Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

New Brunswick Pharmacists Can Now Access Funds to Treat “High-Risk” Tick Bites

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2023.10.0498.html

Pharmacists now able to treat another common ailment

03 October 2023

FREDERICTON (GNB) – The provincial government is adding to the list of common ailments that pharmacists are publicly funded to treat, as part of an effort to give New Brunswickers better access to care. Starting today, pharmacists are funded to treat conjunctivitis, sometimes referred to as “pink eye.” This follows an announcement in May that residents could access publicly funded care from participating pharmacies for the following conditions: contact allergic dermatitis; cold sores; mild to moderate eczema; gastroesophageal reflux disease; impetigo; Lyme disease prevention after a high-risk tick bite; and mild acne. The Department of Health estimates 1,100 patients visited a walk-in clinic for conjunctivitis in the past year. “We know that many families are affected by conjunctivitis, and they need to see someone for relief,” said Health Minister Bruce Fitch. “To ensure that New Brunswickers can see the right care provider for the right service at the right time, we are working with our highly skilled pharmacists, who care for people in their communities, to make it easier to access these needed services.” Pharmacists in Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan are already able to treat conjunctivitis. New Brunswick pharmacists are now able to assess and prescribe for 12 common ailments and services to divert patient traffic from emergency rooms, walk-in clinics or other primary care providers. More information about publicly funded services that pharmacists can offer is available online. People are advised to ask their local pharmacist which services are available, as it is not mandatory for every pharmacist to treat all minor ailments. While the cost of the consultation for certain ailments is covered, patients are still responsible for the cost of prescribed medications, as well as any fees for injections provided by pharmacy professionals. 

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**Comment**

IMO this press release opens a big can of worms.

What is a high-risk tick bite?

Similarly to the mythology that there is some sort of “grace period” for tick bites, every tick bite I’m aware of has the potential to be highly risky in that you could become infected with one or more pathogens that could drop you to your knees in agony and deplete you of all your money and joy.  

The fact they are listing Lyme disease, pink eye, eczema, impetigo and gastric reflux in the same sentence shows this is still not being taken seriously.  

The article admits that Lyme disease is a “common” ailment, but gives far more weight to pink eye!

These pharmacists are not receiving any education, just money – which means they will not be informed about what they are doing.  While the press release doesn’t state what this “treatment” looks like, I’m going to venture a guess that they will prescribe one or two pills of doxycycline, which research has shown to be ineffective in preventing Lyme disease. 

In short: more garbage in, more garbage out.

COVID has given pharmacists more power in that they are now allowed to give “vaccines.”  Pharmacists are not doctors and do not have a patient’s medical history in front of them.  Nothing replaces one on one interaction between a patient and a doctor where a doctor is privy to a patient’s history.

This “Lyme treatment” bandaid will do little to relieve patient suffering.

For more:

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Ticks, Treatment

Jacksonville Lyme Disease Patients Say They Had To Ask a Dozen Times For a Test

Sadly, getting a Lyme test is not always helpful.  Since testing is so abysmal, it misses a vast majority of cases – which can be worse in the long run because when the test comes back negative doctors tell patients they don’t have Lyme, when they very well could be infected with numerous life-altering infections.  Getting to an experienced Lyme literate doctor is your best bet as they use more sensitive tests AND they diagnose clinically based on symptoms, not a test with arbitrary antibody levels.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/gmj/heres-how-to-prevent-getting-lyme-disease-amid-the-start-of-tick-season

Jacksonville Lyme disease patients say they had to ask a dozen times for a test

Researchers at the University of North Florida say official Lyme disease statistics underestimate the number of people with Lyme disease.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Schools may be out for summer break, but we are now in tick season. As your family spends more time in the fresh air, it’s important to know how to avoid the disease-carrying arachnids.

At the University of North Florida, researchers are working to create a more sensitive test for Lyme disease, a disease that is transmitted through ticks. Needing a more sensitive test and getting doctors to give a Lyme disease test in the first place, are just some of the problems people with Lyme disease say they face.

“It was March 3, 2011,” said Melissa Bell. “He came home from school, I know the exact day because it was a traumatic day, saying, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, I’m falling down at P.E.’ And then an A+ student started having problems with short term memory, C’s, D’s, F’s, started losing the ability to walk.”

Bell’s son was 11 years old when he started showing symptoms of Lyme disease, but no one knew what it was. Bell, who is now the president of the Florida Lyme Disease Association, says it took nearly a year of advocating for her son to get a diagnosis.

“We probably asked for Lyme testing a dozen times,” Bell said. “It shouldn’t be that hard to have children tested for Lyme disease.”  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Sadly, this is the norm in Lymeland.

Important quote:

“If you get a negative Lyme test, it doesn’t prove that you don’t have the infection,” Clark said.

Category:

Lyme, Testing, Ticks

Hunterdon Health Participates in Lyme Disease Vaccine Study – Buyer Beware!

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/flemington-slash-raritan/sections/health-and-wellness/articles/hunterdon-health-participates-in-lyme-disease-vaccine-study

Hunterdon Health Participates in Lyme Disease Vaccine Study

By Kathleen Seelig
Published October 19, 2023 

Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that can cause serious long-term symptoms if untreated.  For people who live in areas where ticks are common, a preventative vaccine would be better than current measures like insect repellants and checking for ticks.  This clinical trial will evaluate if an investigational vaccine is safe and effective for preventing Lyme disease in people 18 years and older.  By choosing to volunteer, you will represent others like you – in age, race, ethnicity and from communities like ours.

Who may participate:

Healthy adults (18 years of age and older) who live in places or participate in activities that increase their risk for Lyme disease.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

New Jersey typically ranks in the top three states for Lyme disease.  In other words, nearly the entire state is filled with people carrying borrelia in their bodies – along with other pathogens.

I’m opposed to a Lyme disease “vaccine” for anyone, but injecting a population with borrelia antibodies already present in their bodies, that many are able to suppress and live harmoniously with, is not only dangerous but stupid.  The main action of a vaccine is to lower the immune system so that it mounts an effective immune response to whatever it is being injected with.  This, right here, is why many are forever negatively affected.

The Lyme “vaccine” as well as Lyme testing – has a long and sordid backstory, which really got the entire disease on the wrong foot from the get-go, and it’s been a crazy-train ever since with no hope of straightening out unless infected patients do the work themselves.  The government is not our answer – which means government funded research isn’t our answer either.  Both are hopelessly corrupt.

Because borrelia and the other stealth pathogens which often come with it don’t hang around in the blood for long testing has been a bust since they are blood tests.  A Lyme “vaccine,” has also been a bust because it didn’t confer immunity, gave people Lyme-like symptoms, and utilized OspA, the known ingredient that can cause auto-immunity in some.  Four people actually died after it.

How do you vaccinate for something that changes?  And how do you vaccinate for a disease that is typically caused by multiple pathogens all working symbiotically together?  And how do you vaccinate for something that is able to shape-shift and survive the immune system and treatment?

Until ‘the powers that be’ recognize these simple truths, we are left to ride on the crazy-train.

For more:

  • The article then glorifies Klempner’s Lyme PrEP, which we keep being told isn’t a vaccine but a monoclonal antibody “preventative treatment,” that directly gives you the antibody.  What they fail to mention is Lymerix as well as Lyme PrEP both use OspA  – the very antigen of Lyme disease that is blamed for causing devastating Lyme-like symptoms. They erroneously state it’s “just antibodies.”  If only it were that simple.  Antibodies, as stated previously, are not always harmless. Watch this brief video to understand the interplay between antigens and antibodies.
  • Klempner was also the trial administrator of the Connaught OspA Lyme vaccine in the 1990s, and is quite aware of the adverse effects of injecting OspA into people.  He also was an author of the 2006 IDSA guidelines that were the subject of an investigation by Senator Richard Blumenthal which exposed undisclosed financial conflicts in many of the panelists as well as the fact they simply ignored alternative medical opinion (which is happening again with COVID). Those guidelines relied heavily on his 2001 “retreatment” study in which most of the participants had not been treated in the first place. 
  • To state that Lyme patients and advocates do not trust Klempner would be the understatement of the year and further, I’m with Lyme advocate Carl Tuttle: we don’t want any Lyme vaccines until the issue of chronic/persistent infection is acknowledged. As you can see from this article, there are those who still believe what we are suffering from is a “scam that should be condemned”.
  • They then mention Sam Telford, also part of the Lyme Cabal, who blames the spread of deer, and suburbanization in America, never once mentioning experimentation on ticks by infecting them with numerous pathogens and releasing them, in fact dropping them, from airplanes.  Telford, a professor of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University, helped discover the mechanism that led to the development of Lymerix and ran one of the clinical trials that tested it. He is now part of a group of biotech professionals who have formed an alliance and want to bring back the vaccine. This article, written by a doctor, methodically records the devastation Lymerix caused but which is completely ignored by Cabalists like Telford who continue to state Lymerix was “effective.” Telford, a Chronic Lyme denialist, teaches biosecurity, specializes in the bioweapon Tularemia, and was the director of a bio-level 3 lab in Groton, Massachusetts that works on dangerous, tickborne diseases on the government’s select agent list.  He’s funded by the NIH and the military-industrial complex.
If that isn’t enough to get you running the other direction, I don’t know what will.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research, Ticks, vaccines

Review: Borrelia Miyamotoi

https://danielcameronmd.com/review-borrelia-miyamotoi/

REVIEW: BORRELIA MIYAMOTOI

borrelia-miyamotoi

Borrelia miyamotoi is an emerging tick-borne illness that is transmitted by the deer tick. The most common symptoms of a B. miyamotoi infection include fever, fatigue, headache, chills, myalgia, arthralgia, and nausea.

By 

In their article, “Human Borrelia miyamotoi Infection in North America,” Burde and colleagues discuss the frequency and location of infection in ticks and people, clinical presentation and complications, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

Prevalence of B. miyamotoi

B. miyamotoi-infected ticks have been reported throughout the northeastern, northern Midwestern, and western United States. They’ve also been detected in all Canadian provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador.

The prevalence of Borrelia miyamotoi infections is difficult to determine, since the illness is not nationally reportable in the U.S. but reportable in only a few states including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wisconsin. And, confirmation of the diagnosis depends upon laboratory testing, which is not always available.

Furthermore, diagnosis can be challenging. “The discrepancy between diagnosed and undiagnosed infection is probably even greater for B. miyamotoi, a tick-borne disease that lacks an easily identifiable clinical marker, such as the erythema migrans rash, and is less well known by health care workers and the general public,” the authors write.

Transmission

B. miyamotoi can be transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected black-legged (deer) tick. Several studies have found that it may be transmitted through blood transfusions, as well.

The B. miyamotoi pathogen can be transmitted from an infected female tick to her eggs, which may result in some larval ticks harboring the infection and transmitting it to a host. “Other larvae become infected after taking a blood meal on an infected mouse reservoir host, molt to the nymphal stage, and then transmit infection to another mouse or human,” they write.

Symptoms & Treatment

B. miyamotoi symptoms can be non-specific and an individual may appear to have a viral-like illness with fever, chills, headache, myalgia, fatigue, arthralgia, and gastrointestinal complaints, according to the authors.

“The most striking clinical feature of B. miyamotoi is relapsing fever with an initial febrile episode followed by a period of wellness and then one or more additional febrile episodes,” the authors write.

Some studies have found that the “average time between relapses was 9 days with a range of 2 days to 2 weeks.”

However, not all individuals develop relapsing fever. “In the largest case series of B. miyamotoi cases in the US, only 2 of 51 cases (4%) developed relapsing fever.”

READ: Don’t Rely on Relapsing Fever to Diagnose B. miyamotoi 

Treatment of B. miyamotoi disease typically involves using the same antibiotics to treat Lyme disease: doxycycline, tetracycline, erythromycin, penicillin, and ceftriaxone. However, there have been no trials to evaluate the effectiveness of these treatments.

Co-infections worsen disease

Co-infections can worsen the illness. There have been reported cases of B. miyamotoi co-infection with B. burgdorferi and/or Babesia microti.

“Previous studies have found that coinfection of B. burgdorferi with either Babesia microti or with Anaplasma phagocytophilum are often associated with more severe disease compared with that caused by B. burgdorferi infection alone,” the authors write.

Testing for the infection can include blood smear, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and/or antibody detection.

Authors’ Conclude:

“The possibility of B. miyamotoi infection should be considered in any patient with a febrile illness who resides in or has recently traveled to a region where Lyme disease is endemic, especially during the late spring, summer, or early fall.”

Related Articles:

B. miyamotoi can be transmitted from mother ticks to offspring

Could B. miyamotoi infections explain persistent Lyme disease symptoms?

References:
  1. Burde J, Bloch EM, Kelly JR, Krause PJ. Human Borrelia miyamotoi Infection in North America. Pathogens. 2023 Apr 3;12(4):553. doi: 10.3390/pathogens12040553. PMID: 37111439; PMCID: PMC10145171.

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For more:

Since Borrelia miyamotoi is not a reportable illness to the CDC, no one has any clue about prevalence but reports are coming in continually that it’s highly likely to be a much bigger problem than ‘authorities’ believe.
It was recently discovered that:

Also, Borrelia miyamotoi has been in California ticks for a long time:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/15/b-miyamotoi-in-ca-ticks-for-a-long-time/

The following case shows how you can become infected while traveling:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/10/24/a-case-of-borrelia-miyamotoi/

Category:

Activism, Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), research, Testing, Ticks, Transmission, Treatment, Uncategorized

Analysis of Bacteria in Tropical Cattle Tick

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10493-023-00851-x

ResearchPublished: 

Analysis of the bacterial community in female Rhipicephalus microplus ticks from selected provinces in Luzon, Philippines, using next-generation sequencing

Sheane Andrea V. Hernandez, Saubel Ezrael A. Salamat & Remil L. Galay

Experimental and Applied Acarology (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Analysis of the tick microbiome can help understand tick–symbiont interactions and identify undiscovered pathogens, which may aid in implementing control of ticks and tick-borne diseases. The tropical cattle tick Rhipicephalus microplus is a widespread ectoparasite of cattle in the Philippines, negatively affecting animal productivity and health. This study characterized the bacterial community of R. microplus from Luzon, Philippines, through next-generation sequencing of 16s rRNA. DNA was extracted from 45 partially engorged female ticks from nine provinces. The DNA samples were pooled per province and then sequenced and analyzed using an open-source bioinformatics platform. In total, 667 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified. The ticks in all nine provinces were found to have Coxiella, Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus, and Acinetobacter. Basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) analysis revealed the presence of known pathogens of cattle, such as Bartonella, Ehrlichia minasensis, and Dermatophilus congolensis. The tick samples from Laguna, Quezon, and Batangas had the most diverse bacterial species, whereas the tick samples from Ilocos Norte had the lowest diversity. Similarities in the composition of the bacterial community in ticks from provinces near each other were also observed. This is the first study on metagenomic analysis of cattle ticks in the Philippines, providing new insights that may be useful for controlling ticks and tick-borne diseases.

For more:

Category:

Bartonella, Ehrlichiosis, research, Ticks