Lyme Disease Seminar and Health Fair at WestConn on Tuesday May 14

Physician Dr. Raphael B. Stricker, IGeneX Laboratory founder, president and CEO Dr. Nick Harris and Lyme Disease Association president Pat Smith will present a comprehensive look at the complex world of Lyme disease at Western Connecticut State University on Tuesday May, 14. This year's event, "Visionaries in Lyme Disease Testing, Treatment, Research and Advocacy", will focus on medical and political breakthroughs as well as on the controversial issues that divide the medical community. Each speaker brings a unique perspective to these topics having devoted decades to improving the lives of tick-borne disease patients.

The evening begins at 5:00 p.m. with a Lyme-focused health fair featuring prevention products, Lyme-literate providers and supportive therapies. Speaker presentations run from 6:30 p.m.to 9:30 p.m. This free community event will be held in the WestConn Westside Campus Student Center, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. For additional information, contact rldtf@comcast.net. This is the seventh annual event the Ridgefield Lyme Disease Task Force has held at WestConn and the group's 10th Anniversary. A special award is being presented to Dr. Steven Phillips for serving as an advisor to the group since Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi created the town's Lyme Disease Task Force in 2003.

Dr. Stricker is Medical Director of Union Square Medical Associates, a multi-specialty practice in San Francisco, and a nationally-known leader in the diagnosis and treatment of tick-borne diseases. He received his medical degree and training in Internal Medicine at Columbia University in New York. Dr. Stricker did subspecialty training in Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Francisco, and supplemental training in Immunology and Immunotherapy at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He is a Past President and current Vice President of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS), the American Society of Reproductive Immunology (ASRI) and the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR). He is a recipient of the American Medical Association Award for Physician Excellence, and he has authored over 100 medical journal articles and abstracts, including many groundbreaking articles on tick-borne diseases.

Dr. Nick Harris, a board certified immunologist, is currently the President and CEO of IGeneX Laboratory, which he founded in 1991 and Vice-President and Co-founder of ID-FISH Technology Inc. IGeneX is a leading reference laboratory for the testing of Lyme and associated diseases. ID-FISH is a biotechnology company that specializes in development of Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH) assays for infectious diseases. Dr. Harris's undergraduate training was at the University of Wisconsin and graduate training at the Medical Center, University of Illinois, in Chicago. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in transplantation immunology at the University of Minnesota, he became an Associate Professor of Surgery and Biochemistry at the University of Texas. He left academia to head the immunology department at Bioscience Laboratories in L.A. and then joined 3M Diagnostic Systems as Technical Director. Dr. Harris has six patents, over 100 formal publications in Immunology and Lyme disease, and three book chapters.

Lyme Disease Association (LDA) President Pat Smith is a member of Columbia University's Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center Advisory Committee and a member of the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) PESP Partnership to promote avoidance of tick exposure. A 29-year Lyme advocate, Smith has raised funds for research acknowledged in 28 scientific journals and organized 13 CME accredited Lyme scientific conferences for physicians. She has testified for and helped secured passage of state and federal bills for Lyme research and physician's right to treat. In 2012, she was an invited to testify on Lyme disease before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Africa, Global Health & Human Rights Subcommittee in Washington, DC and in 2008 she had a flag flown over the US Capitol by NJ Congressman Christopher Smith in her honor.

Event supporters include IGeneX, Master Supplements, Neuroscience, NutraMedix, Select TCS Tick Control System and Debug the Myths along with local patient-recommended resources.