People treated quickly with antibiotics during the early stages of Lyme disease typically recover quickly, but researchers estimate between 10% and 20% of patients who undergo early-stage treatment remain symptomatic.

Researchers estimate there are roughly 2 million people in the U.S. who suffer from post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, a debilitating, prolonged condition after the initial infection.

Lyme disease advocates contend those with lingering symptoms following initial infection are frequently dismissed by healthcare professionals, but Kennedy said addressing chronic Lyme symptoms is “a top HHS priority.” 

“We are listening to patients, following the science, and taking action,” Kennedy said. “Americans deserve answers. They deserve gold standard science and a healthcare system that treats suffering seriously.”

Physicians and Lyme patients say that chronic Lyme patients can suffer from a wide range of symptoms, including cardiovascular issues and autoimmune conditions, such as inflammatory arthritis.

Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, director of communications for the Office of the Surgeon General, stressed that the Trump administration is working to develop better testing and treatment.

“I want you to know, we see you, we hear you. We’re going to make the invisible diseases visible now through Secretary Kennedy’s leadership and President Trump,” Haridopolos said. “We are all hands on deck.” 

Haridopolos also stressed the launching of a new HHS website, hhs.gov/lyme, as a go-to source for patients and families of patients with Lyme disease.

Lyme: A ‘science fiction nightmare’

Increasing prevention of Lyme disease is part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, not only because of the Trump administration’s focus on lowering the national chronic disease burden but also to encourage more physical activity outdoors. 

“Just to walk in the woods is a part of this seminal experience of being an American, in particular an American child,” Kennedy said. “It’s a science fiction nightmare that we now live in, that children cannot, that parents have to worry about their children going to the woods.”

Kennedy said at the event that CDC and HHS will be launching a new set of public-private partnerships in conjunction with state health departments “to develop and deploy practical strategies that target and eliminate ticks on wildlife before they can spread the disease to humans.  

The three species of ticks that spread Lyme disease reproduce mainly in white-tailed deer populations, particularly in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Kennedy said that as the deer population began to rise in the latter half of the 20th century, tick populations began rising in the 1980s.

The health secretary also said that ticks feed on mice, which then become infected and could spread the disease to humans.

Kennedy said the ultimate goal with new HHS prevention programs is “making deer less attractive to breeding and to also treat the mice.”

In terms of improving treatment for Lyme patients, HHS officials at the New Hampshire event said the Trump administration is launching new programs to develop more individualized testing for biomarkers of Lyme infection, which can produce different symptoms from patient to patient.

“There’s no silver bullet,” Kennedy said. “A treatment that works for one patient does not work with the other.”

Investigating speculation about Lyme as a bioweapon

Although it was not addressed at the New Hampshire event, Republicans in Congress have also invested resources into investigating whether Lyme disease may have been developed from a bioweapon by the U.S. military in the mid-20th century.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) led the charge last year to include appropriations in the fiscal 2026 defense spending package for a Government Accountability Office report on the possibility of U.S. military weaponization of Lyme disease. 

“The hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans suffering from Lyme disease—in addition to the millions across the United States—deserve to know the truth about the origins of their illness,” Smith said in December. “An enhanced understanding of how Lyme came to be will only assist in finding a cure for this debilitating disease.”

On his podcast in early January 2024, during his independent presidential campaign, Kennedy hosted author Kris Newby, who had recently published Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. 

Kennedy said during the podcast that Lyme “is highly likely to have been a military weapon.” 

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But during his confirmation hearing for HHS Secretary before the Senate health committee more than a year later in February 2025, Kennedy assured senators that he “never said that definitively Lyme disease was created in a biolab.” 

The GAO report is expected to be published later this year.