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You are to be congratulated
for raising awareness of Lyme disease with your
article, "Lyme
disease is local," but it contains several
misleading statements.
Here's one: "Borrelia
burgdorferi sensu stricto is the scientific name
of that bacteria, the bitten person would, and
it seems to only infect humans to whom it is
introduced by a deer tick, and usually in
northern climes."
There are several strains
of the Borrelia bacteria that are identified as
"Lyme disease," and it also can infect other
animals, including your dog. Also, Lyme, along
with half a dozen or so other bacterial
infections are transmitted by the black-legged
deer tick.
And, most importantly, you
are perpetuating the myth that tick diseases are
rare anywhere except in the Northeastern United
States. Not true!
They're all over the U.S.
and now are in many other parts of the world as
well.
The European strains are
not even the same as ours, which sometimes
confounds diagnoses. Here in Georgia a couple of
years ago I contracted both Lyme and
Ehrlichiosis, the latter of which often is
deadly, as one of my good friends, a retired
medical doctor, learned from his own near-death
experience with that bug.
The irony of the offer to
mount a deer head to raise money for a Lyme
victim also was worthy of mention.
If governmental DNR
agencies had not propagated these huge animals
that now number in the tens of millions in the
United States simply for the entertainment of
would-be Daniel Boones who often dump the deer
carcass in a ditch after parading it around on
their Jeep hood, we would not now be having tens
of thousands of lives being lost or at least
negatively impacted each year by more than a
million car-deer collisions and another million
cases of deer-related diseases.
Simple fact: Huge,
free-ranging carriers of deadly diseases that
freeze in car headlights are not compatible with
modern civilizations where their human
competitors, for the most part, also do not
behave very wisely either. What's next?
Lions and tigers and bears?
As I endure persistent back
and leg pain, along with other debilitating
residuals of my chronic tick diseases, I wish
Kami, along with the millions of other victims
of this very short-sighted government meddling
with nature, a speedy recovery and a long,
happy, productive life.
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