Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the discovery of a new tick-borne virus last week, one of several newly identified pathogens that ticks are passing to humans. Why are so many new tick-borne diseases being reported?
Improvements in medical technology, mostly. The newly discovered tick-borne diseases have probably been infecting humans for years, but they’re not easy to spot. Many victims never realize a tick has bitten them, and the symptoms, such as fevers, aches and fatigue, are not distinctive and mirror those of common summer viral infections. The patient’s immune system usually fights off the illness unassisted, so doctors don’t bother running the battery of tests required to identify a new pathogen. Only in the rare cases when a patient struggles with the infection are physicians likely to make a genuine discovery. (The disease identified last week, a member of the phlebovirus family, hospitalized two men in Missouri.) They order blood smears or antibody tests to identify the presence of a pathogen, and genetic analyses — which were either inefficient or unavailable to doctors just a few years ago — alert researchers to the presence of the previously unidentified bug. Researchers have also become more aggressive recently, with some searching within ticks themselves for evidence of new pathogens.
Lyme disease is a classic example of how long a disease can exist in a population without being identified. Genetic research has suggested that the pathogen responsible for Lyme disease has afflicted humans for more than 5,000 years. Examinations of a mouse specimen collected from Central Park in the late 1800s suggest that the disease has been present in the United States for more than a century, and case reports indicate that Europeans were carrying the disease at about the same time.
In the early 1970s, fishermen in Long Island complained of a form of arthritis they called “Montauk knee,” but it wasn’t until later in the decade that doctors figured out that it was caused by an infectious agent. In 1982, researchers finally identified the spirochete that carried the illness. And Lyme disease, with its telltale bull’s-eye rash, is usually easier to identify than many other tick-borne illnesses.
Environmental change has also played a role in the recent discoveries. Americans spent centuries converting the Northeastern woodlands into farms, hunting or driving out much of the local fauna. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, however, agriculture moved west, and many farms turned back into fragmented forests in close contact with human settlement. Animals that survive best in so-called “edge habitats,” like deer and mice, came to dominate the region. Dense populations of those animals made fertile breeding ground for ticks and the pathogens that love them.
Increased tick density plays two roles in the discovery of tick-borne diseases. First, and probably more significantly, it leads to more human infections and gives doctors more opportunities to identify existing pathogens.
It’s also possible, although largely unproven, that tick-borne pathogens are evolving more quickly than in the past. Ticks are expanding their ranges, bringing different species of the pests into contact with one another, sometimes as they ride on the same deer, dog or rodent. This may result in microbes jumping between tick species. As pathogens are exposed to new environments, they may evolve into subtly different organisms, some of which might be more dangerous to human hosts.
It should be noted that humans are dead-ends for tick-borne pathogens — either they kill us or we kill them long before they have the chance to jump to the next host. So ticks don’t really evolve inside the human body. Rather, it’s the increased density of animal hosts like deer and mice that create new opportunities for the evolution of tick-borne pathogens. If those changes happen to afflict humans, we are little more than collateral damage.
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Got a question about today’s news? ask-the-explainer@yahoo.com.
Explainer thanks Brian Allan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carl Brenner of the National Research Fund for Tick-Borne Diseases, and Peter Krause of the Yale School of Public Health.
Because they are jerks.
Plum Island escapees, courtesy of Uncle Sam?
Its Lepages Fault.
Actually, it is Obama’s.
If you want to believe that go for it, but seeing as how in the article it says that the disease existed before the alleged dumping of infected specimens unlikely. What is more likely is that the disease was misdiagnosed for so long then with changes in landscape and farming practices a resurgence in the carriers came about and incidences of infection increased.
If you google Lyme disease origin, it states the German scientist may have started it on Plum Is. after the 2nd world war.
If you dig further and read some scientific journals you would see that the DNA strain for the disease was found in a sample several thousand years old (which is stated in the article as well as a sample from the 1800’s well before the Plum Island incident). It is much more likely that a type of the disease has existed for a very long time and with changes in landscape, climate, and the fact that people don’t participate in practices such as burning fields anymore that the carriers spread and the disease with them. Warmer years with milder winters where the snow doesn’t get as deep as it used to 30+ years ago, play a much more likely role in the spread of Lyme disease than blaming some company that was studying the disease. All through medical history there have been diseases that people didn’t know about and initially were diagnosed or explained as being something else until more was known, this is no different. If we were to believe everything on the internet with out digging for your own research, a lot of things would be true wouldn’t they.
If you are insinuating that my statements come from the internet, I will tell you that some and only some on the Lyme disease topic do come from research on the web. I was working on the Cape and listened to part of that symposium and it most definately had facts but also had questions that go answers. These were top scientists and biologists from around the world. Ticks have been on this earth for centuries. What is not clear is IF the German scientist created the Lyme disease.
You can choose to believe that outdated information, but more recent studies have shown that the DNA sequence for the disease existed in a sample that is several thousand years old, and the disease was found in a sample in the US that was from the 1800’s. Last I knew that is before Plum Island allegedly created the disease. There is so much put on Plum Island because there was a book or two written about the incident and everyone ate it up, now there is information out there that is contrary to what was believed. Misdiagnosis is much more likely as the symptoms of Lyme mirror that of many other diseases and illnesses. Feel free to continue believing what you believe in, but I don’t. Current information from the scientific community paints a different picture.
Thank you for your information. Apparently we live in an age that we all have to research everything for ourselves to find truth. You have opened my eyes to the need for me to explore more and that is what I will do. Lyme disease is tricky to diagnose and too many of us tend to take our Drs. words as truth. I am glad to see this is finally getting national attention and allowing more people to be aware of taking precautions when they venture outdoors.
the pathogen(s) existed before, but using ticks as the vector (method of transmission) is newer. Read Lab257, well foot-noted. Plum Island now part of Homeland security. Has been center for bio-terrorism research for years. And yes, it’s the USofA doing the research.
Do you believe everything you read? Have you personally done any research on the topic of Lyme disease? Did you know that in Sept. 1995 in Hyannis ,Mass. a world wide symposium was held on the subject of Lyme disease ? I did hear some of it and what was said came from scientists and biologists from all parts of the world. The main treatment center for Lyme at that time was a hosp. in Boston. That symposium had many speak about Plum Is.
Was their scientific information up to date with the fairly recent discovery of a sample several thousand years old that contained the DNA strain of the disease? The information has changed and in a new symposium people would have a different view of things. You know what else supposedly came from Plum Island, the Montauk Raccoon. Plenty of cryptid scholars believed it and still do.
Absolutely! Wasn’t it the German scientist the US housed on that island after World War Two? We kept him there working on ticks in creation of weapons. Good old Uncle Sam………ayuh.
Hammockbear,
I think you are confusing him with the Israeli scientist that worked on floor #201 of the South Tower WTC, who was supposedly working on a variant of Lyme disease. And of course, he mysteriously didn’t show up for work on that fateful day. His ticks were also specially trained in the art of wiring explosives….hmmm. Can you say, “wow, very interesting?” AYUH!
Try researching Lyme disease for yourself. Better yet, pray you do not get it. Yakdude is correct. Odd you cannot pick there as well.
alot of people up here have no clue about plum island , where it is and what goe’s on there, your comment is 100% true, Iv’e been out there, they got cameras watching cameras, that place is where they make alot of bad things.
ROMNEY / RYAN 2012 !!!
Bush did it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Centers for Democrat Control and Prevention , now there’s a government agency I can support!
We have an epidemic of tick-borne diseases because of the high density of ticks. Ticks come from tick eggs, and 90-95% of tick eggs come from ticks on deer. It’s been estimated that ticks from one deer produce 450,000 to 1,000,000 tick eggs per season. In contrast not one tick egg comes from a tick on a mouse. Adult egg-laying ticks cannot feed on mice. Areas in Maine with high deer density have increased Lyme disease whereas areas with low deer density have a lower incidence of Lyme disease. Decreasing the deer density can disrupt the life cycle of the tick. This is the way to prevent Lyme disease and other diseases carried by the deer tick, such as babesiosis and anaplasmosis, both of which can be fatal.
Why cant Doctors cure find it?
Then why don’t deer die from it?? Probably because animals evolve over very long periods of time, longer than 50 years ago when the Plum Island conspirators popped up. Like my dog who was diagnosed with it two years ago. Yeah, he contracted it from a bite but since he’s a four legged critter, he has natural antibodies to counter it. He’s three years old and runs around just like he did when he was a pup.
I’m not doubting the existence of Lyme, just doubting that our government, in the 20th century, would be soo freakin’ stupid to invest in a biological weapon that just slows you down and makes you sore. That’s all. And then to incubate it in a little critter that is near impossible to see? Why not incubate it in a mouse and then let the mouse crap all over the place…like Hauntavirus. Wait a second, there’s a subject for you conspirators…sick ’em.
Interesting point: given the survival of the fittest, it makes sense that deer evolved to survive the diseases carried by the deer tick.
Mice are carriers and spread the disease just as much as deer.
Why cant doctors find a medicine for it ?
There is, Doxycycline.
I’ll do my part and shoot a deer this year.
There was a vaccination shot that could be taken yearly, but according to my physician it got killed in the market and is not readily available if at all any more.
This quote from the article is one reason thousands of people don’t realize they have Lyme: “…Lyme disease, with its telltale bull’s-eye rash, is usually easier to identify than many other tick-borne illnesses.”
Many people who are bitten and infected do not get the rash (and it may not be a bull’s-eye form of rash, if they do get it). Many do not see the tick (the nymphs are teeny). The bite cannot be felt. So only if you’re lucky enough to get a rash and see the tick will you know to get to a doctor: and then, many doctors don’t know to treat asap with an appropriate course of antibiotics. Many follow faulty guidelines that are finally being changed due to more research, but that isn’t going to take hold for a long time.
If you do get bit and infected but don’t realize it (so you get a fever or “mono” in spring or summer and some other symptoms but never connect it to Lyme), your immune system may not be able to fight it and the spirochete will keep working and new symptoms and old will come and go with maybe months or years in between, and eventually you’ll start seeing more doctors about, maybe, knee pain and anxiety, awful headaches, ears ringing, hands numb, and really bad fatigue, depression that’s like a brain fog, and heart palpitations–which are all Lyme symptoms I had–but you won’t connect that, and neither will doctors. Blood tests and the usual tests doctors or specialists give will all show there’s nothing wrong with you. And if they do run a Lyme test, it will probably come up negative (which happens much of the time because right now, there is no accurate test), so Lyme will be ruled out and you will be dismissed or referred to a psychiatrist who will prescribe anti-anxiety pills and maybe Cymbalta for the depression and possible help with pain.
When you do finally stumble on the truth about Lyme disease and how it can affect every organ of the body and in different ways and timelines, with dormant periods, you will try another specialist covered by insurance, maybe a rheumatologist or infectious diseases doc, but they will say there is no such thing as chronic Lyme or they will not know to check for the coinfections, or they won’t know that the blood test for Lyme is faulty and it must be diagnosed clinically with supportive blood work and retesting for Lyme with a good lab, etc. Then you realize you have to find a “Lyme Literate MD” and may have to pay some or all expenses out-of-pocket because insurance companies uses lack of research as a way to refute long-term treatment for chronic Lyme. But you will be so thankful you finally are seeing someone who knows how sinister and evasive this disease is and for once in many years, you start to feel better and then you get your life back.
This is my story, and it’s the story of thousands of people and it’s only getting worse. It’s just as bad in Canada, UK, Austrailia-everywhere (except Antarctica).
Until money is pumped into more research and doctors open their minds, the world with Lyme is going to be flat until proven otherwise, which is great for big pharma and insurance companies, but bad for anyone who suffers from tick-borne pathogens, whether they know this or not. Lyme is also known as “the great imitator,” so a percentage of people get misdiagnosed as having Chronic Fatigue syndrome, MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Bipolar Disorder, etc., which is a real shame when symptoms or progression could be helped or stopped by treating it as a bacterial illness.
Right now, it’s survival of the fittest, and if you aren’t a good detective and don’t have time or money or an open mind, you stay sick and may become debilitated. I wish I’d gotten a clue years ago. The symptoms seemed so unrelated, though. It wasn’t until new ones emerged and a therapist said I may have Lyme that I started to research and hunt down recovery. Trust your instincts. I didn’t and lost many prime years to pain and confusing neuro symptoms.
You are right: most victims of Lyme are bitten by the poppy seed-sized nymph and never see it. The rash can also be small and in an obscure spot often missed. Early treatment is crucial to prevent horrible complications such as crippling arthritis and brain damage, but many people miss early treatment. Moreover, the CDC reports that 10-20% who do get treated develop chronic symptoms anyway.