Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Acaricides Work for Asian Long-horned Ticks

https://academic.oup.com/jme/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jme/tjab115/6312693#

Spray and Pour-On Acaricides Killed Tennessee (United States) Field-Collected Haemaphysalis longicornis Nymphs (Acari: Ixodidae) in Laboratory Bioassays

R A Butler, J G Chandler, K M Vail, C J Holderman, R T Trout Fryxell
Journal of Medical Entomology, tjab115, https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjab115
Published:  01 July 2021

Abstract

Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann (Asian longhorned tick) is an exotic and invasive tick species presenting a health and economic threat to the United States (U.S.) cattle industry due to its ability to transmit pathogens and infest hosts in large numbers. The objective of this study was to evaluate available products at causing H. longicornis mortality in a laboratory bioassay. The efficacy of products was evaluated at label rates using H. longicornis nymphs collected from a cattle farm in eastern Tennessee in two different bioassays (spray or dip) against untreated controls. After exposure, ticks were transferred to clean petri dishes and checked for mortality at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 21, 24, and 48 h post exposure. No mortality occurred in the untreated controls, whereas all treated ticks were dead within 24 h of exposure (P < 0.0001). These findings support the hypothesis that currently available spray and pour-on products are effective at causing H. longicornis mortality. We conclude that these acaricides can be used as a component to prevent H. longicornis dispersal and for control in the U.S.

https://entomologytoday.org/2021/08/05/acaricides-effective-invasive-asian-longhorned-tick/

Commonly Used Acaricides Found Effective on Invasive Tick

Haemaphysalis longicornis tick

The Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis), an invasive species in the U.S., is a threat to cattle and other livestock. A new study finds several pesticides used to manage other tick species are equally effective against the new arrival. (Photo by danabarb via iNaturalist, CC BY-NC 4.0)

By Andrew Porterfield

The Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis), a long-time cattle parasite in Asia, New Zealand and Australia, was discovered in the U.S. on a sheep in New Jersey in 2017, though the tick may have been in the country years earlier. Like too many invasive exotic species, it spread quickly and is now found in several eastern U.S. states. Also like invasive, exotic species, there is always a risk that it could evade eradication methods used on other ticks.

(See link for article)

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Important excerpt:

None of the ticks in a control group were killed, while all treated ticks were dead within 24 hours. “It was surprising that products used in this study caused mortality so quickly after the ticks were exposed,” says Butler.

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Category:

Prevention, research, Testing, Ticks

Mosquito Resistant Clothing Prevents Bites in Trials

https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/07/mosquito-resistant-clothing-prevents-bites-in-trials/

Mosquito-Resistant Clothing Prevents Bites in Trials

July 13, 2021  
Bite-resistant textiles
Mosquitoes landing on bite-resistant fabric during an in vivo bioassay in which they fail to probe through the fabric due to its small pore size. The proboscis bends when mosquitoes try to push through the fabric. Credit: Matt Bertone.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Andre West
R. Michael Roe
Kun Luan
Grayson Cave
Laura Oleniacz, NC State News Services

North Carolina State University researchers have created insecticide-free, mosquito-resistant clothing using textile materials they confirmed to be bite-proof in experiments with live mosquitoes. They developed the materials using a computational model of their own design, which describes the biting behavior of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries viruses that cause human diseases like Zika, Dengue fever and yellow fever.

Ultimately, the researchers reported in the journal Insects that they were able to prevent 100 percent of bites when a volunteer wore their clothing – a base layer undergarment and a combat shirt initially designed for the military – in a cage with 200 live, disease-free mosquitoes. Vector Textiles, an NC State startup company, has licensed the related patent rights and intends to make clothing for commercial sale in the United States.

The researchers think their computational model could be used more widely to develop clothing to reduce transmission of diseases.

“The fabric is proven to work – that’s the great thing we discovered,” said study co-author Andre West, associate professor of fashion and textile design at NC State and director of Zeis Textiles Extension for Economic Development. “To me, that’s revolutionary. We found we can prevent the mosquito from pushing through the fabric, while others were thick enough to prevent it from reaching the skin.”

To develop the computational model to design textile materials that could prevent A. aegypti bites, researchers investigated the dimensions of the head, antenna and mouth of A. aegypti, and the mechanics of how it bites. Then, they used the model to predict textile materials that would prevent bites, depending on their thickness and pore size. Researchers said they believe the materials could be effective against other mosquito species in addition to A. aegypti because of similarities in biology and biting behavior.

“There are different uses for clothing,” said the study’s first author Kun Luan, postdoctoral research scholar of forest biomaterials at NC State. “The idea is to have a model that will cover all possible garments that a person would ever want.”

To test the accuracy of their model, the researchers tested the materials predicted to be bite-proof. In experiments with live, disease-free mosquitoes, the researchers surrounded a blood reservoir with plastic materials made according to parameters predicted by the model. They then counted how many mosquitoes became engorged with blood.

One material they initially tested was very thin – less than one millimeter thick – but had a very small pore size to prevent the mosquito from sticking its mouth parts, or proboscis, through the material. Another material had a medium pore size to prevent the mosquito from inserting its head through the textile far enough to reach the skin; and a third material had larger pores, but was sufficiently thick that the mosquito’s mouth still couldn’t reach the skin.

In a subsequent test, the researchers chose a series of knitted and woven fabrics that met the bite-proof parameters determined by the model, and validated they worked in experiments using both the blood reservoir and human volunteers. The researchers tested the number of bites received by volunteers when study participants inserted an arm covered by a protective sleeve into a mosquito cage. The researchers also compared the fabrics’ ability to prevent bites and repel mosquitoes to fabrics treated with an insecticide.

From what they learned in early experiments, researchers developed the bite-resistant, form-fitting undergarment made with a thin material, as well as a long-sleeved shirt, which was initially envisioned as a combat shirt for the military.

When a volunteer wore the garments sitting for 10 minutes and standing for 10 minutes in a walk-in cage with 200 hungry mosquitos, the volunteer found the combat shirt was 100 percent effective at preventing bites. In the first trial testing the base layer, the volunteer received bites on the back and shoulders – seven bites for 200 mosquitoes. The researchers attributed the bites to the fabric stretching and deforming, so they doubled the material layer around the shoulders, and were ultimately able to prevent 100 percent of bites. They also tested the clothing for comfort, and to see how well it trapped heat and released moisture.

“The final garments that were produced were 100 percent bite-resistant,” said Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology at NC State. “Everyday clothing you wear in the summer is not bite-resistant to mosquitoes. Our work has shown that it doesn’t have to be that way. Clothes that you wear every day can be made bite-resistant. Ultimately, the idea is to have a model that will cover all possible garments that person would ever want – both for the military as well as for private use.”

The study, “Mosquito-textile physics: A mathematical roadmap to insecticide-free, bite-proof clothing for everyday life,” was published online July 13, 2021, in the journal Insects. It was authored by Luan, Roe, West, Charles Apperson, Marian McCord, Emiel DenHartog, Quan Shi, Nicholas Travanty, Robert Mitchell, Grayson Cave, John Strider and Youngxin Wang from NC State University and Isa Bettermann, Florian Neumann and Tobias Beck from Aachen University, Germany. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense Deployed War Fighter Program, Natick Contracting Division of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund at NC State, the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, PILOTS and the NC Agriculture Research Experiment Station.

-oleniacz-

Note to editors: The abstract follows.

“Mosquito-textile physics: A mathematical roadmap to insecticide-free, bite-proof clothing for everyday life”

Authors: Kun Luan, Andre J. West, Marian G. McCord, Emiel DenHartog, Quan Shi, Isa Bettermann, Jiayin Li, Nicholas V. Travanty, Robert D. Mitchell III, Grayson L. Cave, John B. Strider, Yongxin Wang, Florian Neumann, Tobias Beck, Charles S. Apperson and R. Michael Roe.

Published online in Insects on July 13, 2021.

DOI: 10.3390/insects12070636

Abstract: Garments treated with chemical insecticides are commonly used to prevent mosquito bites. Resistance to insecticides, however, is threatening the efficacy of this technology, and people are increasingly concerned about the potential health impacts of wearing insecticide-treated clothing. Here, we report a mathematical model for fabric barriers that resist bites from

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes based on textile physical structure and no insecticides. The model was derived from mosquito morphometrics and analysis of mosquito biting behavior. Precision polypropylene plates were first used to simulate woven and knitted fabrics for model validation.

Then based on model predictions, prototype knitted textiles and garments were developed that prevented mosquito biting and were tested for comfort. Our predictive model can be used to develop additional textiles in the future for garments that are highly bite-resistant to mosquitoes.

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Category:

Activism, mosquitoes, Prevention, research

Teaching Physical Therapists When and How to Suspect Lyme Disease

https://www.lymedisease.org/shea-physical-therapists-lyme/

Teaching physical therapists when and how to suspect Lyme disease

Jennifer Shea

By Jennifer Shea, PT, ATC-R

I practiced physical therapy for many years prior to becoming ill with Lyme disease and babesiosis. My education included a course in clinical pathology and a unit on infectious disease.

Less than one page in my medical textbooks was devoted to Lyme disease. The text described an acute flu-like illness experienced by individuals following a tick bite.

Key diagnostic features included a bull’s eye rash, facial nerve palsy and a swollen knee. Treatment consisted of a short course of doxycycline. It all seemed pretty straight forward. It wasn’t until I contracted the disease myself that I began to understand its elusive nature.

Unrecognized Lyme disease?

Reflecting back on my career, I recall several patients whom I treated that likely had Lyme disease and/or co-infections. I failed to recognize it at the time.

One patient had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. As I examined her, she couldn’t tolerate even the lightest touch due to skin sensitivity. She reported profound weakness, fatigue, muscle twitching, and wandering joint pain.

In an effort to improve her strength and endurance, I developed a treatment plan involving gentle aquatic exercise. The water would provide resistance she could tolerate, and the buoyancy could be used to our advantage. She appeared to do well at our first session but chose not to return. She explained that despite the gentleness of the intervention, she experienced overwhelming fatigue and malaise after any type of exercise.

Another patient came to the clinic with a diagnosis of neck pain. Patients can often associate the onset of symptoms with a precipitating event, but this patient’s pain came on gradually and without apparent cause. X-ray and MRI results were normal except for mild age-related changes. The location of her pain shifted randomly, moving from the upper to the lower neck region appearing on the right one day and the left another.

Typically, patients experience symptoms that improve or worsen in a predictable pattern associated with posture, repeated movements, or activities, but this patient’s symptoms fit no such pattern. She experienced numbness and tingling that migrated. During several treatment sessions, she complained of intense headaches and felt generally unwell due to a virus she recently caught that she “just couldn’t shake.” Whenever she appeared to improve in response to treatment, she would regress for reasons unknown.

Horowitz symptom questionnaire

I’ll never know if those patients had Lyme disease. At the time, I didn’t know enough about the disease to consider it as a possible underlying cause for their symptoms.

Today I am alert to its varied manifestations and have the benefit of using a tool called the Horowitz Multiple Systemic Infectious Diseases Syndrome Questionnaire to help sort things out.

The Horotwitz questionnaire has been shown to be a valid, efficient, and low-cost screening tool to assist practitioners in deciding if additional testing is needed to distinguish between Lyme disease and other illnesses. The results of a 2017 study showed that this questionnaire accurately differentiated those with Lyme disease from healthy individuals. It can be used by medical practitioners or laypersons.

According to the CDC, some 476,000 individuals in the United States are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease annually. According to MyLymeData, most patients see more than four physicians prior to being diagnosed, and 36% do not receive a diagnosis before at least six years of illness.

It’s reasonable to assume that many individuals with Lyme disease who have not yet been diagnosed seek physical therapy services to address the manifestations of the infection. Given that early treatment is associated with better outcomes, raising awareness among health care professionals is imperative.

It’s also important to make people aware of the limitations of diagnostic testing and that they have a choice when seeking treatment. They can choose to be treated under the guidelines set forth by the Infectious Diseases Society of America or those established by the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.

Early diagnosis is critical

To that end, I wrote an article that was recently published in Physical Therapy Journal to guide physical therapists in the recognition and referral of individuals with suspected Lyme disease. I hope that by educating physical therapists about the disease, many individuals will be diagnosed sooner than they might be otherwise.

Click here to read the article in Physical Therapy Journal.

Click here for the Horowitz Questionnaire: MSIDS-QUESTIONNAIRE-FINALR

Jennifer Shea, PT, ATC-R is a retired adjunct faculty member of Springfield College in Massachusetts.

References

Shea J. Physical therapist recognition and referral of individuals with suspected Lyme disease. Physical therapy. 2021;101(8). doi:10.1093/ptj/pzab128

Horowitz RI. Horowitz Lyme Questionnaire. CanGetBetter. Accessed February 12, 2021. https://cangetbetter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/MSIDS-QUESTIONNAIRE-FINALR.pdf

Citera M, Freeman PR, Horowitz RI. Empirical validation of the Horowitz multiple systemic infectious disease syndrome questionnaire for suspected Lyme disease. Int J  Gen Med. 2017;10:249-273. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S140224

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**Comment**

While treatment wasn’t the focus of this article, please understand it would be very unwise to “choose” IDSA Lyme treatment, as you will be given an insufficient course of doxycycline. This abysmal, monotherapy has shown to fail in nearly every antibiotic study ever done for the simple reasons that Lyme is a persistent, stealthy pathogen, and it rarely comes alone. 

Far wiser, is to locate a Lyme literate doctor specifically trained in tick-borne illness who appreciates and understands the complexities of treating this monster. These doctors diagnose and treat clinically based upon symptoms, not an antiquated, faulty test that misses anywhere from 50-90% of cases.

If you are new to this game, please read the sordid back-story and why there is polarization within the medical community on nearly every aspect of the illness. 

WARNING: Regarding tick-borne illness, all you will get from mainstream medicine is heartache, abuse, and poverty.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research, Testing, Treatment

New Book on Human Experimentation & Biological & Chemical Weapons

https://www.activistpost.com/2021/09/u-s-indifferent-to-human-experimentation-and-biological-and-chemical-weapons-new-book-points-to-a-monstrous-agenda

U.S. Indifferent to Human Experimentation and Biological and Chemical Weapons — New Book Points to a Monstrous Agenda

September 1, 2021

Excerpts from article:

At the Breaking Point of History: How Decades of U.S. Duplicity Enabled the Pandemic by Activist Post contributor Janet Phelan details the US government’s indifference to the welfare of individuals and to its legal obligations under national and international accords prohibiting human experimentation and biological and chemical weapons. (The book is available at TrineDay and elsewhere.)

Ms. Phelan recently said,

“We are embroiled in a pandemic which has collapsed economies, caused death by starvation, and has resulted in severe new restrictions on civil rights in the US and elsewhere. Yet many medical professionals and researchers are questioning the genesis of Covid-19. Was it bioengineered? Was it deliberately released? They’re also questioning the numbers alleged to have died from it, pointing to dictates from the CDC to list deaths not directly caused by the virus as virus-caused deaths.”

Janet Phelan is an investigative reporter. Her articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Bernardino County Sentinel, Orange Coast Magazine, New Eastern Outlook, and elsewhere. She currently writes for Activist Post and has previously published an intelligence expose, Exile, and two books of poetry.

TrineDay is a small publishing house that arose as a response to the consistent refusal of the corporate press to publish many interesting, well-researched and well-written books with but one key “defect”: a challenge to official history that would tend to rock the boat of America’s corporate “culture.” TrineDay believes in our Constitution and our common right of Free Speech.

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**Comment**

Hopefully Lyme/MSIDS patients are aware of the sordid backstory of tick-borne illness. This backstory that reads like a rap sheet is actually quite similar to the COVID debacle we find ourselves living through, with many of the same bioweaponization aspects, key players, and institutions that have severe conflicts of interest and have no business determining public health policy.

A year ago the House passed a measure to probe into our government’s tick experimentation, and bioweaponry.

It is known from previous interviews that researchers dumped infected ticks from airplanes.  Investigative journalist Kris Newby reported in her book, “Bitten,” that Willy Burgdorfer, the “discoverer” of Borrelia burgdorferi – the causative agent of Lyme disease, worked at the Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana, and for 13 years he was the military’s go-to expert for mass-producing disease agents inside ticks.  According to the book, A CIA/military project code named “Operation Mongoose” involved giving false identifies to agents in order to protect the U.S. government. They wore uniforms of a sham airline run by the CIA and dumped boxes of infected ticks out of the airplane. One agent’s son came down with a mysterious illness that caused brain inflammation that could have caused permanent brain damage if a resident with previous work in tropical medicine hadn’t recognized it and knew how to treat it.  When the agent asked the commander if there was a connection between his work and his son’s illness, the commander told him to burn all the clothing he took to Cuba.  “Burn everything.”

It is far more likely that the tick and disease proliferation we are seeing today is due to our own government’s work and the massive amount of infected ticks being dropped from airplanes, than the scapegoated reason of “climate change.”  These ticks were force-fed numerous pathogens – sometimes numerous ones simultaneously.  Burgdorfer also sent ticks to others for bioweaponry projects – one of which was to a researcher doing studies on radiation-induced mutations of various ticks and microbes.

We need look no further than our own government’s nefarious research to understand the mess we are in today.

Category:

Activism, Inflammation, Lyme, research, Ticks, vaccines, Viruses

Why Are We Suddenly Rejecting Science By Forcing Vaccines on Absolutely Everyone? Asks The Hill’s Kim Iverson

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/kim-iverson-rejecting-science-natural-immunity-forcing-vaccines

Why Are ‘We Suddenly Rejecting Science by Forcing Vaccines on Absolutely Everyone’? Asks The Hill’s Kim Iverson

Political commentator Kim Iverson says conventional science has always favored natural immunity when it comes to longer lasting and stronger protection against infection — so why are we now “suddenly rejecting science by forcing vaccines on absolutely everyone?”
Political commentator Kim Iverson points out on The Hill’s “Rising,” these new findings aren’t really 'bombshell' at all.

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A bombshell new study shows natural immunity to COVID provides 13 times more protection against the Delta variant versus vaccination alone.

But as political commentator Kim Iverson points out on The Hill’s “Rising,” these new findings aren’t really “bombshell” at all.

Conventional science, she says, has always shown that past infection provides “robust immunity” against future reinfections.

“Why suddenly, after over 100 years of recognizing previous infection as a robust form of immunity,” Iverson asks, “are we suddenly rejecting science by forcing vaccines on absolutely everyone?”

In the largest real-world observational study, conducted in Israel — one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world — scientists followed 700,000 people, splitting them into three groups: vaccinated people who received two doses of the Pfizer jab, unvaccinated people who recovered from COVID, and individuals who both recovered from the virus and received one dose the Pfizer vaccine.

The study found natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization.

“The researchers hypothesize that it’s because of B and T cell memory,” Iverson explained. “And the fact that people who recovered from the virus are exposed to the entire virus, not just the spike protein that the vaccines expose the body to.”

The study is yet to be peer-reviewed, she said, but the findings are consistent with other studies and public health data.

“For some strange, politicized reason,” said Iverson, “this scientific fact has been hotly debated in the U.S.”

For example, she explains:

“In the incidence of chickenpox, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends vaccination for those who haven’t had a previous infection. On their website, under the heading, ‘Who needs a chickenpox vaccine?’ the CDC says: ‘People 13 years of age and older who have never had chickenpox or received chickenpox vaccine should get two doses, at least 28 days apart.’

“Same thing for the measles, and even polio, if they are not combined with other vaccines. Even during the smallpox outbreak, when vaccines became mandated, the certificate of immunity clearly gives clearance for those who had previously recovered from smallpox.”

So, Iverson asks, why are world health officials ignoring the science of natural immunity?

“Are public health officials just caving to the demands of a frightened public?” Iverson wondered. “Are they caving to the desires of greedy Big Pharma?”

Iverson said:

“In the European Union, where some countries have implemented vaccine passports, people can obtain one by either showing proof of vaccination, testing negative for the virus within 72 hours, or through proof of recovery from previous infection.

“This is based on sound science. So, what is it that is causing this sudden rejection of widely accepted science here in the United States?

“We currently have colleges, corporations, Big Tech, politicians and U.S. public health officials, all openly excluding natural immunity as a basis for medical exemption.

“When recovered patients raise an eyebrow over policies mandating  they be vaccinated, their education, their livelihoods and their ability to participate in society are threatened.”

For example, Jeanna Norris, a supervisory administrative associate and fiscal officer at Michigan State University, who has natural immunity after recovering from the virus, sued the school over its vaccine mandate.

A judge, however, ruled against Norris on Tuesday, arguing that:

“… because Plaintiff does not have a constitutionally protected property interest in her employment position at MSU, and is not being denied any constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, nor is employment a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, this matter will receive rational basis scrutiny…

“And for Plaintiff to win under this standard of review, Plaintiff must show that MSU’s vaccine mandate is not rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest, i.e., the health and safety of the public. Plaintiff is unlikely to win under rational basis review. Therefore, at this stage, Plaintiff has not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits.”

Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor, recently filed a similar lawsuit against his employer requesting a medical exemption from the school’s vaccine mandate.

Zywicki argued that because he has natural immunity, “there’s no justification for a coercive violation of my bodily autonomy.” The university caved to the suit, awarding Zywicki the exemption last month.

As Iverson points out, the new data on natural immunity raises a “huge ethical question” about the demand to vaccinate the world, regardless of their previous infection status.

She said:

“The CDC estimates that over a third of all Americans have recovered from COVID. That means if the vaccines can even help us reach herd immunity, we only need 50% vaccinated to get us to a combined 80%.

“Currently the U.S. is reporting just over 55% fully vaccinated, but it would be interesting to know how many of those were previously infected in order to give us a true picture of how close we are to this believed threshold for herd immunity.

“This would be important data for us to know in order for us to find out if herd immunity is even possible with this virus.”

Luckily, countries like Israel are keeping good records, said Iverson.

“They have not politicized the virus,” she said. “They’re able to give better insights into what’s working and what isn’t.”

Iverson said she hopes this latest study showing natural immunity is the best protection will “finally change our current line of thinking.”

She makes clear no one is advocating for people to go out and get COVID. But the reality, she says, is that millions of people already had the virus, and many more will.

“The people who have recovered have robust immunity,” Iverson said. “That should be accepted, even studied by our society, as it always has, rather than shunned.”

Watch the “Rising” segment here:

Category:

research, vaccines, Viruses