Blacklegged Tick – Increasing Public Health Concern

January 21, 2018

The Blacklegged Tick, Ixodes scapularis: An Increasing Public Health Concern

Rebecca J. Eisen, Lars Eisen

Publication stage: In Press Corrected Proof
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2017.12.006

Highlights

  • The blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, is becoming more widespread in the eastern United States.
  • The number of I. scapularis-borne microorganisms recognized to be pathogenic in humans is increasing.
  • The incidence of I. scapularis-borne disease cases continues to increase.

The geographic distribution of human cases of I. scapularis-borne diseases is expanding.

There is a critical need for control approaches with proven capacity to reverse the growing public health problem imposed by I. scapularis.

In the United States, the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, is a vector of seven human pathogens, including those causing Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Borrelia miyamotoi disease, Powassan virus disease, and ehrlichiosis associated with Ehrlichia muris eauclarensis.

In addition to an accelerated rate of discovery of I. scapularis-borne pathogens over the past two decades, the geographic range of the tick, and incidence and range of I. scapularis-borne disease cases, have increased. Despite knowledge of when and where humans are most at risk of exposure to infected ticks, control of I. scapularis-borne diseases remains a challenge. Human vaccines are not available, and we lack solid evidence for other prevention and control methods to reduce human disease. The way forward is discussed.

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**Comment**

Hopefully this memo is getting out to practitioners so that long-gone are the days where a patient is told, “It can’t be Lyme because there isn’t any Lyme here.”  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/09/24/arkansas-kids-denied-lyme-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/24/no-lyme-in-oklahoma-yeah-right/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/03/ld-not-in-australia-here-we-go-again/

Feel free to copy this article and show it to health practitioners.  They NEED to know what we all have known for decades.

See the blue link in the beginning of the article for graphs and images.  For some reason I wasn’t able to upload them here.  Again, all data needs to be viewed with skepticism for a myriad of reasons, the main one being that everything regarding TBI’s is underreported and even the CDC acknowledges this – which demonstrates how severe the problem truly is.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/24/canine-maps-better-than-the-cdcs-in-predicting-lyme-disease/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/12/the-cdc-needs-a-good-dictionary/

Promising research testing for ALL bacteria in ticks:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/15/developing-new-tests-to-identify-all-bacteria-in-ticks-drexel-university/

We need to know:

Bb Persistence, if it’s a STD, it can be spread congenitally, via breast milk, urine and body fluids, other possible vectors such as mosquitoes and spiders, how to kill these suckers without killing ourselves and pets, and many other issues that have either been ignored completely or the science is so old is has dust on it.

 

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), Lyme, research, Ticks

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