Health Secretary Kennedy to unveil efforts to combat Lyme disease

CONCORD, N.H. — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce new efforts on Friday to combat Lyme disease, as he travels around the country for what he’s been calling a “Take Back Your Health” tour.

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Kennedy is slated to be joined by state and federal officials at the New Hampshire State House, along with advocates who have worked to raise awareness about the disease, which is caused by a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks.

Lyme disease cases, which have historically been concentrated most heavily in southern New England and coastal Mid-Atlantic states, have proliferated in recent years across the entire Northeast and parts of the Upper Midwest (including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan), according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC data suggest an estimated 476,000 people across the United States may be diagnosed and treated each year for the tick-borne disease.

The tick season was particularly bad last year in New England, and is shaping up to be rough again this year, as the weather warms and people spend more time exploring areas where they might encounter the tiny pests, including tall grass and bushes but also backyards.

Researchers have been working to develop vaccines to reduce the risk of developing Lyme disease, though one promising effort recently suffered a setback during testing.

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Kennedy has made combating Lyme disease a significant focus of his role overseeing HHS’s agencies. He convened a roundtable on the topic in December and announced actions that he said would move toward more reliable testing and treatment. He said “top officials” in the government had been saying Lyme disease doesn’t exist.

Kennedy had previously spread claims about Lyme disease having supposedly been bioengineered by the US military in a lab — a conspiracy theory that public health officials have said detracts from public awareness campaigns about the illness and the ticks that spread it.

The last time Kennedy made a public appearance at the New Hampshire State House was in 2023, while he campaigned for president as a Democrat ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation 2024 presidential primary. Kennedy ultimately suspended that campaign and joined President Trump’s Republican administration.

Kennedy, who has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, has been traveling the country recently and promoting less-controversial components of his agenda, with the midterm elections on the horizon.

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This story will be updated.