When I was a kid romping through the woods in Northern New Jersey,, no one ever heard of Lyme Disease,,,,,,,,,,,,,,No one that we knew was debilitated by this now dreaded disease that has spread out from Wisconsin and the East Coast over the past 30 years to cases in virtually every state in the USA...............Yes, my Doctor tells me he is seeing Lyme Disease in Southern California over the past decade!........The significant alteration of our natural landscape that has created small islands of "green" surrounded by our human habitations has virtually eliminated the carnivore suite that kept hoofed browsers(e.g. White Tailed deer) and rodents(e.g. White Tail Mice) at population levels that kept tick populations in check.......................There is still no "shot" to take to prevent Lyme......................Best advice is to not "bushwahack" through brushy areas when hiking, do not go barefoot on your lawns and after being outside, shower thoroughly with particular attention to your scalp, armpits, back of ears where ticks like to hide

Forbidding Forecast For Lyme Disease In The Northeast

March 6, 2017
npr

White-footed mice are efficient transmitters of

 Lyme disease in the Northeast. They infect up 

to 95 percent of the ticks that feed on them. But

 it's people who create the conditions for Lyme

 outbreaks by building homes in the animals'

 habitat.

Stephen Reiss for NPR

Last summer Felicia Keesing returned from a long trip and found that her home in upstate New York had been subjected to an invasion.

"There was evidence of mice everywhere.

 They had completely taken over," says Keesing,

 an ecologist at Bard College.

It was a plague of mice. And it had landed right

 in Keesing's kitchen.

"Not only were there mouse droppings on our

 countertops, but we also found dead mice on

 the kitchen floor," says Keesing's husband,

 Rick Ostfeld, an ecologist at the Cary 

Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.

The Hudson River Valley experienced a mouse

 plague during the summer of 2016. The critters

 were everywhere. For most people, it was just

 a nuisance. But for Keesing and Ostfeld, the

 mouse plague signaled something foreboding.

"We're anticipating 2017 to be a particularly

 risky year for Lyme," Ostfeld says.

Keesing and Ostfeld, who have studied Lyme

 for more than 20 years, have come up with 

an early warning system for the disease. They

 can predict how many cases there will be a

 year in advance by looking at one key

 measurement: Count the mice the year before.

The number of critters scampering around

 the forest in the summer correlates to the 

Lyme cases the following summer, they've

 reported.

The explanation is simple: Mice are highly 

efficient transmitters of Lyme. They infect 

up to 95 percent of ticks that feed on them.

 Mice are responsible for infecting the majority

 of ticks carrying Lyme in the Northeast. And

 ticks love mice. "An individual mouse might

 have 50, 60, even 100 ticks covering its ears

 and face," Ostfeld says.

So that mouse plague last year means there

 is going to be a Lyme plague this year.

 "Yep. I'm sorry to say that's the scenario

 we're expecting," Ostfeld says.

Mice and ticks get along swimmingly. Other animals, such as possums, groom away ticks — and sometimes kill them. But white-footed mice tolerate ticks covering their faces and ears. Blacklegged ticks, like the adult female on the right, are tiny — about the size of a sesame seed

He's not exactly sure which parts of the Northeast

 will be at highest risk.

But wherever Lyme exists, people should be vigilant,

 says epidemiologist Kiersten Kugeler at the Centers

 for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Whether it's a bad season or not, there's still going 

to be a lot of human cases of tick-borne diseases," 

she says. "What's important for people to know is 

that the ticks are spreading to new areas — and

 tick-borne diseases are coming with them."

Back in the early '80s, the disease wasn't that big

 a problem. Cases were confined to two small 

regions: western Wisconsin and the area from 

Connecticut to New Jersey

Since then, Lyme cases have shot up in number

 and spread in all directions: "The only place 

that they haven't really spread is into the

 Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, for 

obvious reasons," says biologist Rebecca Eisen,

 who's also at the CDC.

Now Lyme is present in more than 260 counties,

 the CDC reported in 2015. The disease shows

 up in Maine, swoops down the East Coast into

 Washington, D.C., and southern Virginia. 

Then it hops to the Midwest into northern

 Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

There are also small pockets of Lyme on the West Coast.

The number of confirmed and probable Lyme disease cases

 in the U.S more than doubled from 2001 to 2015. In 2015,

 95 percent of confirmed 

cases were reported in the 14 states labeled below.

2001 reported cases

2015 reported cases

"They also cut down trees for commercial use," 

Ostfeld says, "to make masts for ships, and for

 firewood."

Since then a lot of the forest has come back —

 but it's not the same forest as before, he says.

 Today it's all broken up into little pieces, with

 roads, farms and housing developments.

For mice, this has been great news.

"They tend to thrive in these degraded, 

fragmented landscapes," Ostfeld says

, because their predators need big forests 

to survive.

Without as many foxes, hawks and owls

 to eat them, mice crank out babies. 

And we end up with forests packed 

with mice — mice that are chronically

 infected with Lyme and covered with ticks.

So all these little patches of forest dotting 

the Northeast have basically turned into 

Lyme factories, spilling over with infected ticks.

Then people come along and do the darndest

 thing, Keesing says: They build their dream

 homes right next door. "So we see that

 humans are putting themselves in these 

areas where they're most at risk," she says.

To figure out why Lyme has become more

 prevalent, researchers at the Cary Institute 

of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., have

 trapped hundreds of thousands of rodents

 in the woods over the past 20 years. 

Research assistant Francesca Rubino checks

 a squirrel for ticks.

Stephen Reiss for NPR

And that means people, in some areas, may be

 putting themselves at risk for Lyme every single

 day without even knowing it, says the CDC's

 Kiersten Kugeler. "In the Northeast, most 

people catch Lyme around their homes," 

she says. "People out gardening. People playing

 in their backyard. Mowing the lawn."

So what can you do to keep from getting

 infected? Add a tick check to your daily

 routine, Kugeler says. When you're in the

 shower check your body for tiny ticks, 

especially the places they like to hide.

"That's the scalp, behind the ears, the 

armpits and in the groin area," she says.

If you do find a tick, get it off as quickly as 

possible. The longer an infected tick stays

 on your skin, the greater the chance it will 

pass the Lyme bacteria on to you. Generally,

 it takes about 24 hours for the tick to infect

 a person after it starts biting.

Then be on the lookout for Lyme symptoms —

 like a red rash or a fever. It anything crops

 up, go see a doctor immediately. Don't wait:

 The earlier you get treated, the better

 chance you'll have for a full recovery.
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CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL

How to remove a tick

1. Use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin's surface as possible.
2. Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Don't twist or jerk the tick; this can cause the mouth-parts to break off and remain in the skin. If this happens, remove the mouth-parts with tweezers. If you are unable to remove the mouth easily with clean tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
3. After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol, an iodine scrub, or soap and water.
4. Dispose of a live tick by submersing it in alcohol, placing it in a sealed bag/container, wrapping it tightly in tape, or flushing it down the toilet. Never crush a tick with your fingers.

  Avoid folklore remedies such as "painting" the tick with nail polish or petroleum jelly, or using heat to make the tick detach from the skin. Your goal is to remove the tick as quickly as possible--not waiting for it to detach.