Disclaimers

Not medical advice

Nothing on this site diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents any condition. The patient stories describe individual experiences that have not been medically verified and are not treatment guidance. Do not delay seeking care, and do not change any treatment, because of something you read here. Talk to a licensed clinician.

Not legal advice

The petition is a public petition and a registry of interested people. It is not a lawsuit and it is not a class action. Signing does not make you a party to any legal proceeding and does not create an attorney-client relationship with this project, its volunteers, or any attorney.

Claims against the United States government face substantial and often decisive barriers, including sovereign immunity, the limits and exceptions of the Federal Tort Claims Act, the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit, and strict deadlines that can bar a claim before it is ever heard on the merits. Some potential claims are already time-barred. No litigation can proceed unless licensed attorneys review individual claims and conclude there is a viable case.

If you believe you have a legal claim, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction now rather than waiting on this petition. Deadlines run whether or not anyone is organizing.

On the origin question

This project does not assert that the United States government created Lyme disease. Borrelia burgdorferi DNA has been recovered from a 5,300-year-old mummy and from ticks collected on Long Island in 1945. Our record page states this plainly and links the leading rebuttals of the laboratory-origin claim.

What this project does assert is narrower and documented: the US Army ran declassified insect-vector warfare trials between 1950 and 1975, Congress has repeatedly directed a federal review of whether ticks were involved, and the complete findings have not been published. We are asking for the record, not asserting what is in it.

Data

Case figures are reproduced from CDC's published surveillance files without alteration. Reported cases are not the same as actual cases — CDC's own claims-based analysis estimates roughly ten times the surveillance count. The 2022 revision to the surveillance case definition makes figures before and after that year not directly comparable, and our charts label this.

Not affiliated

No affiliation with or endorsement by CDC, NIH, NIAID, the Department of Defense, the Government Accountability Office, any member of Congress, or any patient organization referenced on this site.