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An estimated 300,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, but the illness is now on track to being the worst in 2017, according to Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.
The acorn surge means mouse populations will climb — giving rise to more disease-carrying ticks.
"We predict the mice population based on the acorns and we predict infected nymph ticks with the mice numbers. Each step has a one-year lag," Ostfeld told New Scientist magazine.
One mouse alone can carry hundreds of immature ticks, according New Scientist.
The rodents' blood contains the Lyme-causing bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which gets transferred to the tick's stomach as it feeds. The bacteria can then be passed on to whatever new host — like humans — the tick latches onto.
With no Lyme disease vaccine available — the last one, Lymerix, was yanked off the market in 2002 — little can be done to prevent the illness outside of the standard anti-tick measures, including wearing long pants in the woods and performing thorough self-checks.
Ticks are tiny, as small as a poppy seed, and easy to miss, and not everyone gets the bullseye rash that usually accompanies a Lyme-infected tick bite. The flu-like symptoms that occur after being infected are also easy to misdiagnose.
"That's when you get late-stage, untreated, supremely problematic Lyme disease," Ostfeld said.
There's a new Lyme vaccine, produced by French-based biotech group Valneva, but it's in early human trials and at least six years away from being publicly released.
Lyme disease diagnoses could soon soar globally, too.
Researchers in Poland discovered the same acorn trends last year.
"Last year we had a lot of oak acorns, so we might expect 2018 will pose a high risk of Lyme," Jakub Szymkowiak from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, told New Scientist.
This is a completely short sighted assertion. As this story was being written, did the author not understand that there will also be a matching increase in natural predators? Reptiles, birds and mammals that eat mice are not separated from the food chain. They will grow in numbers as well and eat the surplus mice. What would be the goal of such an article? One basic fact is that when Oaks are in distress, they create massive amounts of acorns in an effort to reproduce. We have in some locations: Sudden Oak death syndrome, increased radiation, unexplained high concentrations of aluminum, areas that were once moist and forested suffering drought conditions, and more.
I don't have all the answers, but the article strikes me as narrow minded and suspicious.
It could be trying to plant a "seed" in the minds of readers in order to create just enough fear so that some medical industry connection can profit from the added percentage of psychosomatic reactions
* A big increase in "doctor visits" to "check" for lyme disease
* Testing kits will be needed.
* Labs will be needed.
* Additional and replacement medical equipment will need to be purchased.
* Protection apparel will be needed.
* Last but not least, it could help bolster the efforts of the "mandatory" vaccine crowd who stand to profit beyond their wildest dreams.
Again. I don't know, but if we don't question these things openly without fear of ridicule, the media will keep getting away with anything even criminal collusion and conspiracy.