NPM's WebLog

Thursday October 25, 2007

which tick bit you and what did it give you?

Anybody know a newer map like this? (below). This is 10 years old! For one, it needs to be updated for "The Lone Star tick" which seems to transmit another Lyme variant STARI (southern tick associated rash illness)

which incidentally won't show up at all on any Lyme test -- it's a different borrelia... and of course, they don't even mention the oddball south and central american ticks that are vectored by birds worldwide. In brazil, for example there's "Lyme Imitator Disease" which doesn't even appear to be caused by a borrelia spirochete at all, but rather a completely different unrecognized bacteria. The interest in Amblyomma spread is that it is also the main tick species used for biowarfare. Regular lyme ticks  are lazy... amblyomma go out and seek a blood meal and are agressive in doing so... perhaps they specialize in finding sleeping animals and humans? Amblyomma's are being found in all the WRONG places, like on Long Island. Of course, bird-vectoring is less likely for that, than the more obvious issue -- the reason why Lyme happened in Lyme Connecticut and became epidemic in the USA... is due to it's proximity to Plum Island biowarfare research facility, where there's documented use of the Amblyomma as vector for diseases.

But for now, this map will do:

So where did you get bit? What kind of tick, and what diseases did you get?