MILLBROOK, N.Y. — A disease ecologist says the Northeast should prepare for a surge in Lyme disease this spring.
Richard Osfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook says the population of white-footed mice is crashing due to a small acorn crop. That means ticks that carry Lyme disease will look for other mammals to bite, such as humans.
Ecologists at the Cary Institute have been studying connections between acorn abundance, mice, black-legged ticks and Lyme disease for more than two decades.
They say a bumper crop of acorns in 2010 caused mouse populations to soar in 2011. With more mice came more ticks. Acorns were scarce last fall, meaning fewer mice this spring and a lot of hungry ticks.
Osfeld says the highest disease risk is May through July.
Did scientists at Plum Island create this disease? We may never know.
well considering the fact that the US govt built the plum island facility for a Nazi war criminal scientist to continue his experiments which revolved around injecting ticks and mosquitoes with bacterias and viruses to see if he could weaponize them, and the fact that ground zero for Lyme disease was just a few miles away, i am going to say yes they did.
Apparently, the frozen bronze age man they found in Austria (Italy?) a few years back had the antibodies in his blood that indicated he had been exposed to Lyme’s Disease.
No one’s saying Lyme hasn’t been around for eons. What happened at Plum Island had more to do with the experiments on using Lyme as a weapon for biological warfare. The release (accidental) of so many ticks from the facility into a very hospitable environment is what caused the surge.
Now that I am “braced,” what do I do?
The only precaution I’ve ever been told of is to either stay out of the tall grass and wooded areas, or wear long pants and footwear that does not expose your bare skin.