Latest news with #ticks
CBS News
2 hours ago
- Health
- CBS News
With hotter weather looming, Michigan officials warn to be on tick alert
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Experts recommend checking your body and clothes when coming in May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Experts recommend checking your body and clothes when coming in May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Experts recommend checking your body and clothes when coming in As it gets hotter day by day, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is reminding Michiganders to stay wary of ticks. Many people are unaware that these tiny pests can pose health threats to both animals and people. While ticks can lead to serious threats like Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, they can also lead to minor health threats such as fever, muscle and joint aches, or rashes. Michigan is home to more than 20 tick species, and as the sun warms us up, the ticks come out. Michiganders are urged to get checked for ticks regularly as it warms up outside. "Whether through integrated pest management or responsible pesticide use, preventing tick bites starts at home," MDARD Director Tim Boring said. Both practices can help minimize ticks on your property, but they must be done correctly and safely. Some simple integrated practices include: Trimming back tall grasses around homes regularly. Placing patios, decks, playsets, and storing firewood in sunny, dry areas to deter rodents, which are common tick hosts. Creating a 3-foot barrier of woods chips or gravel between homes and wooded areas to deter tick movement. If using pesticides or insect repellent, the agency urges people to do so responsibly. Always follow the label and wear protective clothing when instructed. Checking your pets, companion animals, and livestock is also very important. If you see a tick, remove it immediately, monitor your health (or your animal's health), and consult with your medical provider. While not every tick is infected, bites from infected ticks can lead to the serious health issues mentioned earlier if not treated immediately. For more information regarding tick information including identification, removal, and tick-borne illnesses, visit or Michigan's Emerging Diseases webpage.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Explosive increase' of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis
Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned. Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards. The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now. 'We thought this thing was relatively rare 10 years ago but it's become more and more common and it's something I expect to continue to grow very rapidly,' said Brandon Hollingsworth, an expert at the University of South Carolina who has researched the tick's expansion. 'We've seen an explosive increase in these ticks, which is a concern. I imagine alpha-gal will soon include the entire range of the tick, which could become the entire eastern half of the US as there's not much to stop them. It seems like an oddity now but we could end up with millions of people with an allergy to meat.' The exact number of alpha-gal cases is unclear due to patchy data collection but it's likely to be a severe undercount as people may not link their allergic reaction to the tick bites. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said around 110,000 cases have been documented since 2010 but acknowledges the true number could be as high as 450,000. Cases will rise further as the ticks spread, aided by their adaptability to local conditions, according to Laura Harrington, an entomologist and disease specialist at Cornell University. 'With their adaptive nature and increasing temperatures, I don't see many limits to these ticks over time,' she said. Alpha-gal is a confounding condition because it doesn't cause an immediate allergic reaction, unlike a peanut allergy, with symptoms often appearing several hours after consuming meat. The syndrome is not caused by a pathogen but spurs an allergy to a sugar molecule found in mammals and an array of other things, from toothpaste to medical equipment. Researchers think the condition can wane over time but is also worsened by further tick bites. This leads to a confusing and fraught experience for the growing number of Americans with alpha-gal, who are now girding for another expected hot summer full of ticks. 'The ticks are rampant this year, I've pulled 10 ticks off me this season alone, it feels like they are uncontrollable at the moment,' said Heather O'Bryan, a horticulturist in Roanoke, Virginia, who has alpha-gal. 'They are so disgusting. I'm not afraid of a lot, but I'm afraid of ticks.' In 2019, O'Bryan suffered full body hives and struggled to breathe after eating a pork sausage. 'It was terrifying experience, I didn't know I had an allergy but it almost killed me,' she said. She now avoids products containing mammal-derived elements, such as certain toothpastes and even toilet paper, due to adverse reactions. Dairy, another mammalian product, is also off limits. 'I've learned what I can eat now, but I was so sad when I realized I couldn't have pizza again, I remember crying in front of a frozen pizza in the supermarket aisle,' she said. There is now an 'almost constant' stream of new members to the Facebook alpha-gal support groups that O'Bryan is part of, she said, with her region of Virginia now seemingly saturated by the condition. 'Everyone knows someone who has it, I talk a friend off a ledge once a month when they've been bitten because they are so afraid they have it and are freaking out,' she said. Lone star ticks are aggressive and can speedily follow a human target if they detect them. 'They will hunt you, they are like a cross between a lentil and a velociraptor,' said Sharon Pitcairn Forsyth, a conservationist who lives in the Washington DC area. A particular horror is the prospect of brushing up against vegetation containing a massed ball of juvenile lone star ticks, know as a 'tick bomb', that can deliver thousands of tick bites. 'They are so tiny you can't see them but you have to take it seriously or you'll never get them off you,' said Forsyth, who now carries around a lint roller to remove such clusters. After being diagnosed with alpha-gal, Forsyth set up online resources about the condition to help spread awareness and advocate for better food labeling to include alpha-gal warnings. 'I get calls from doctors asking questions about this because they just don't know about it,' she said. 'I'm not a medical professional, so I just send them the research papers.' As the climate heats up, due to the burning of fossil fuels, ticks are able to shift to areas that are becoming agreeably warm for them. Growing numbers of deer, which host certain ticks, and sprawling housing development into natural habitats is also causing more interactions with ticks. 'Places where houses push up against habitats and parks where nature has regrown are where we are seeing cases,' said Hollingsworth. But much is still unknown, such as why lone star ticks, which have long been native to the US, suddenly started causing these allergic reactions. Symptoms can also be alarmingly varied – Forsyth said she rarely eats out now because of concerns of contamination in the food and even that alpha-gal could be carried to her airborne, via the steam of cooked meat. 'Some people are scared to leave the house, it's hard to avoid,' she said. 'Many people who get it are over 50, so the first symptom some of them have is a heart attack.' So how far can alpha-gal spread? Cases have been found in Europe and Australia, although in low numbers, while in the US it's assumed lone star ticks won't be able to shift west of the Rocky mountains. But other tick species might also be able to spread alpha-gal syndrome – a recent scientific paper found the western black legged tick and the black legged tick, also called the deer tick, could also cause the condition. Hanna Oltean, an epidemiologist at Washington state department of health, said it was 'very surprising' to find a case of alpha-gal in Washington state from a person bitten by a tick locally, suggesting the western black legged tick could be a culprit. 'The range is spreading and emerging in new areas so the risk is increasing over time,' Oltean said. 'Washington state is very far from the range and the risk remains very low here. But we don't know enough about the biology of how ticks spread the syndrome.' The spread of alpha-gal comes amid a barrage of disease threats from different ticks that are fanning out across a rapidly warming US. Powassan virus, which can kill people via an inflammation of the brain, is still rare but is growing, as is Babesia, a parasite that causes severe illnesses. Lyme disease, long a feature of the US north-east, is also burgeoning. 'We are dealing with a lot of serious tick-borne illnesses and discovering new ones all the time,' said Harrington. 'There's a tremendous urgency to confront this with new therapies but the problem is we are going backwards in terms of funding and support in the US. There have been cuts to the CDC and NIH (National Institutes of Health) which means there is decreasing support. It's a major concern.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Explosive increase' of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis
Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned. Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards. The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now. 'We thought this thing was relatively rare 10 years ago but it's become more and more common and it's something I expect to continue to grow very rapidly,' said Brandon Hollingsworth, an expert at the University of South Carolina who has researched the tick's expansion. 'We've seen an explosive increase in these ticks, which is a concern. I imagine alpha-gal will soon include the entire range of the tick, which could become the entire eastern half of the US as there's not much to stop them. It seems like an oddity now but we could end up with millions of people with an allergy to meat.' The exact number of alpha-gal cases is unclear due to patchy data collection but it's likely to be a severe undercount as people may not link their allergic reaction to the tick bites. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said around 110,000 cases have been documented since 2010 but acknowledges the true number could be as high as 450,000. Cases will rise further as the ticks spread, aided by their adaptability to local conditions, according to Laura Harrington, an entomologist and disease specialist at Cornell University. 'With their adaptive nature and increasing temperatures, I don't see many limits to these ticks over time,' she said. Alpha-gal is a confounding condition because it doesn't cause an immediate allergic reaction, unlike a peanut allergy, with symptoms often appearing several hours after consuming meat. The syndrome is not caused by a pathogen but spurs an allergy to a sugar molecule found in mammals and an array of other things, from toothpaste to medical equipment. Researchers think the condition can wane over time but is also worsened by further tick bites. This leads to a confusing and fraught experience for the growing number of Americans with alpha-gal, who are now girding for another expected hot summer full of ticks. 'The ticks are rampant this year, I've pulled 10 ticks off me this season alone, it feels like they are uncontrollable at the moment,' said Heather O'Bryan, a horticulturist in Roanoke, Virginia, who has alpha-gal. 'They are so disgusting. I'm not afraid of a lot, but I'm afraid of ticks.' In 2019, O'Bryan suffered full body hives and struggled to breathe after eating a pork sausage. 'It was terrifying experience, I didn't know I had an allergy but it almost killed me,' she said. She now avoids products containing mammal-derived elements, such as certain toothpastes and even toilet paper, due to adverse reactions. Dairy, another mammalian product, is also off limits. 'I've learned what I can eat now, but I was so sad when I realized I couldn't have pizza again, I remember crying in front of a frozen pizza in the supermarket aisle,' she said. There is now an 'almost constant' stream of new members to the Facebook alpha-gal support groups that O'Bryan is part of, she said, with her region of Virginia now seemingly saturated by the condition. 'Everyone knows someone who has it, I talk a friend off a ledge once a month when they've been bitten because they are so afraid they have it and are freaking out,' she said. Lone star ticks are aggressive and can speedily follow a human target if they detect them. 'They will hunt you, they are like a cross between a lentil and a velociraptor,' said Sharon Pitcairn Forsyth, a conservationist who lives in the Washington DC area. A particular horror is the prospect of brushing up against vegetation containing a massed ball of juvenile lone star ticks, know as a 'tick bomb', that can deliver thousands of tick bites. 'They are so tiny you can't see them but you have to take it seriously or you'll never get them off you,' said Forsyth, who now carries around a lint roller to remove such clusters. After being diagnosed with alpha-gal, Forsyth set up online resources about the condition to help spread awareness and advocate for better food labeling to include alpha-gal warnings. 'I get calls from doctors asking questions about this because they just don't know about it,' she said. 'I'm not a medical professional, so I just send them the research papers.' As the climate heats up, due to the burning of fossil fuels, ticks are able to shift to areas that are becoming agreeably warm for them. Growing numbers of deer, which host certain ticks, and sprawling housing development into natural habitats is also causing more interactions with ticks. 'Places where houses push up against habitats and parks where nature has regrown are where we are seeing cases,' said Hollingsworth. But much is still unknown, such as why lone star ticks, which have long been native to the US, suddenly started causing these allergic reactions. Symptoms can also be alarmingly varied – Forsyth said she rarely eats out now because of concerns of contamination in the food and even that alpha-gal could be carried to her airborne, via the steam of cooked meat. 'Some people are scared to leave the house, it's hard to avoid,' she said. 'Many people who get it are over 50, so the first symptom some of them have is a heart attack.' So how far can alpha-gal spread? Cases have been found in Europe and Australia, although in low numbers, while in the US it's assumed lone star ticks won't be able to shift west of the Rocky mountains. But other tick species might also be able to spread alpha-gal syndrome – a recent scientific paper found the western black legged tick and the black legged tick, also called the deer tick, could also cause the condition. Hanna Oltean, an epidemiologist at Washington state department of health, said it was 'very surprising' to find a case of alpha-gal in Washington state from a person bitten by a tick locally, suggesting the western black legged tick could be a culprit. 'The range is spreading and emerging in new areas so the risk is increasing over time,' Oltean said. 'Washington state is very far from the range and the risk remains very low here. But we don't know enough about the biology of how ticks spread the syndrome.' The spread of alpha-gal comes amid a barrage of disease threats from different ticks that are fanning out across a rapidly warming US. Powassan virus, which can kill people via an inflammation of the brain, is still rare but is growing, as is Babesia, a parasite that causes severe illnesses. Lyme disease, long a feature of the US north-east, is also burgeoning. 'We are dealing with a lot of serious tick-borne illnesses and discovering new ones all the time,' said Harrington. 'There's a tremendous urgency to confront this with new therapies but the problem is we are going backwards in terms of funding and support in the US. There have been cuts to the CDC and NIH (National Institutes of Health) which means there is decreasing support. It's a major concern.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Tick population booming in N.B. after successive mild winters, expert says
With the prospect of a warm summer ahead, Mount Allison University biologist Vett Lloyd warns New Brunswickers to protect themselves from ticks, who have been on the rise over the past couple of years. Lloyd has been studying ticks for more than 10 years and said the tick population has become unprecedentedly high this season. "We had two mild winters in a row and that means that instead of dying off during the winter, the ticks were able to sleep it out under the snow and under the soil," said Lloyd. "Anytime an adult female gets a good blood meal, she can produce 2,000 to 3,000 little baby ticks, so there are a lot of ticks now." Ticks are parasites that suck blood to create more ticks. They often feed on the blood of wild animals that carry diseases, such as Lyme disease, and bacteria that can be transmitted to humans and pets if they get bit. These diseases are called zoonotic illnesses, some of which can be fatal if left untreated. Lloyd said researchers have seen an increase in the number of ticks in the southern half of the province, along the coast. They're even starting to appear increasingly far north, carried by migratory birds and wild animals like coyotes, foxes and deer. These ticks are also carrying new diseases, such as anaplasmosis and babesiosis, which can be fatal to humans more rapidly than Lyme disease, Lloyd said. She said government doesn't currently keep track of the tick population, so researchers use community reports and targeted tick sweeps to determine how the parasite is spreading. To contribute to community reports, individuals can slowly drag a fleece blanket or an old towel over vegetation and grass in their backyard or a local park for a few minutes. If a small, black, multi-legged speck is observed, it's probably a tick. These reports can be submitted to a website created by researchers at Bishop's University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The site also includes other resources, including a map of the country that indicates high-incidence tick areas in red. Besides using etick, Lloyd recommends using bug spray — preferably ones that say they also work on ticks. Lloyd said these sprays have probably been tested on ticks, making them more efficient to repel them than regular bug spray. She also recommends people cover their legs with long pants when outdoors. However, if this is not feasible due to summer heat, she stressed the importance of frequent tick checks during walks and after coming back from being outside. "Either in the middle of the hike, look at your own legs, look at your clothing, catch the ticks that are walking on you and get them off while they are still walking. They are not a risk," she said. "Once they stick their head into you and start sucking your blood, they are a risk, so get them off early." To make sure ticks are not latched on, Lloyd also advised people to take a shower after their walks or just take their clothes off and do a thorough tick check with the help of a mirror or someone else. In the young stages, ticks can be about the size of poppy seed, while adults can be around the size of a sesame seed, so Lloyd encourages people to look for "freckle-sized" objects. To protect pets from ticks, Lloyd said most anti-flea products will also have anti-tick medication. She recommends pet owners talk to their veterinarian and get medication prescribed to prevent the spread of diseases in their households. If you were bitten by a tick and didn't realize it for a couple of hours, Lloyd said to not panic. She said the first step to treat a tick bite is to remove it right away. "The nice thing about ticks is that they don't go fast, so it's not an emergency in the sense of gushing blood or someone can't breath," she said. Lloyd said there are various tick removal tools if people are squeamish about touching ticks, but they can easily remove them with tweezers or their hands if they have nothing available in their homes. She said the best thing to do to make sure the tick didn't give you a disease is to determine what type of tick it is. She recommended people submit the picture of the tick in etick, where researchers will identify it. People can also get their tick tested for diseases if they mail it to Geneticks, a private company in Canada that specializes in tick testing. There is a fee to get ticks tested by Geneticks, and according to Lloyd, besides Geneticks, there's only a few parts in the country where individuals can go to get ticks tested through the health-care system. Lloyd said many pharmacies can prescribe a single dose of antibiotics to people bitten by ticks, without cost, and even without a family doctor. In 2023, pharmacists became publicly funded to assess and prescribe for seven illnesses and conditions, including Lyme disease prevention after a high-risk tick bite. Lloyd said people only need to bring the tick in a bag, or take a picture of it, and show it to the pharmacist, who would then administer the antibiotic doxycycline depending on the severity of the case. "It works if you catch the tick when it just started to feed, so that's why it's really important to do a tick check the same day you've been exposed," said Lloyd. Lloyd said that if left unchecked, a tick can feed on an individual's blood for about a week, increasing their chances to infect its host with the diseases it's carrying. Based on this year's survey results regarding early tick bite treatment outcomes, Lloyd said pharmacy treatment has proven quite accessible. Anne Marie Picone, the executive director of the New Brunswick Pharmacist Association, agrees with Lloyd. She said the provision of the single-dose treatment has helped reduce the backlog of patients going to the urgent care clinics due to tick bites. "Anecdotal evidence from colleagues, from pharmacists that are members, are telling us that especially in certain areas, we are seeing increases in people coming in and asking for the service," she said. Picone explained that with the treatment being government funded, customers can come into most pharmacies in New Brunswick and get two paid-for tick assessments per year. She said pharmacists will mostly treat those who have been bitten within 72 hours because, depending on their symptoms and complexity of the case, they might need to be referred to a doctor. Additionally, Picone recommended people to reach out to their pharmacies first to make sure they have time to assess them. According to Lloyd's survey, 10 to 30 per cent of those who took the single-dose treatment can still get Lyme disease, however she believes having access to the treatment is still pivotal for the prevention of tick-caused diseases. "Three times fewer people developed Lyme disease if they got the early treatment than if they didn't," she said. Lloyd doesn't want to deter people from enjoying outdoor activities, but she hopes they will be more cautious about ticks and the diseases they carry, especially given the emergence of newer zoonotic tick-borne illnesses. "I always encourage people to go out, but then just be careful," she said. "Take just the same way you put sunscreen to not get a sunburn, put bug spray and do a tick check afterwards just to be safe."
Forbes
2 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
Fordham Tick Risk Index is Now At Its Highest Level, 10 Out Of 10
There is an increasing need for signs such the one seen here at the entrance to a trail at ... More Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor, New York, warning of ticks. (Photo by James Carbone/Newsday RM via Getty Images) Tick. Tick. Tick. The U.S. is facing a ticking time bomb. The growing problem is ticks—more and more of them, spreading further and further, staying active for longer and longer throughout the year. And for the week of June 27, the Fordham University Tri-State Tick Risk Index is at the highest it can be: a 10 out of 10. What's listed next to that score is the following: "If you're thinking of taking a hike, consider going to a movie instead.' Yep, the tick situation in the tri-state area, encompassing southern New York, Connecticut, and northern New Jersey, really sucks now. The Fordham Tick Index Measures Tick Activity In The Tri-State Area When the index indicates 'Consider going to a movie instead,' it's not telling you that watching a movie like Frankenhooker is favorable over all activities. Instead, it's trying to tell you that any score in the seven to 10 range means that your chances of encountering ticks wherever wild animals and vegetation may be is 'high.' Each week researchers from the Louis Calder Center, Fordham University's Biological Field Station in Westchester County, NY, update this Fordham Tick Index. It's based on measurements of tick nymphs and full grown ticks in sample areas. Therefore, different parts of the tri-state area may have more or less tick activity. It's also a relative index, meaning what is tick activity currently compared to the rest of the year. A score of four to six is considered 'moderate,' associated with a 'ticks are fairly abundant, use caution,' piece of advice. The 'low' range is 1-3. With that you can 'enjoy the outdoors. But take precaution.' Even the lowest score of one doesn't mean that you should run around the woods naked, hugging any deer your can find. Ticks Can Carry Different Diseases The primary reason for the Fordham Tick Index is that ticks can be quite dangerous. Not all of them, though. In fact, the Fordham University website emphasizes that the 'vast majority of their 900 or so species are benign, living quiet lives of hematophagy.' Now, 'hematophagy' is probably not something you want to do on your spare time. It is the practice of feeding on blood. Ticks may look like insects. But don't call them insects. They are actually tiny eight-legged arachnids, making them related to spiders. They are also considered parasites became they live off different host animals, including humans, biting the host and sucking on the host's blood for sustenance. Tick hematophagy alone is not the threat. They aren't large enough to drain you of significant amount of blood, assuming that you are much taller than 10 mm. The problem is the disease-causing microbes that certain species of ticks may carry and transmit to you, while they bite and suck on your blood. And it could really bite and suck to get a disease like Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Powassan virus disease. I've already detailed in Forbes the badness that Lyme Disease, Babesiosis and POW can bring. Climate Change Is Contributing To The Tick Problem Now, if you are wondering 'weather' the tick situation is getting worse, you'd probably be right. Climate change with the associated changing weather patterns is contributing to increasing tick activity. Since tick activity tends to subside in the cold and increase with increasing temperatures, warmer winters mean that many ticks can remain active for longer parts of the year. For example, the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), the hard bodied tick that can carry the Lyme Disease-causing bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi are most active when temperatures exceed 45˚F. Rising temperatures everywhere throughout the year have expanded the geographic regions where ticks can live and flourish as well. Just look at how the deer tick has been extending its habitat by more than 20 miles per year, an estimate that Catherine Bouchard, a research scientist at the Public Health Agency of Canada provided in article by Maggie Astor for The New York Times. So places where you previously didn't have to worry much about disease-carrying ticks now are places with tick problems. How To Prevent Tick Bites The best way to prevent tick bites is to avoid going where ticks tend to be. Ticks are more likely to be in wooded, brushy, and grassy areas. So, while it may be nice to go off the beaten track when it comes to your career and life in general, this does not apply when preventing tick bites. If you must walk in areas that are close to natural vegetation and potentially wild animals, try instead to walk in the middle of well-trodden and even paved paths. Keep your yard well-manicured so that it's not favorable for ticks or animals that can carry ticks like deer. Otherwise, you may end up exclaiming, 'Oh deer.' Cover as much as your body as possible with clothing, especially your arms and lower extremities. This is not the time to go gardening in just your thong in the tri-state area. Wearing light colored clothing can make ticks easier to spot. Insect repellants can help. Just make sure that it contains components like DEET and picaridin that can actually repel ticks. You can use permethrin-based repellents on clothing and other types of gear. Finally, conduct tick checks regularly every time you are outdoors. You can do such checks to each other. Make you carefully check easy-to-miss areas such as behind the knees and the groin. Make sure that you ask before checking someone for ticks, especially if you are on a first date. The U.S. Needs A More Organized Plan On How To Deal With Ticks This certainly isn't the first time that I have written about the growing tick problem in the U.S. I've been warning about the tick problem for nearly a decade now. Yet, where's the organized plan on how to address it? Where's the strategy on how to deal with climate change? The longer the U.S. waits to deal with these problems, the more entrenched the problems will be. Then clock is ticking.
