AUSTIN – State Sen. Chris Harris blames Lyme disease, left undiagnosed for 2½ years in the mid-1990s, for a heart attack and bone damage that left him with two titanium shoulders and a severely broken foot put back together with steel plates and screws. Harris, R-Arlington, poured his experience into a bill that originally sought to force the Texas Medical Board and Texas Board of Nursing to recognize as valid the long-term use of antibiotics — sometimes lasting years — recommended in the treat-until-recovery approach of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society. That bill, opposed by the medical establishment, was dead on arrival. But a compromise recently reached with the Texas Medical Association has revived the bill, which along with an identical measure by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, received back-to-back committee hearings Tuesday and Wednesday. Harris and Hunter presented committee members with bills, unopposed by interest groups, that focus on training doctors to recognize Lyme disease and help set up a limited defense for physicians accused of overusing antibiotics to treat the malady.{read more}
AUSTIN – The GOP could be on the verge of losing at least one of its three state House members in the Corpus Christi area in a potential redistricting development that’s sparked speculation on a possible bid for higher office by powerful State Rep. Todd Hunter.{read more}
