81–90 of 140 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CDC recommendation is more interested in preventing antibiotic resistance than in preventing Lyme disease for the patient. Obey CDC at your own risk
Antibiotics aren't free of risks to the patient either, including doxycycline. There's always a risk tradeoff.
If not this, then what? Like others, I was interested in the article because of Lyme and other diseases. Ticks really do suck. I appreciate all the science-y comments though I understand very little. I appreciate comments about personal experiences with ticks, getting bitten, and getting sick. I’m left with this: If this test is not really a viable solution (or at least one solution) to the problem of the unaffordabi…
What would be way more useful is a quick blood test (pin prick type à la thernos) that could diagnose early for treatment.
Wow, this seems a pretty big deal. Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions. Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people hav…
It started around Connecticut in the 70s and has been spreading out radially since then. I believe it’s still not a huge problem in the western United States (there are other tick borne diseases there however). Soon it will spread across the world and tick bites will be serious business everywhere.
Genetic studies and museum tick specimens prove the bacteria existed in North America for thousands of years before the lab was built. Whether there was gain of function done on it is not publicly verified.
Why test ticks for Lyme Disease? Make a cheap, accurate test for Lyme disease in humans ! Jeez! Chasing ticks, c'mon, really, my f*ing intelligence is insulted by the suggestion.
There are MANY facebook groups filled with people fully convinced that they have Lyme disease. These groups teach that virtually any and every symptom is caused by the infection and that basically everyone has it. As if this wasn’t insane enough, the people in the group will push each other to go on antibiotics - via so called lyme literate doctors - until they are on the verge of death due to the side effects. Worse…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It started around Connecticut in the 70s and has been spreading out radially since then. I believe it’s still not a huge problem in the western United States (there are other tick borne diseases there however). Soon it will spread across the world and tick bites will be serious business everywhere.
Correct. The outbreak was first recognized in 1975 in Old Lyme, Connecticut, directly across the Long Island Sound from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (a lab which had been doing explicitly offensive biological weapons research until at least 1969), which led to an unverified theory about an escaped bioweapon. Genetic studies and museum tick specimens prove the bacteria existed in North America for thousands o…
Wow, this seems a pretty big deal. Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions. Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people hav…
Great. Let's get working on preventing/curing alpha-gal allergy though. Or actually let's just eradicate all ticks.
Unfortunately, there are major issues with this approach. The vendor claims "lab-level accuracy" (conveniently omitting the actual accuracy numbers), but the test is a lateral flow test, which means its Limit of Detection is going to be orders of magnitude worse than molecular tests. Tick tests do not require FDA clearance, so their claims are most likely unreviewed. Existing lab tests for ticks are almost universall…