HHS Sec. Kennedy on Lyme disease

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Thank you.

[00:00:03]Thank you, Senator Packard for that kind introduction. And I also want to thank Senate President Sharon Carson and all the other legislators who joined us in the round table that we did a few minutes ago. New Hampshire is leading the nation and advancing the make America Healthy Again agenda and your legislation is setting an example for the states across the country. And I also want to thank uh Dr. Stephanie Areropoulos and Dr. Kristen Honey from HHS as well as lime patient Sophie Sergeant and Lime advocates Nancy Dohy and Diana Parish for joining me on stage. I look forward to hearing your remarks.

[00:00:46]Millions of Americans living with Lyme disease and other tickborne illnesses have struggled for decades to get diagnosis, treatments, and care. They deserve better prevention, better treatments, and real support. And today, led by the Trump administration, we're launching one of the most ambitious federal efforts ever to undertake com and combat Lyme disease, accelerate research, and improve care for parents and families.

[00:01:17]Doctors diagnose 476,000 Americans with Lyme disease every year.

[00:01:23]This spring, Americans visit an emergency room for tick bikes more than any other time in history. A clear sign that this threat is growing. Lyme disease affects all 50 states. New Hampshire has one of the highest infection rates in the country. Roughly 60% of the blacklegged ticks tested in this state have been found to carry the spear trait.

[00:01:47]uh is likely that nearly everyone in this room has either battled Lyme disease or personally watched someone that they love struggle with it. I live in for lived in for many years in Bedford, New York, which is one of the epicenters of of Lyme infections and my myself, my wife, and my six kids were all have all been diagnosed with Lyme disease in the 1980s.

[00:02:15]And um I've seen its effects on people.

[00:02:19]I one of my sons had his face paralyzed for a year. Uh but I've seen much worse than that. I people suffering having their lives devastated, their careers devastated, their capacities to support their family, and then just living in pain all the time. And um uh you know one of the the real tragedies now is that people Americans can't go in the woods anymore safely and going in the woods to hike to fish to hunt to photograph or you know just to walk in the woods is part of this seminal experience of being an American and particularly American child and it's a science fiction nightmare that we now live and that children cannot that parents have to worry about their children going to the woods. When I was a kid, our parents would lock us out during the daytime and then tell us go to the woods and come back when the dinner bell rings and kids can't do that today. And we already have an epidemic of social media and screens that Dr. Heropouloolis has outlined in her recent report from the surgeon general's office. And if we can't send send our kids safely in the woods, we don't really leave them with too many options. So, it's something that I take seriously because of my personal experience, but also just because of my concern for the American experience.

[00:04:00]For years, Lyme disease patients fought hard to be heard. Well, much of that health care system failed them. Doctors would often tell patients, "It's your imagination. It's something else. It's there's no such thing as Lyme disease."

[00:04:16]And I've heard per people of person after person tell me those horror stories. And now um we've had a series of roundts at HHS with the best physicians in the country who are successfully treating Lyme disease. And we've launched a program to actually develop protocols for treating all of its different iterations. People present differently depending on their own biomarkers with Lyme disease and they have to be treated differently. And a treatment, there's no silver bullet. A treatment that works for one patient does not work for the others. And we are focused on developing reforms for diagnostics, for biomarkers, and for specific treatments for specific groups of people. And and we now have a website where people who suffer Lyme disease can go find the doctors who are actually treating it successfully. And we're also making an effort to educate doctors across the country about how to recognize this disease, how to treat it, or at least how to direct people to the the clinics that are successfully treating thousands in some cases tens of thousands of patients. Um, for years Lyme disease patient, President Trump has ch changed all this.

[00:05:44]He began changing it during his first term by making Lyme disease a national priority. In 2019, President Trump signed the Kayhagen Tick Act, creating the first national strategy to prevent and control vectorbor diseases in America. Under that law, HHS expanded research strengthened innovation and advanced the public private collaborations.

[00:06:08]I recently called on Congress to reauthorize the tick act. The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the bill unanimously, and I will continue fighting to get it across the finish line. We're not waiting for Congress to act. NIH is already investing nearly $50 million in Lyme disease research and another 122 million in tickborn disease research, including prevention, diagnostics, and treatment. Our goal is clear. to reduce Lyme disease case by 25% by 2035 compared to 2022 levels. Today, uh my agency is launching a major new multi-million dollar pilot program that has the potential to transform how we prevent Lyme disease and other tickborne illnesses in America. Through this initiative, CDC and HHS will partner with leading tick control researchers to develop and deploy practical strategies that target and eliminate ticks on wildlife before they can spread the disease to humans. As most of you know, we didn't really have a tick problem in this country until the 1980s. And virtually all the deer were eliminated east of the Mississippi by 1900.

[00:07:32]And as those deer have proliferated and become very common, the ticks have also proliferated. All three species of ticks that carry disease breed on the deer and they require the deer in order to breed. They'll bite the turkeys.

[00:07:48]They'll get blood meals from mice, but it's the deer that allow them to breed.

[00:07:53]The deer interestingly don't carry the Lyme disease. So they're immune to it. They don't spread it. But if that tick gets a blood meal of a mouse, the mouse are on the mice are highly infected.

[00:08:08]And so we are our uh control policies are developing protocols for making tick making deer less attractive to breeding and um and to also treat the mice and little m feeding stations to control the disease on the mice. We're going after the disease at its source by reducing tick populations and disrupting their breeding cycles. We aim to slow the spread of Lyme disease and protect more Americans from infection. We'll begin this effort with researchers at the New England Center for Excellence in Vectorborn Disease. This initiative will also build on trusted local partnerships including collaborations with the Indian Health Services and the Wanoag tribe in Massachusetts.

[00:09:03]Um, one of the, you know, one of the tickborn disease besides lime that is of great concern to the American pe people, an increasing concern is alpha gal. And alpha gal, which um is a really is another science fiction nightmare. You get one bite from a lonear tick and you could have a lifetime allergy to red meat.

[00:09:26]And I was surprised to learn on my trip to visit the Wampa Noag for the Indian Health Services this fall that 50% of the population of Martha's Vineyard now has alpha gal including most members of the tribe and uh so our by controlling the breeding on the deer we also can control alpha gal as well. Uh we're also working on uh on on a on medicines that can prevent alpha gal and that have the potential the promise of actually curing it. And uh one of those medicines almost ready. We're fasttracking him and the uh and then we're doing the studies over the next two years to see if we can actually reverse this devastating disease.

[00:10:26]Um through discussions with private sector innovators, we have preliminary identified these promising products that could help end the epidemic and alpha gal syndrome. Under this collaboration, I expect I anticipate participating companies would provide these products while NIH would support and fund the clinical research needed to evaluate their effectiveness.

[00:10:53]CDC estimates estimates indicate that nearly 500,000 Americans are living with health syndrome, but emerging evidence suggests that the true number may be far far higher, potentially reaching in the millions. We intend to bring the same urgency innovation and scientific rigored alpha gal syndrome that we are bringing to Lyme disease and other tickborne illnesses. President Trump and I are driving a new era of innovation, urgency, and action in the fight against Lyme disease. Last December, HHS convened researchers, clinicians, innovators, and partners for a series of national dis Lyme disease roundts to identify the practical solutions. HHS also renewed the Limex Innovation Accelerator, reestablishing the groundbreaking public private collaboration with the Steven and Alexander Cohen Foundation launched during President Trump's first term.

[00:11:52]of Lime. Through Limeax, we launched a $10 million diagnostic prize to speed development of faster, more accurate next generation Lyme disease tests. That effort is already delivering results.

[00:12:06]Over the past two years, two improved FDA cleared Lyme diagnostics reached the market through the Limex challenge and innovation community.

[00:12:17]That progress matters because although doctors diagnose nearly half a million Americans with Lyme disease every year, most patients go undiagnosed.

[00:12:27]But we're not stopping there. And we need your help. Today, HHS is announcing three new LIMEX challenges with up to $2.5 million in total prize funding to accelerate innovation, expand public awareness, and improve the care for patients.

[00:12:45]First, we're launching the LMAX Visible Voices Prize, which will award up to $250,000 for educational tools and public awareness campaigns.

[00:12:56]Asians, clinicians, and advocates will help develop resources that explain testing limitations, highlight the importance of patient history and real world evidence, and support informed decision making.

[00:13:10]Second, we are launching the Limex Alphathon innovation sprint with up to $250,000 in prizes to identify promising frontline solutions, including the novel use of existing medicines and drug repurposing strategies.

[00:13:26]We want to hear directly from patients, physicians, caregivers on what is working and what is not. Third, we're launching the top XHS tech sprint for AI and invisible illness, including a $1 million grand prize. This initiative will harness artificial intelligence and open data to help patients with Lyme disease and other invisible illnesses, get answers faster, and connect to care sooner. We want patients diagnosed earlier, treated faster, and connected to care that improves their lives.

[00:14:01]Today, I'm also announcing a new public private collaboration with the International Lime and Associated Disease Society to help connect patients with experienced providers nationwide.

[00:14:13]Through the HHS.gov of lime. Patients will be able to access ILA's uh clinic clinician locator to find experienced care for complex Lyme disease and related chronic conditions and learn more about education and outreach efforts. Thanks to President Trump's commitment to make Lyme disease a top HHS priority, we are listening to patients, following the science, and taking action. Americans deserve answer.

[00:14:45]They deserve gold standard science and a health care system that treats suffering seriously.

[00:14:52]These initiatives will accelerate research, drive innovation, restore trust, and make America healthy