May, Lyme Disease Awareness Month
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May, Lyme Disease Awareness Month HELP US! This page is in progress — a full list of any resolutions submitted will be posted at the end of May with your help. Please contact your state, county or local governing body and ask them to pass a May resolution to spread the word about Lyme & tick-borne diseases. Check on your governing body website to see if there is a place listed to submit a request. Click here to submit your state or county proclamation/resolution to LDA for inclusion on this page. 2021 May Lyme Awareness Proclamations Many states and counties take steps to raise awareness regarding Lyme and tick-borne diseases during May. Declaring “May Lyme Awareness Month” is one move to help remind people spring is here, ticks are out, prevention & proper education are your best tools to staying healthy. Proclamations are issued by governors and resolutions are adopted by the legislature. The LDA salutes and thanks all the governors, legislators, Lyme groups, and advocates who help raise awareness throughout the year. Your efforts make a
difference! See if your state has joined in May Lyme Awareness & Read the state proclamations. New Jersey Texas Colorado Click images for pdf versions NJ Governor Proclamation – May 2021 as TBD Awareness Month State of NJ Joint Resolution Occurring Each Year
Resolution above is from the NJ state legislature declaring every May Lyme Disease Awareness Month. City of Richardson, Texas Proclamation Signed by the Mayor
Colorado Proclamation Signed by the Governor
Submit 2021 May Awareness Proclamations / Resolutions States and counties throughout the US have proclaimed May Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Many states and counties have taken steps to raise awareness regarding Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Declaring “May Lyme Awareness Month” is one move to help remind people spring is here, ticks are out, prevention & proper education are your best tools to staying healthy. Proclamations are issued by governors and resolutions are
adopted by the legislature. The LDA salutes and thanks all the
governors, legislators, Lyme groups, and advocates who have
helped raise awareness throughout the year.
Your efforts make a difference!
Please submit an image of your state or county
proclamation/resolution so we can include it on our annual
list.
Any questions, email jennifer@lymediseaseassociation.org
Click here for 2021 list (in progress)
Click here for 2018 list
2021 May Awareness Proclamations
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U of Maine Seeks Citizen Scientists As a follow-up to its 2020 report from its 2020 citizen science project, the Maine Forest Tick Survey at the University of Maine is recruiting forest landowners in nine southern and coastal Maine counties to begin sampling for ticks in July 2021 when tick nymphs become active. The 2020 project collected 1643 ticks, and 445 of those blacklegged nymphs were tested for pathogens. 25+% were carrying Borrelia burgdorferi, 7% anaplasma phagocytophilum, and 5% Babesia microti. Information on the Survey and how to volunteer can be found https://umaine.edu/forestticksurvey/ or by contacting citizen science coordinator elissa.ballman@maine.edu For more information Read full article here Forest Tick Survey Here
Persistent Lyme Symptoms: A Survey of RI patients In a recent study conducted by Vargas et al., patients suffering from self reported post-Lyme treatment symptoms at the Lifespan Lyme Disease Center in Rhode Island took part in completing both a demographic and medical survey, the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-29 v2.0, and other short-form PROMIS measures of cognitive function, sleep disturbance, and fatigue. Findings from this sample of patients showed that this group of patients reported more severe symptoms than the general population as well as reporting higher than other clinical sample groups including cancer patients and chronic pain patients, and for symptoms of fatigue, women reported higher than men. Read the full text article here Read more on persistent Lyme symptoms here.
Lyme Activities by State The section contains articles of individual state activities and multi state activities related to government actions or patients’ or advocates’ action to legislate or educate. Click on the picture of your state or click on USA for multistate actions or information. A-USA
California
ColoradoConnecticut
Delaware Florida
Georgia
Illinois Kansas
Maine Maryland
Massachusetts Minnesota
Missouri New Hampshire
New Jersey New York
Oregon Pennsylvania
Rhode Island Vermont
Virginia West Virginia
Wisconsin
Missouri Tick Study: Citizen Tick Submissions Requested
Photo by J. Occi, PhD
(cand.), Rutgers Univ.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and A.T. Still
University are partnering on a Missouri tick study. This two-
year research study is designed to better understand the
distribution and species of ticks as well as the pathogens
that they carry throughout Missouri. The study will run from
April 2021 through September 2022.
During that time, MDC and the University are asking for
citizens of Missouri to collect, save, and mail ticks that
they encounter to A.T. Still University. To learn more about
the research, submission directions, or to submit questions
online visit atsu.edu/ticks.
Read full MDC news release here.
For additional LDA articles on tick and tick-borne disease
studies/clinical trials visit here.
NOTE: The Lyme Disease Association, Inc.(LDA) thanks Lyme
Association of Greater Kansas City (LAGKC) for this
information. LAGKC is an affiliate partner of the LDA.Lyme Patient Story “one
little bite” Video
“one little bite” is a video short that was produced by Monica
White, COTBDAA Co-founder/President, in a storytelling
workshop hosted by Chaffee County Public Health. This is a
story about one person, one family, whose lives were forever
changed by the bite of a tick. Though presentation of this
story may be unique, the theme of the story is a common thread
weaved into the stories of hundreds of thousands of people
across the US and throughout the world that have been infected
by Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.
She has served on a subcommittee of the federal Tick-Borne
Disease Working Group and other governmental panels. She also
co-authored a journal article about Colorado ticks and the
diseases they carry.
For more info: https://coloradoticks.org/one-little-bite/
Monica White, Co-Founder/President
of COTBDAAPets & Lyme Disease in Vermont Our companion animals get Lyme disease too. Here are several PSAs from veterinarians in Vermont reminding pet owners to be aware of the problems pets face from Lyme disease. The Lyme Disease Association Inc. also reminds you that pets can bring unattached ticks into the home which can then bite humans. View “Lyme: A Serious, But Preventable, Disease in Dogs” from the Vermont Veterinary Medical Association (VVMA). View “April is Prevent Lyme Disease in Dogs Month” from the VVMA. View “Pets and Pesky Parasites” from the VVMA. View more about Pets & Lyme disease. Carl Tuttle’s Statement to NH Commission to Study Testing for Lyme & TBD
Carl Tuttle is a long time New Hampshire advocate. He is a member of the New Hampshire Commission to Study Testing For Lyme & Other Tick-Borne Diseases. The charter is to “study the use and limitations of serological diagnostic tests to determine the presence or absence of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases and the development of appropriate methods to educate physicians and the public with respect to the inconclusive nature of prevailing test methods.” Below is a statement he read at the last meeting, which he then shared with the LDA. COMMISSION TO STUDY TESTING FOR LYME AND OTHER TICK-BORNE DISEASES http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/statstudcomm/details.aspx?- id=1515&rbl=1&txtbillnumber=hb490 Since the last meeting I have sent nine emails with topics to discuss in our meetings. The emails have contained many supporting references to my claim that serology is no better than a coin toss, harm caused by false negative Elisa tests reported to the NH Dept of Health ten years ago, comments from 340 NH residents with many reporting delayed diagnosis due to false negative serology and a list of references identifying seronegative disease. A recent Johns Hopkins study reveals that if you’re not treated within the very narrow widow of 30 days, you run the risk of ending up with chronic Lyme disease [1] and yet humans won’t produce antibodies to the infection for 4-6 weeks after a tick bite. So, by the time serology is positive, if ever, it’s already too late as the spirochete responsible for Lyme disease were just recently identified in the brains of mice one week after infection. [2] The possibility of missing a timely diagnosis is extremely high in a state with one of the highest rates of Lyme in the country especially in the absence of a bulls-eye rash. This was the case with all Tuttle family members. None of us developed the bulls eye rash, none of us met the strict CDC
criteria for positive test results and as I mentioned
previously, if we had not met Dr. Sam Donta, none of us would
have been treated.
The sobering fact about this travesty is that it has been
going on for over three decades and no matter how many
complaints are submitted, nothing changes and lives continue
to be ruined by an infection misclassified as a simple
nuisance disease; “hard to catch and easily treated.” Everyone
here is a single tick bite away from experiencing this health
disaster as tick-borne disease infection rates in the ticks
found in Litchfield for example are as high as 77% as
indicated in the 2009 UMass tick study I sent to all of you
yesterday. Of course, all these details are well hidden from
the public. So I hope that we can make a difference here, get
the truth out to the public and save lives that otherwise
would have been upended by this life-altering/life threatening
infection.
Ben Franklin once said, “Justice won’t be served until those
unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Carl Tuttle
Hudson, NH
References
1. Treatment Delays Increase Risk of Persistent Illness in
Lyme Disease
https://www.hopkinslyme.org/news/treatment-delays--
increase-risk-of-persistent-illness-in-lyme-disease/
2. A murine model of lyme disease demonstrates that
Borrelia burgdorferi colonizes the dura mater and
induces inflammation in the central nervous system
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article/authors?-
id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1009256Pike County Tick Borne
Diseases Task Force Releases
Results Presentation
The Pike County (PA) Tick Borne Diseases Task Force has
provided a 6 minute video slide show with results from the
Pike County Tick Borne Diseases Base-Line Study, a county-wide
assessment of the tick-borne diseases and infection rates of
ticks funded in part by a 2018 grant awarded by the LDA.
Graph from Pike County Tick Borne
Diseases Base-Line Study
From Spring 2018 through Fall 2019 black-legged ticks in the
nymph or adult stages were collected and tested for seven
different disease-causing pathogens. Other types of ticks,
including one Asian longhorned and one lone star tick, were
collected but not tested.
There was nearly an even split between the number of male and
female ticks collected. Results of this study show that over
half of the male deer ticks tested positive for various tick-
borne pathogens, * with a similar finding in the female
population.The study also addressed co-infections with 123 of 988 black- legged ticks testing positive for two or more pathogens. The highest co-infection observed was Lyme disease and Anaplasmosis. *It should be noted here that current research seems to indicate that male deer ticks do not transmit the Lyme bacteria, or rarely transmit, with varying reports of either they do not feed or briefly feed, and do not become engorged. View the Pike County Tick Borne Diseases Base-Line Study slide show/video below. For more information visit the Pike County Tick Borne Diseases Task Force webpage. Read previous article, Pike County Ticks Exceed PA State Average for Carrying Tick-Borne Diseases on LDA’s website.
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