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A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

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Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#111

Post by cmrdporcupine »

elric wrote: post #26
skocznymroczny wrote: post #21

I think a good test for Lyme disease would be more important than a vaccine (which is welcome too if it works well). The problem with Lyme disease is that it's symptoms are very wide and generic, and the commonly used tests are not very reliable. This means that many people live with the disease not aware of it, while others self-diagnose Lyme disease and cure it even if they didn't have it (because they had symptoms…

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. Testing for lyme really is pretty unreliable. Given how hard it is to reliably test for, we really don't have a good grasp on how prevalent lyme infections are. Another thing that would great, in addition to a vaccine and better testing, is prevention. Infected ticks are way more wide spread than they used to be. I've heard various reasons for this, including habitat loss o…

We keep chickens and I can tell you a domestic chicken roaming free in a high tick area would be gone in a few days. Hawks, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, whatever. They're domesticated and flightless.

What you want is guinea hens. They're voracious tick eaters. And will hide in trees, etc. at night. But also noisy as hell, and will walk all over roads.

Wild turkeys eat a lot of ticks, so we should be encouraging them.

Northern bobwhite quail are a native (to north america) quail which eat a lock of ticks. But they're near-threatened and very few of them in the wild and they also don't go as far north as New England (we have them here in Ontario but sparsely)

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#112

Post by somehnacct3757 »

jf22 wrote: post #63
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deer themselves are a problem in the northeast. They are greatly overpopulated and eat the native understory, preventing the next generation of trees from growing past adolescence. As the existing trees slowly die, there will be none younger to replace them. This also clears out the competition to the benefit of non-native plants, which the deer don't eat. Some of these plants are invasive, such as japanese barbe…

I'm sure deer populations have been higher in the past and the forests survived.

In my area there are over 120 deer per square mile currently. This number was historically 10, when predators existed. Studies have shown that around 30 deer per square mile is when biodiversity starts to suffer.

I live in the forest and manage my lot with guidance from foresters and nearby park rangers. It may take a hundred years for these current trees to die, but there's nothing to replace them. You can walk the understory and see knee-high trees that can't grow further because the deer prune their leaves.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#113

Post by coding123 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #68
inter_netuser wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look: https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/628045/fneur-12-6... These are spirochetes in the brain/spine of a dead patient who had proven lyme diagnosis, has been given the standard treatment in the past, never recovered, developed dementia, died. Full study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2021.6280... The wikipedia article you are quoting is outdated misinformation, please stop sprea…

I'd encourage anyone interested to do their own research. The scientific consensus today is what is stated in the linked wikipedia article. There are lot of myths around Lyme disease. https://eu.delawareonline.com/story/sponsor-story/nemours/20... Myth #5: Lyme disease can have debilitating, lifelong effects. Fact: When treated with antibiotics, Lyme disease, at any stage of presentation, is curable. Myth #6: My chil…

Yeah did you read his links?

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2021.6280...

Pretty damning.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#114

Post by giantg2 »

inter_netuser wrote: post #87
giantg2 wrote: post #64

There's also the researcher using crispr to give mice immunity to lyme, thus interrupting the life cycle. It would be great to wipe it out that way.

Please link.

I saw it on Netflix, but here is a similar article.

https://elemental.medium.com/the-mouse-cure-48f81e7a3fec

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#115

Post by mimined »

I'm a bit confused here... I thought a vaccine that protected you from Lyme disease already existed? I grew up in Latvia, and it was pretty common to get that jab. You have to get boosters every 5 years or so (which I haven't really done since I moved away) but they're supposed to protect you from the encephalitis ticks? Sorry if the terminology is wrong here.

I was surprised to know that they didn't bother with that in the UK. Then I got even more surprised when I learned that there's actually a lot of ticks in Scotland. I don't understand why this isn't spoken about more. Back at school they taught you at primary school what to do if ou het bitten, how to take it out, where to bring it for tests etc.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#116

Post by torgoguys »

inter_netuser wrote: post #71
torgoguys wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so they would lose a legal challenge to the product's safety....but it's safe? How does that follow? You convince a jury that it is unsafe. Happens all the time. There are many reasons this is easier than it should be. > The product in question had too little upside to offset the liability, that's all. The vaccine had a ton of upside...for those receiving it. Like most vaccines, it's not a hugely profitable endeavo…

How much would you pay out of pocket to get the vaccine? People do group buys for all sorts of nutraceticals, small molecules, and even some biologics.

For me, at least $100, probably quite a bit more if I thought about it. However, I don't know that you could legally manufacture and sell/group buy such things. Nutraceuticals gets exceptions under the current, disastrous law but this wouldn't qualify.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#118

Post by chubot »

inter_netuser wrote: post #81
jemurray wrote: post #75

I know this is about Lyme disease, but let me add another word of caution while we are discussing ticks. Two years ago I was bit by the Lone Star tick. Since that time I developed an allergy to all red meat. It was hard to diagnose and a few of the doctors I worked with along the years still don’t believe its true. If your interested in learning more search for Alpha Gal. There is an excellent Radio Lab podcast about…

This cannot be repeated enough: "few of the doctors I worked with along the years still don’t believe its true" a medical opinion is just that. an opinion . consensus often takes decades to change.

Yeah I think of it almost as a mathematical problem. There are simply more ways for a human body to go wrong than any number of doctors possibly can comprehend :) There is a very very long tail of diseases and disorders.

So it's not just easy to find something that ONE doctor has never heard of or seen, but you can find many that ALL doctors are unfamiliar with!

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#119

Post by vient »

mimined wrote: post #115

I'm a bit confused here... I thought a vaccine that protected you from Lyme disease already existed? I grew up in Latvia, and it was pretty common to get that jab. You have to get boosters every 5 years or so (which I haven't really done since I moved away) but they're supposed to protect you from the encephalitis ticks? Sorry if the terminology is wrong here. I was surprised to know that they didn't bother with that…

Tick-borne encephalitis and Lyme disease are different things. You are right that there is a vaccine against the first one, while Lyme vaccine has an interesting history[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#120

Post by Dylanfm »

jemurray wrote: post #75

I know this is about Lyme disease, but let me add another word of caution while we are discussing ticks. Two years ago I was bit by the Lone Star tick. Since that time I developed an allergy to all red meat. It was hard to diagnose and a few of the doctors I worked with along the years still don’t believe its true. If your interested in learning more search for Alpha Gal. There is an excellent Radio Lab podcast about…

This also occurs in Australia, resulting in mammalian meat allergy. Some more information here https://allergy.org.au/patients/insect-allergy-bites-and-sti...
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