Can We Use The Wisdom of Mother Nature to Stop the Wild Spread Of Lyme Disease?
According to Professor Lane, his research group has been studying the transmission cycles of the LD spirochete and other emerging bacterial disease agents - to determine what behavioral and environmental factors place people at elevated risk for acquiring the LDS and other tick-borne infections - and to evaluate control methodologies for reducing such risk.
The ultimate goal of this research is to use the basic knowledge gleaned from the foregoing projects to develop and implement strategies for reducing human exposure to tick-borne disease agents. To this end, several host-targeted methods for disseminating environmentally safe pesticides to rodent reservoir hosts of the LD spirochete already have been assessed. One method, the delivery of an oil-based formulation of permethrin to wood rats, has shown considerable promise for reducing populations of both vector ticks and fleas infesting this reservoir host.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic (and incredibly ironic) to use a pest, one thought of as a disease carrying rodent, to be the salvation key to the raging epidemic of Lyme disease?
The horrible truth today is that mainstream medicine at emergency rooms across the country are administrating a mild dose of Doxycycline for three weeks when the strongest athlete needs at least twice that amount.
I recently spoke to an acquaintance of mine who began her tale of woe just after she learned that I was a victim of Lyme disease. Unfortunately I think most of us have heard this story many times - I can’t remember how many people related similar stories.
This woman’s husband saw the tick and saved it in a jar - then when a bulls-eye rash appeared and he was beginning to feel like he had the flu he went to the emergency room.
The emergency room doctor flushed the tick down the sink saying, “…we don’t take any chances here. If you’ve been bitten by a tick and get a rash we will treat you for Lyme disease.”
Feeling reassured and relieved he filled his 2 week prescription of 100 mg of Doxycycline (twice a day) and was certain he was cured by the end of the treatment. When his doctor called to check on him, he said he felt fine - case closed.
Three weeks later he had the flu again never connecting the tick bite with this case of flu. Now you can guess the rest.
Two years later he is now a frightened victim of a full-blown case of chronic neuro-Lyme.
So if the CDC develops a program to breed rats in the thickest areas of deer population, don’t be worried…it might be a gift from Mother Nature.
Dr. Lane and his team have found that the Lyme spirochete is maintained in a transmission cycle that differs from that in the upper midwestern and northeastern United States.
Woodrats and kangaroo rats (vs. white-footed mice) serve as reservoir hosts, 3 species of ticks (vs. one species) maintain and distribute the spirochete in the West, and the spirochetes themselves are generally much more variable than those from the East.
Factors that contribute to risk of infection include cutting wood, exposure to leaf litter in hardwood forests, and other outdoor activities that place people in direct contact with the habitats of the primary tick vector. These findings underscore the need for more specialists to study the disease on a regional basis before any effective program can be developed to protect human health.
Additionally, a new species of tick-borne spirochete was discovered during these studies that may be the cause of epizootic bovine abortion, (a disease that has been estimated to cause annual losses of $5-15 million to the cattle industry in California alone. )
Other tick-borne diseases currently or previously investigated by us in collaboration with others include Colorado tick fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, human babesiosis, and tick paralysis.
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, a study in Connecticut worked with the same idea. Bio One published a similar project published in their Journal of Medical Entomology.
The official abstract is as follows:
“A 3-yr community-based study was conducted on residential properties on Mason’s Island, Mystic, CT, to determine the efficacy of a rodent-targeted acaricide (fipronil) to control immature Ixodes scapularis (Say) on Peromyscus leucopus.
Results indicated that modified commercial bait boxes were effective as an acaricide delivery method for reducing nymphal and larval tick infestations on white-footed mice by 68 and 84%, respectively.
Passive application of fipronil significantly reduced the infection rate of Borrelia burgdorferi among white-footed mice by 53%. Moreover, the abundance of questing I. scapularis adults on treated properties was reduced by 77% and fewer were infected with spirochetes (31%) compared with untreated sites (47%) after 3 yr of treatment. Likewise, the abundance of host-seeking nymphs was significantly reduced on treated properties by >50%.
Finally, infection rates in flagged nymphal ticks for both B. burgdorferi and Anaplasma phagocytophilum were reduced by 67 and 64%, respectively, after only 2 yr of treatment.
Results from this 3-yr trial indicate that the use of fipronil passively applied to reservoir animals by bait boxes is an environmentally acceptable means to control ticks, interrupt the natural disease transmission cycle, and reduce the risk of Lyme disease for residents of treated properties.”
So let’s start building bait boxes!
Similar Posts:
- Lizards For Chronic Lyme Disease
- Who Gets The Grants For Chronic Lyme Disease?
- A New Vaccine For Lyme Disease From Tick Saliva?
- News From Dr. Brian Fallon at Columbia University’s Lyme Clinic
- Was Bb (Lyme disease) Developed as a Bio-weapon?
- Lyme Disease Grant For Better Diagnosis
- Hopeful Strategy For Reducing The Spread Of Lyme
- Lyme Disease On The Rise - Sexual Transmission?
- Babesia: Rare Disease - Not So Rare
- Ehrlichiosis - A Potentially Fatal Co-infection of Lyme Disease
Thanks for visiting again - Please comment on the posts you read - everyone is interested in what you have to say.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 am
it is really a breakthrough.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Interesting Jenna about Targeting the RODENT population.
I heard actually this program on NPR a few weeks ago.
A couple of listeners called in regarding lyme disease itself, and the vet provided some erroneous information about lyme stats in the human population; however,
At 45:00 minutes in this broadcast, a caller poses a question about immunizing wildlife, in the case of lyme–rodents, THROUGH FEED to decrease transmission to humans.
to which guest, Lonnie King, mentions research I hadn’t heard about:
In order to prevent disease, and decrease population of certain wildlife
“cutting-edge” research is being done, particularly to do with lyme where vaccines were unsuccessful in humans.
Private companies (which ones?) and the CDC are conducting research to
reproduce protein characteristics that cause the antibody response,
putting it in food like rice,
which is spread over a large area,
which animals/rodents then eat,
creating an immunity in the animals.
Vaccine via Feed/food ~
This is active research but again he didn’t cite the affiliations of those conducting the research.
He goes on to say that that because it is so cheap it could be used over larger areas,
like in Africa with the plague. It could potentially have a huge impact.
Click on “Listen to the Show” at this URL:
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/11/animals-people-and-disease
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM EST
Animals, People, and Disease
The H1N1 virus is more commonly known as “swine flu.” That doesn’t mean you can catch it from a pig, but it does point to the source of the infection.And it’s far from the only disease that can make the jump to humans from other species. Avian flu.Rabies. Ringworm. Hantavirus. West Nile Virus. Even Ebola and HIV likely originated in animals and made the leap. Now, with the world a global village and populations soaring, experts warn these species-hopping diseases may arise more frequently, and become more dangerous.
Guests:
Joining us from New York is Donald G. McNeill Jr., science and health reporter for The New York Times.
From Columbus, Ohio, we’re joined by Lonnie King, dean of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine and former director of the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne and Enteric Diseases.And from Oklahoma City, we’re joined by Susan Little, professor of veterinary parasitology at the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University. She’s a member of the board of directors of the Companion Animal Parasite Council, which is sponsoring the “Pets, People and Pathogens” conference in Providence, Rhode Island next week.
December 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I stumbled accross your blog by using stumbleupon and love the design of the whole thing! I normally skip straight past blogs as I have over 20 in my RSS and dont even have time to read the ones that I have! I am started out as a blogger myself and always tried to keep the design simple like yours as I think it is crucial, if you can back it up with some lovely pics like yours! Keep up the nice work! Cheers!
January 18th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I saw a news segment on Daily Planet some months back where in Australia they are having a problem with too many rodents. They installed houses for Barn Owls which eat rodents and hunt at night and for Kestrels which eat rodents and small birds but hunts during the day. They found that the rodent population dropped dramatically.
I checked at least for my area (Coastal BC) and both birds range here. So I figure putting up houses for each of these birds has to help the tick situation.
Also in my yard I have a family of Quail, they eat insects and seem to be keeping the tick population down in our neighborhood.
I think we need to balance out mother nature by providing homes for her beneficial creatures rather than using poisons on the ones we want to get rid of.