Understanding Deer Ticks & Lyme Disease
Harwich Natural Resources Department, Town of Harwich, MA
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By ROBIN LORD Some of the more than 250 people at the hearing hobbled into Gardner Auditorium with canes, dragged intravenous antibiotic drip poles, or leaned on the arm of a supportive friend. Many told of having to travel to doctors in New York and Connecticut for correct diagnosis and treatment, only to find that their insurance would not cover it because they had traveled out of state. They told of years of suffering from muscle pains, insomnia, fatigue, short-term memory loss and a host of other problems. One woman said her son's confusion and inability to concentrate in school cleared up after he was treated for Lyme disease by New Haven pediatrician Dr. Charles Jones. She said her son's doctor in Massachusetts had refused to prescribe antibiotics for her son, but did not hesitate to offer him a drug for hyperactivity and attention deficit. Members of the state's Joint Committee on Public Health, including Rep. Shirley Gomes, R-Harwich, and Rep. Cleon Turner, D-Dennis, also heard repeated requests to find ways to create an environment within the state that is safe for doctors to prescribe antibiotic therapy - sometimes for years - for infections that have not been diagnosed in the early stage and have become chronic. A battle is raging in the medical community over whether Lyme disease is overdiagnosed and overtreated. On one side are major medical organizations such as the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that question whether Lyme disease can be diagnosed without clear test results, and whether it can become a chronic condition if not caught early. On the other side are the growing numbers of Lyme disease sufferers and a small number of doctors and researchers who claim the condition must be diagnosed based more on clinical symptoms than on what they claim are imperfect tests. Three physicians - all from out of state - testified before the committee on the legitimacy of late-stage Lyme disease and the valid treatment with long-term antibiotics. ''The evidence is incontrovertible: When (people with Lyme disease) are treated early, they do well, if not, they don't do so well,'' said Dr. Brian Fallon, a Columbia University researcher and director of the Lyme Disease Research Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. But the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in particular, has questioned whether late-stage Lyme disease is an actual medical condition. It has taken a strong stand against states making laws to force insurance companies to pay for long-term antibiotics. In a June 28 letter to Gov. Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, where lawmakers are considering a bill to do just that, society president Dr. Walter Stamm urged opposition. ''Legislation should not be the approach to address controversies in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions,'' he wrote. But Public Health Committee Chairman Peter Koutoujian of Wal-tham said yesterday many legislators say they can no longer ignore the tales of constituents who have had to travel out of state where doctors have practices that almost exclusively diagnose and treat Lyme disease. Koutoujian said the committee will consider filing legislation. Gomes yesterday said it was ''absolutely ridiculous for a state that has the medical institutions we do'' to have so few doctors who are literate in Lyme diagnosis and treatment. ''Eleven years ago, people were telling me they had to go out of state to get treated, and I'm still hearing that,'' she said. A group of about 20 Cape residents missed the deadline to sign up to speak to the committee, after a bus they had chartered failed to show up and they had to drive to Boston in their cars. But Constance Bean of Harwich did get to tell the committee her story. She said she was bedridden for five years with terrible joint pain from an undiagnosed Lyme condition and recovered only after going to one of the only doctors in the state who will treat late-stage Lyme disease, Dr. Samuel Donta of Falmouth and Boston. Bean, who said she has a master's degree in public health and has written six books on health, said she would like the Legislature to mandate physician education in Lyme disease in medical schools and in continuing education requirements. Michelle Bosch of Falmouth also made the trip to Boston to advocate for better doctor education. ''The doctors need to be the first line of defense on this, but they're not,'' said Bosch, who said she suffered from Lyme for 11 years before being diagnosed, and it was harder to endure than a bout with cancer. Robin Lord can be reached at rlord@capecodonline.com. (Published: October 13, 2005) |
Simonsis, and others, worry that ending the February hunt will mean that island gets overrun by deer, ticks and disease. ''My son had a 105-degree fever and was hallucinating for days,'' she said. ''To see people suffering, coping with a few weeks of a deer hunt makes sense.''
The Tick Awareness Group said 2,000 people annually are tested on Nantucket for tick-related infections, with 200 confirmed infections from Lyme, ehrlichiosis, or Babseosis. The group was formed in April 2004 to address this public health problem. They determined that nonhunting options like sterilizing deer for population control were either too costly, chemically dangerous to other species, or not yet approved. They found that extending the hunting season was the only way to get the herd numbers down.
Sam Telford, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Tufts University of Veterinary Medicine, said he would like to see the deer population down to 10 per square mile on Nantucket to really get tick numbers low. He said Nantucket is prime tick habitat because it is not as dry as the mainland, but not wet enough that a tick-killing fungus can take over. Nantucket's tick population is between 200 and 600 ticks per acre compared with 200 to 250 per acre on the Cape, according to Telford. ''The bottom line is where they are coming from. If you go to puddles and see mosquito larvae, you'll get mosquitoes. If you see tick larvae, and tick eggs, the only place the females can get the blood (to produce those eggs) is from deer,'' he said.
Telford said the problem of tick-borne diseases grows as the deer herds increase and move into more suburban areas of the state. The next big explosion of Lyme and other diseases is likely to be in the area of routes 128 and 495 where hunters can't go, but deer can. Telford said there were no deer ticks behind his office in Grafton five years ago. Since then, the deer population has grown and he can find them in a minute.
''Deer ticks will be in people's backyards. The problem will then be all of ours, not just Nantucket's,'' he said.
''I was hoping Nantucket would be a model for the rest of the state,'' he added of the hunting program.
