Ally Hilfiger, daughter of famous fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, has struggled with Lyme disease since childhood. We included an excerpt of her book "Bite Me: How Lyme Disease Stole My Childhood, Made Me Crazy, and Almost Killed Me" in our Fall 2016 Lyme Times issue. To take a look, click here: https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2016-fall-patient-matters/lyme-disease-stole-childhood/

Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA is the Chief Executive Officer of LymeDisease.org. She is an attorney advocate on issues related to the medico-legal and ethical aspects of Lyme disease and has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles on this topic. She co-authored the Lyme disease guidelines of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, published in 2014. She serves as a patient representative of the Patient Engagement Advisory Panel for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and sits on both the Executive and Steering committees of PCORnet, a national patient-centered big-data project. She chairs PCORnet’s Patient Council. In addition, she is co-chair of the steering committee of Consumers United for Evidence-Based Healthcare, a nationwide coalition of consumer groups associated with the international Cochrane Collaboration and serves as a consumer peer reviewer for Cochrane evidence-based protocols and reviews. She has spoken before state legislatures, US and international governmental agencies, and at healthcare policy conferences throughout the world. Her blog focuses on medico-legal ethics and healthcare policy issues related to Lyme disease.

Professor Holly Ahern, of State University of New York Adirondack, knows about Lyme disease from two different angles. One, as a microbiologist who has thoroughly examined the scientific literature pertaining to tick-borne diseases, and two, as the mother of a daughter with chronic Lyme disease. In this 2017 presentation, videotaped by https://www.lymedisease.org/ at the Focus on Lyme conference in Arizona, she shares her expertise with wit and scientific data.

Dr. Neil Spector—one of the top cancer researchers in the US—suffered from misdiagnosed Lyme disease for many years. Although he was eventually diagnosed and treated for Lyme, by then his heart was so damaged, he needed a heart transplant. He chronicled the experience in his memoir, Gone in A Heartbeat: A Physician’s Search for True Healing. Since then, Dr. Spector has become a unique advocate for Lyme patients, calling for new ways to diagnose and treat the tick-borne illness. In this 2017 presentation, videotaped by https://www.lymedisease.org/ at the Focus on Lyme conference in Arizona, he speaks as both a former patient and as a scientist.