Tick-Borne Disease Epidemic in Ireland?

https://invisible.international/the-tick-borne-disease-epidemic-in-ireland-a-call-for-more-research/

Notes under-counting in UK and Canada as well.

 

Thank you for this @duncan.

Concerning stats. Not ones that I haven't seen before though in relation to Canada.

For years the government myth here was that there was no tick-borne disease in Canada. As if birds that carried ticks never crossed the US border into Canada.

And, also the myth that Canadian testing was good.

As well, the myths that one must have a bull's eye rash, and that the only treatment required is a short course of antibiotics.

We have a long way to go.

 

Pretty weird actually, to see the occasional Lyme awareness campaign, except the physicians didn't get the same memo and they will often insist it's not around here, wherever here is. Based on nothing at all, and often contradicting the very reason why someone else is doing an awareness campaign. It's unclear where they're supposed to check with wildlife services, but they clearly don't.

Like those "talk to your doctor about X" commercials, except when you do they're like "oh that's not a thing". Healthcare exemplifies the difference between an organism, an integrated function of organs working in concert and synergy, vs. a bunch of organs that are close by one another but refuse to even talk to one another.

All this talk about "holistic" medicine, and I've rarely see any system functioning less as a system anywhere else, it couldn't possibly be any less holistic, because it's just a freaking marketing slogan.

 

A few years back I had a discussion with an IDSA heavyweight who had issued a paper claiming there was no Lyme in a particular southern state in the US. In the paper he noted many state residents who had tested positive for Lyme with the vaunted CDC 2T, and his position was those must have been false positives because, well, another position of his is there is no Lyme in that southern state.

I pointed out the whole ticks don't recognize state boundaries thing, but what I found more interesting - and what I mentioned to him - was the implications to CDC's 2T's reputation.

He didn't see it that way and seemed quite pleased to have his cake and eat it too.