Madison Area Lyme Support Group

Health officials in Maine reported the first death this year of an untreatable tick-borne illness, putting Americans on alert as outdoor warm-weather activities kick off.

Robert J. Weymouth, a 58-year-old from Topsham, Maine passed away due to complications from the Powassan virus, which caused severe neurological problems, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The illness is extremely rare with about 25 cases reported each year since 2015, but it is also untreatable and can lead to severe health problems including infection of the brain, called encephalitis, or of the membranes around the brain and spinal cord, known as meningitis.

Many people who become infected with the virus do not develop symptoms, but those that do typically notice them up to a month after being bitten by an infected tick, which could include flu-like symptoms, seizures, brain swelling, and, in up to 15 percent of cases, death.

Weymouth’s death marks the third Powassan death in Maine since 2015, and, as winters become warmer and shorter, the world becomes a more hospitable place for disease-causing ticks.  (See link for article)

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A few points:

• Powassan, like any other virus IS TREATABLE; however, doctors are not catching it early enough because they are uneducated about tick-borne illness. It’s highly politicalized and has polarized the medical community.  Doctors are too afraid to diagnose and treat it due to this and are either ignorant or acting ignorantly out of self-preservation.  Either way, it’s not a good scenario & patients lose.
• Powassan is rarely diagnosed because most who contract it are asymptomatic – similarly to many other viruses – but also because testing is not available through clinical or commercial laboratories, but only through the Health Department. Further limiting diagnosis:
  • Patients should be hospitalized with meningitis or encephalitis
  • Have a presumed infectious cause of illness
  • Be negative or concurrently tested for more common causes of meningitis and encephalitis such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease, herpes and varicella.
• The patient’s wife was “frustrated at how little the doctors around her husband seemed to know about the illness. He was in the hospital for weeks before the medical team determined he had the virus.”  And, BINGO!  This, right here is the problem not that it is untreatable.  Please begin to pick up the continued use of language blaming peripheral things instead of addressing the root of the problem.
• And speaking of the continued emphasis on peripheral things rather than root issues, the title makes sure to bluster about “climate change,” a contentious but popular topic that many experts are flat-out denying and an independent researcher has stated has ZERO to do with tick and tick-borne disease proliferation.  Very little is discussed about the tweaking of ticks in labs and then dropping them out of airplanes.  Very little is discussed about the continued denial of chronically infected patients, the research showing it, and the juggernaut on faulty testing – which our government owns the patents on.  As you can see, ‘climate change’ is a wonderful diversion from these issues that would put the government in the spot-light.
• Please note that Wisconsin is a hot-spot for Powassan.  Please read this article on how Powassan IS NOT RARE.
• Coppe Labs, a specialized CLIA-certified lab, right in Waukesha, Wisconsin tests for Powassan, West Nile, Anaplasma, Babesia, Human Herpes Viruses 6 & 7, COVID, and Lyme disease.

For more on Powassan:

• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/21/powassan-virus/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/05/powassan-another-reason-to-avoid-ticks/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2021/07/09/what-is-powassan-virus/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/28/powassan-can-kill/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/18/powassan-and-bb-infection-in-wisconsin-and-u-s-tick-populations/
• https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2023/04/19/tick-borne-powassan-virus-is-being-transmitted-in-concentrated-clusters-in-new-england-yale-study-says/