letter.

If you have not already done so, then, if you can, please read our ‘Long Version Response’, which is the official response of the charity Lyme Disease Action to the Department of Health letter to us dated 29^th March 2007 which we received at the beginning of April and responded to on 10^th May 2007.

The charity response is long because it is a comprehensive statement of our position.

The charity response has already been sent to the Department of Health and we await a second round response. It will really help us get the questions onto the Department of Health’s URGENT agenda, if they know that many people are watching and waiting for their answers to the issues raised by Lyme Disease Action.

So please keep up the good work, and write to your MP saying how dissatisfied you are!

The LDA Lobby team.