We Used to Have a Lyme Disease Vaccine. Are We Ready to Bring One Back?

At my animal hospital in upstate New York, an epicenter of the U.S. tick epidemic, my dog Fawn lets out a whimper as the veterinarian injects her with her annual Lyme disease shot. I roll my eyes. She doesn’t know how good she has it. The injection means that if a tick bites her (and in rural New York, a tick always does), the creepy crawly will feast on dog blood that’s been supercharged with a Lyme bacteria-killing substance, and Lyme disease won’t be transmitted to Fawn. I wish I could be shot up with that superpower. Currently, there is no human vaccine for Lyme disease—even though more than two decades ago, people could get a safe and effective preventative shot similar to Fawn’s. Now, thanks to potent anti-vaccine pushback, all we can do is try to avoid getting bitten by the tiny, vampiric nightmares. A tick can’t fly or jump; instead, it “quests,” or waits on a blade of grass or on the leaf of a bush for you, your dog or any other furry host to brush by. It then crawls up your body, finds a good place to feed, cuts your skin open with tiny incisors and sticks in a feeding tube, through which it slowly takes a blood meal. You don’t feel any of this, thanks to a numbing substance in tick saliva that lets it feed in secret (so good luck trying to swat a tick away). [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] And that’s the benign part. Once a tick starts sucking your blood, its saliva—which can carry all s...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Disease feature Source Type: news