Okay, so "crusade" isn't at all accurate. I'm a pretty hardcore materialist. It is not that I am wedded to an entirely naturalistic cosmic view of everything. Given extraordinary evidence to support a god or gods belief, I would shift my cosmic perspective without issue, or comment.
Moving back to the point... After yesterday's post, I decided to look around for Lyme information. I struck tick vector gold!
Discover Magazine gives Frontline Coverage of Tick stuff. Sorry about the use of "Frontline" while posting a link, but it does work.
Discover Mag has much more than the fascinating article referenced above. If you are at all interested in this subject, be sure to read the comments. Kerry Clark, who likely has done more than any other individual to bring southern Lyme to the fore engages reader's comments. The medical community in the southern US is as bad as the medical community here in NH as to the realities of tick-borne diseases.
Also on Discover:
A fairly comprehensive treatment of the whole Lyme debacle.
The CDC(Centers for Disease Control) appear to finally coming around to the prevalence of Lyme.
CDC reports that Lyme is ten times more common than previous estimates. Ten times more prevalent. Still, even given the latest data on Lyme, the CDC is sill sticking to the old data that 95% of Lyme cases are confined to the usual suspects geographically speaking. Looking at this table, New Hampshire had the highest incidence per state on a per capita basis in 2012. That the infection rate my be ten times the number of reported cases is alarming. Even though much of what the CDC has been shown to be wrong, here's the CDC's clearinghouse for Lyme. Once again, science is way ahead of the official governmental stance. There has been much made of the medical community's slow response to Lyme and possibly Lyme-like disease. The offending bacilli are of the Borrelia genus.
In addition to the above clusterf*ck, every source I can find states that Lyme is spread only via the nymph stage of I. scapularis. This is completely wrong. Adult I. scapularis ticks are also vectors to human disease. How do I know this? It's pretty simple. My brother Bryan contracted Lyme from an adult I. scapularis. We know this to be true, as the feeding tick was collected, and two labs confirmed the species, the stage of development, and the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi; the only bacterium currently acknowledged by the medical community to transmit Lyme to humans. Discover is correct. The debate over Lyme or Lyme-like illness borders on being insane. With migratory birds, and other species that keep the disease circulating in nature having no respect for state and national boundaries, the affected areas are truly largely unknown. Anyone that gets bitten by a tick of any species in any area that has a reasonable chance of harboring tick borne vector disease should be given the option of at least a short, prophylactic course of antibiotics. That's how the medical community should be handling this issue.
One more thing, bedbugs are another potential Lyme vector. Read the bit on other Borrelia species found in the paragraph titled: Bedbugs and Infectious Disease, and go to bottom of page for an account of a potential transmission.
The more we know about Lyme, the worse the picture gets. The funding for reasearch for what looks like a national health crisis--that's only likely to get worse--is astonishingly paltry.
If you develop symptoms that are typical of Lyme disease, try a physician. Given the rise of treatment resistant bacteria, many physicians are loathe to prescribe a course of antibiotics. While this is typically a good call, there are times--and this is certainly one of them--where the medical community is miles behind the data. Living in one of the densest areas for confirmed cases of Lyme, I wouldn't leave the office without a script. When a colleague had to have a pacemaker implanted due to a missed case of Lyme, it alters your outlook on these things.
Pound the damned table if you must. Advanced Lyme is nothing you want.
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