Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

Lyme Disease Turns 40. There Will Be No Cake.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2017/07/20/lyme-disease-turns-there-will-cake/vpP1zmsTVlakthjRApsHAJ/story.html   By Mayeesha Galiba  JULY 20, 2017

> 1977 — Year researchers at Yale published papers describing “Lyme arthritis,” named for an outbreak around Lyme, Connecticut

36 to 48 — Minimum number of hours a tick needs to feed on a person before it can transmit Lyme disease  (please see my comment below)

0.137 — Average maximum size, in inches, of adult deer ticks, the primary transmitters of Lyme disease; younger ticks can be as small as a poppy seed

4,618 — Estimated cases of Lyme in Massachusetts in 2016; the average since 2012 is 5,048 per year

132 — Estimated cases of Lyme in Suffolk County in 2016

> 96% — Percent of Lyme disease cases in the US occur in 14 states in the Northeast and Midwest; New England states have the highest number per 100,000 people  (See comment)The Tick, created by Pembroke’s Ben Edlund for New England Comics.

The Tick, created by Pembroke’s Ben Edlund for New England Comics.

20-25% — Approximate chances a deer tick in a high-risk area like the Northeast will carry Lyme disease

> 80-90% — Percentage of cases in which a person with Lyme disease develops a rash (not always the telltale bull’s-eye) at the bite spot  (See Comment)

> 10 — The time, in minutes, it takes for a dryer set on high to kill any live ticks on clothing

> 1998 — Year SmithKlineBeecham’s LYMErix vaccine for humans was approved for sale; it was pulled from the market in 2002 due to poor sales (See Comment)

> 2009 — Year Merck released Nobivac, a Lyme disease vaccine for dogs that has since been administered safely to more than 2 million canines

QUOTABLE CARTOONS

“Don’t make us bite you in hard-to-reach places!” — The Tick, a spoof superhero created by Pembroke’s Ben Edlund for New England Comics (from the animated TV series 1994-1997)

Sources: Massachusetts Department of Public Health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; American Lyme Disease Association; LymeDisease.org; NIH; New England Comics; PubMed; Yale

As to the percentage of LD in geographical areas, this is continually unfolding.  Everyone is saying ticks are on the move – basically everywhere and have been found on every continent but Antarctica.  Many states have not been reporting cases as well as don’t accept a case because it’s never been there before:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/09/24/arkansas-kids-denied-lyme-treatment/
Regarding percentage of ticks carrying Lyme Disease:  https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/ticks/about-ticks/
Because tick studies have only been done in a relatively few places, in most of the US, tick infection rates are unknown. Even in places where ticks generally do not carry Lyme, there may be hotspots of infection depending on local conditions. The tick infection rate may also change from year to year, even in one location.
Percentage of folks seeing a rash is far lower and ranges from 27%-80%: Rashes-larger-bloghttps://www.lymedisease.org/lymepolicywonk-how-many-of-those-with-lyme-disease-have-the-rash-estimates-range-from-27-80-2/  Hardly anyone I know sees an EM rash.
As to the Lyme vaccine being pulled from the market due to lack of demand:
Did you know that the LYMERIX vaccine caused 640 emergency room visits, 34 life threatening reactions, 77 hospitalizations, 198 disabilities, and 6 deaths? In a vile cesspool of conflicts of interest are university patent holders, drug companies, and the FDA itself as another patent holder. It generated 40 million dollars before it was yanked. (2008, Drymon)
http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/lymerix One doctor stated that 21 patients developed severe arthritis after receiving the LYMERIX vaccine.
http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/index.php/about-lyme/controversy/vaccine/261-lymerix-meeting “Given that Dr. Marks lead the clinical trials for Lymerix’s competitor, the OspA vaccine produced and then abandoned by Aventis Pasteur, his conclusions mean a lot. “In my opinion,” he told FDA officials, “there is sufficient evidence that Lymerix is causally related to severe rheumatologic, neurologic, autoimmune, and other adverse events in some individuals. This evidence is such as to warrant a significantly heightened degree of warnings and possible limitations or removal from marketing of Lymerix.”
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/26/lyme-vaccine-to-be-tested-on-humans/ The biological mechanism hypothesis was that the outer surface protein A (OspA), which was the antigenic component of the LYMErix vaccine, induced autoimmunity in genetically susceptible individuals, including high levels of autoantibody to OspA in their synovial fluid.
Dr. Stricker states:
Another Lyme OspA Vaccine Whitewash   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28141584/#comments
The meta-analysis by Zhao and colleagues comes to the conclusion that “the OspA vaccine against Lyme disease is safe and its immunogenicity and efficacy have been verified.” The authors arrive at this sunny conclusion by excluding 99.6% of published articles that demonstrate potential problems with the OspA vaccine. Furthermore, the authors ignore peer-reviewed studies, FDA regulatory meetings and legal proceedings that point to major problems with OspA vaccine safety (1-3). This whitewash bodes ill for future Lyme vaccine candidates because it fosters disregard for vaccine safety among Lyme vaccine manufacturers and mistrust among potential Lyme vaccinees.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Lyme Vaccine, Ticks, Transmission

Shedding Light on Bartonella

https://cvm.ncsu.edu/shedding-light-on-an-emerging-infectious-disease/

Shedding Light on an Emerging Infectious Disease

Erin Lashnits, small animal internal medicine resident, was one of just 10 veterinary medicine residents nationwide to receive the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine’s Resident Research Award for her work on Bartonella. Photo by John Joyner/NC State Veterinary Medicine

July 17, 2017

It lives in the lining of blood vessels and is transmitted to people mostly by fleas or ticks or lice, causing an array of diseases in both humans and animals.

That much was known about the bacterium Bartonella.

A new project from the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine fills in many of the blanks.

The research answers lingering questions about Bartonella and Bartonellosis, the group of infectious diseases it causes. A comprehensive survey of dogs across North America, the study identified that non-neutered male dogs and mixed breeds are more likely to be exposed to Bartonella. Bartonella was seen in almost every state in America and in southern Canadian provinces.

The research also found that dogs exposed to Lyme disease or other conditions transmitted through a bite from an infected host, collectively known as vector-borne diseases, are more likely to be exposed to Bartonella, commonly treated with antibiotics.

That finding is particularly impactful since Bartonellosis is sometimes treated differently than other vector-borne diseases.

“This kind of information is important not only for veterinarians attempting to diagnose and treat their patients, but also for pet owners trying to keep their dogs healthy,” said Erin Lashnits, a dual graduate student and small animal internal medicine resident at the CVM who co-authored the study. ”Determining where a disease comes from allows us to prevent exposure more effectively.”

Earlier this month, Lashnits was one of just 10 veterinary medicine residents nationwide to receive the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine’s Resident Research Award for her work on Bartonella.

Ed Breitschwerdt, professor of medicine and infectious disease, has spent more than three decades studying vector-transmitted pathogens.

The research was co-authored by Barbara Hegarty, supervisor of the CVM’s Vector Borne Disease Diagnostics Lab, internal medicine professor Adam Birkenheuer and epidemiology and public health professor Maria Correa. Lashnits’ mentor and Ph.D. adviser is Ed Breitschwerdt, professor of medicine and infectious disease, who has spent more than three decades studying vector-transmitted pathogens.

“The scope of research done by veterinarians and researchers and presented at the ACVIM Forum is huge, from endocrine diseases like diabetes to treatment of cancer in dogs and cats to infectious diseases,” said Lashnits. “So I feel particularly lucky to get this recognition.”

A New York native, Lashnits holds a bachelor’s degree in astrobiology and a master’s in biology, both from Stanford University. She conducted research on chronic inflammation at the University of California, San Francisco, before earning her DVM from Cornell University. She worked in general practice for a few years in Buffalo, N.Y., before coming to the CVM in 2015.

Lashnits is in CVM’s rigorous Clinician Investigator program, which combines a small animal internal medicine residency with a Ph.D. in comparative biomedical sciences. Lashnits is finishing the second year of her residency and the first year of her Ph.D. work on Bartonella epidemiology.

“The program was designed to prepare veterinarians for careers in academia, research or government,” said Breitschwerdt. “As such, the CVM gets to train the best of the very best.”

Breitschwerdt described the team’s research as the largest Bartonella epidemiological database reported in veterinary literature to date.

Widely recognized as a world leader in Bartonella research, Breitschwerdt directs the Intracellular Pathogens Research Library at NC State’s Comparative Medicine Institute. That lab isolated, genetically characterized and named the first Bartonella species ever found in a dog anywhere in the world, said Breitschwerdt. The CVM’s Vector Borne Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory, which Breitschwerdt co-directs, validated tests detecting antibodies to the pathogens in dogs, other animal species and humans.

In dogs, Bartonella is associated with heart valve infections and several chronic illnesses. An expanding list of Bartonella species and subspecies infect humans. One Bartonella species leads to cat scratch fever in people. Another transmits trench fever. Several can cause inflammation of the inner layer of the heart.

“Hopefully we will have some more information out on Bartonella risk specifically in North Carolina in the next year,” said Lashnits.

There is evidence that various Bartonella forms have evolved with their hosts around the world. Bartonella subspecies have successfully co-evolved with cats, dogs, cattle, sheep, squirrels and kangaroos.

The project is a milestone in the growing field of Bartonella research. According to  Breitschwerdt, before 1990 there was only one named Bartonella species. Now there are 36, with 17 of those connected to a spectrum of diseases. In a paper published this year, Breitschwerdt wrote that Bartonella and Bartonellosis, “represent one of the more important contemporary One Health challenges of modern times.” The One Health approach to medicine, to which the CVM subscribes, links the health of people to the health of animals and the environment.

As Lashnits’ work helps fill the gaps of knowledge about Bartonella, there are still more questions. There’s also an unwavering commitment to answer them.

“Hopefully we will have some more information out on Bartonella risk specifically in North Carolina in the next year,” said Lashnits.

~Jordan Bartel/NC State Veterinary Medicine

 

For more on Bartonella:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/04/26/bartonella-a-growing-health-concern/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/20/bartonella-endocarditis-opportunistic-infection-in-cancer-patients-and-eye-inflammation/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/04/endocarditis-consider-bartonella/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/11/bartonella-henselae-in-children-with-congenital-heart-disease/

Category:

Bartonella, Lyme, research, Ticks

Ticks Found on Eyeball, Buttocks, Penis, & Inside the Ear

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/health/ticks-disease-united-states.html?

It’s High Time for Ticks, Which Are Spreading Diseases Farther
LINDSAY MORRIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ANERI PATTANI
JULY 24, 2017

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — This town is under siege from tiny invaders.

A doctor at Southampton Hospital recently pulled a tick off a woman’s eyeball. After a 10-minute walk outside, a mother reported finding a tick affixed to her 7-year-old daughter’s buttocks.

Another mother called the hospital in a “hysterical state,” according to the nurse who answered, because a tick had attached itself to her son’s penis.

Like many towns across the country, Southampton is seeing a tick population that is growing both in numbers and variety — at a time when ticks are emerging as a significant public health danger.

“Tick-borne diseases are a very serious problem, and they’re on the rise,” said Rebecca Eisen, a research biologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Even though you may live in an area where you didn’t have ticks in the past or your parents don’t remember having ticks, the distribution is changing,” she added. “More and more people are at risk.”

With the expansion of the suburbs and a push to conserve wooded areas, deer and mice populations are thriving. They provide ample blood meals for ticks and help spread the pests to new regions.

Originally from the Southeast, the lone star tick, for example, is heading north; it can now be found in 1,300 counties in 39 states. The blacklegged tick, also called the deer tick, is expanding its territory, too. In a recent study, Dr. Eisen reported a nearly 45 percent increase since 1998 in the number of counties with blacklegged ticks.

Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center, said it used to get reports of three or four lone star ticks in the greater Chicago area each year. Now, it is receiving up to 15.

When a tick species marches into a new region, it poses a double-barreled threat, said Jerome Goddard, extension professor of medical and veterinary entomology at Mississippi State University.

First, the species brings diseases from its original location. Second, the ticks pick up new pathogens from animals in their new ecosystem.

Physicians and patients in a tick’s new home may be less familiar with the diseases it carries. They can overlook symptoms or attribute them to a different cause, delaying effective treatment.

The best known threat is Lyme disease. Cases in the United States increased from about 12,000 annually in 1995 to nearly 40,000 in 2015. Experts say the real number of infections is likely closer to 300,000.

But scientists are finding ticks carry more than just Lyme: At least a third of known tick-borne pathogens were found in the last 20 years. Heartland virus and Bourbon virus, which can prove fatal, were discovered in just the last five years.

Powassan virus, a rare but dangerous pathogen that can cause permanent brain damage or death, can be passed from tick to human in just 15 minutes. It was discovered in 1958, and an average of seven cases are reported each year. Earlier this month, a resident of Saratoga County, N.Y., who had Powassan disease died.

Dr. Gary Wormser, founder of the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center at New York Medical College, said the most worrisome tick-borne contagion he sees is babesiosis, which can cause malaria-like symptoms and require hospitalization. A few of his patients have died from it; several required intensive care.

Before 2001, babesiosis was not found in Westchester, N.Y. But Westchester Medical Center has diagnosed at least 21 cases in the past year.

A study of babesiosis in Wisconsin found a 26-fold increase in the number of cases between 2001 to 2003, and 2012 to 2015.

In places where the lone star tick is gaining prevalence, doctors also are seeing an increase in cases of alpha-gal syndrome, a strange allergy to red meat induced by tick bites.

Alpha-gal is a sugar molecule carried by the lone star tick. When the tick bites a human, it activates the immune system, which starts producing alpha-gal antibodies.

The body becomes wired to fight alpha-gal sugar molecules, which are abundant in red meat. Eating meat can trigger allergic reactions, from an itchy rash to anaphylactic shock.

Dr. Erin McGintee, an allergist and immunologist at ENT and Allergy Associates in Southampton, sees two to three cases of alpha-gal syndrome per week during tick season. Since diagnosing her first case in October 2010, she has seen more than 380 patients.

“The cases are definitely increasing over time,” she said.

That is no surprise to Karen Wulffraat, administrative director of Southampton Hospital’s Tick-Borne Disease Resource Center.

“The calls about lone star tick bites are increasing in number, even overtaking the blacklegged tick,” which is native to the Northeast, she said.

Cathy Ward and her husband bought a summer home in Southampton in 1984, and moved there permanently eight years ago.

Ms. Ward remembers taking her son Bill to the nearby wildlife refuge as a child, where he would fill his hands with birdseed and stand with his arms outstretched until birds came and perched on them.

Now when Bill Ward visits with his young daughter, Taylor, his mother tells them the refuge is off limits — it is a breeding ground for ticks.

“It wasn’t a concern when Bill was young,” Ms. Ward said. “Now you have to protect yourself all the time. You don’t know where you’re going to pick up a tick.”

She will not garden in the yard anymore, and has it sprayed for ticks annually. Despite that, her granddaughter got a tick while visiting during the Fourth of July weekend. The family found it before it had bitten her, but it was a shock nonetheless.

“It’s scary, because we don’t know which diseases they carry,” said Mr. Ward.

Brian Kelly, owner of East End Tick and Mosquito Control, has noticed the change, too. His company now sprays people’s lawns instead of just their bushes because lone star ticks are more aggressive than the native blacklegged ticks, and tend to venture further from the woods.

“People can walk across their lawn barefoot to get the newspaper and get a tick,” he said.

As human exposure to ticks continues to increase, it’s likely that even the rarest infections they carry will become more common, Dr. Goddard said.

“This really has a human toll that a lot of people don’t recognize,” he said.

__________________

**Comment**

Ticks found in the ear:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/05/02/tick-in-boys-ear-had-to-be-surgically-removed/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/03/tick-bite-in-ear-gave-uk-teacher-rickettsial-typhus-infection/

 

Category:

Babesia, Lyme, Ticks, Viruses

Tick Inside Eye

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2017/07/15/pokin-around-he-knew-watching-naked-and-afraid-he-had-tick-inside-eyelid/472178001/ Steve Pokin, Spokin@NEWS-LEADER.COM  July 15, 2017

Pokin Around: He knew from watching ‘Naked and Afraid’ he had a tick on inside of eyelid636354599974837121-jcoyle-eye

Jim Coyle has been bitten by ticks hundreds of times in his 47 years. But never like this.

He thinks he was bit on the Fourth of July. He spent the holiday with girlfriend Cara Dee Stucke and others on his 9 acres in Northview, in Webster County.

He was in the yard that day.

“But I wasn’t rolling around in the grass or anything,” he says.

He also did some woodworking.

“There was some sawdust,” he explains.

He returned to work July 5 here at the News-Leader, where he is a senior computer analyst.

“My eye was irritated,” he says. “It was very annoying.”

He first thought it might be from the sawdust. But he could not spot anything on his eyeball. Then, he started thinking tick bite.

The only reason he even considered it might be a tick bite is because he is a fan of the reality TV show “Naked and Afraid,”  on the Discovery Channel. In the show, two people — a man and a woman — meet for the first time and must survive in the wilderness for 21 days. Naked.

“I had recently seen a woman on the show get a tick bite in the eye,” Coyle tells me. “I told the kids about that show on the Fourth and when I said the next day I thought I had a tick bite in my eye they thought I was kidding.”

His girl friend, Stucke, a professional photographer, stopped by to see him at work on July 5.

Coyle rolled back the top eyelid of his left eye and there it was — an embedded tick.

“Since she’s a photographer she said, ‘I have to have a picture,'” Coyle says.

He put that photo on his Facebook page, which is where I saw it and immediately went, “Eeewwww, gross.”

He quickly called Heffington Optical Company, which is near the News-Leader on West Chestnut Expressway, and snagged an appointment that afternoon.

First, the optometrist put anesthetic eye drops in Coyle’s left eye. It took Dr. Charles Hornby about 15 seconds to remove the tick, which did not let go easily.

“He then handed me a tissue,” Coyle says. “He told me my eye was bleeding.”

According to Coyle, Hornby said that over the years he has removed countless bugs from the eyes of motorcycle riders. But never before had he dislodged a tick from the inside of an eyelid.

Coyle says that as a hiker and a former Boy Scout leader — as well as a horse rider who has ridden through tall grass — he has been bitten many of times, several times a year.

I found that strange. I told him I don’t recall ever being bitten by a tick. He found that strange.

The mosquitoes love me, as do chiggers.

In fact, Coyle says, after a tick bit him in 2014 he contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

According to the Mayo Clinic Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a bacterial infection. Without prompt treatment, it can cause serious damage to internal organs, such as the kidneys and heart.

Although it was first identified in the Rocky Mountains, the infection is commonly found in the southeastern part of the United States.

Early symptoms include severe headache and high fever. A rash usually appears on the wrists and ankles. The infection responds well to prompt treatment with antibiotics.

In 2014, Coyle says, his fever spiked at 105. He had intense joint pain for six weeks before full recovery.

I remember that. I had just started the News-Leader Running Club on Mondays after work.

In those early days, Coyle ran with us a couple of times.

“I stopped because of the joint pain,” he tells me. “And because I really don’t like running.”

These are the views of Steve Pokin, the News-Leader’s columnist. Pokin has been at the paper five years and over the course of his career has covered just about everything — from courts and cops to features and fitness. He can be reached at 836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 N. Boonville, Springfield, MO 65806.

Category:

Activism, Ticks

Brave New Worlds: The Expanding Universe of Lyme Disease

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vbz.2017.2127#utm_source=FastTrack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=vbz

Brave New Worlds: The Expanding Universe of Lyme Disease

Stone Brandee L., Tourand Yvonne, and Brissette Catherine A.. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. July 2017, ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2017.2127

Online Ahead of Print: July 20, 2017

Abstract

Projections around the globe suggest an increase in tick-vectored disease incidence and distribution, and the potential for emergence of novel tick-borne pathogens. Lyme disease is the most common reported tick-borne illness in the Unites States and is prevalent throughout much of central Europe. In recent years, the worldwide burden of Lyme disease has increased and extended into regions and countries where the disease was not previously reported. In this review, we discuss the trends for increasing Lyme disease, and examine the factors driving Lyme disease expansion, including the effect of climate change on the spread of vector Ixodid ticks and reservoir hosts; and the impacts of increased awareness on disease reporting and diagnosis. To understand the growing threat of Lyme disease, we need to study the interplay between vector, reservoir, and pathogen. In addition, we need to understand the contributions of climate conditions to changes in disease risk.

**Comment**

Once again we see the emphasis of climate change despite recent reports of fraudulent data used to support this assertion.  For more, please see:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/08/global-warming-numbers-fudged/

We can all agree that ticks are expanding and infecting people and animals; however, you only have to listen to Lyme advocates and patients for about one minute before you realize that there have been infected people across the United States for a very long time.

Problem is, nobody believed them.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/09/24/arkansas-kids-denied-lyme-treatment/  Thousands of patients for years have been complaining that Lyme/MSIDS is in their geographical area but experts look at out of date and out of touch vector maps which medical practitioners then use against patients.  They will not even entertain the thought if goes contrary to the map.

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

We can be thankful that people are not taking this sitting down any longer and are pushing until it finally gets reported:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/02/hold-the-press-arkansas-has-lyme/

Category:

Lyme, Ticks