Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 23, 2002; Page C04
By Emily Wax, Washington Post Staff Writer

In just three days, Dick and Mary Hafer of Lanham picked from their bodies 12 deer ticks, those spiderlike, black-legged bugs that carry Lyme disease.

In Fairfax Station, Kathy Boileau, a nurse who already has Lyme disease, emerged from a recent day of gardening to feel a tick burrowing into her scalp. A few days later, she found yet another pesky creature trying to latch onto her skin.

"We have seen more ticks in the last few days than we have seen in the 30 years we have lived here," Dick Hafer said. "It's not just killer mosquitoes we are worried about this year. It's an explosion in ticks."

Some experts predict this will be a bad summer for ticks, the result of the mild winter combined with a natural tick baby boom attributed to the arachnid's two-year life cycle. Other health officials say they don't have studies to show whether the tick population is significantly higher this season but say people shouldn't wait for such news before taking precautions.

"What we are hearing are reports that ticks are in abundance. People are saying they can't go outside without getting a tick on them," said Karon Damewood, chief of zoonotic diseases at the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "There's not been a scientific study to say they are increasing, but incidental reports indicate that the tick population is alive and well. And they are very hungry."

Medical journals call the creature lxodes scapularis, a bloodsucking animal that carries a bacterium that causes the flulike symptoms and rash of Lyme disease. Parents know it as a summer scourge, requiring daily tick checks on children.

Lyme disease was first identified in the mid-1970s after a group of children in Lyme, Conn., developed arthritis. Since then, researchers have found that the disease is most common in rural and suburban areas in the Northeast, where ticks hook onto deer, known to roam neighborhoods, parks and back yards.

In verdant Loudoun County, where the number of reported cases of Lyme disease is the highest per capita in the state, there has been an increase in the disease and concern over the rising number of tick sightings reported to health offices.

In 2001, there were 65 reported cases of Lyme, compared with 29 cases in 1999, said David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department.

"Part of the issue here is that our county is at high risk because of our unique nature," Goodfriend said. "More and more people are moving here, but we are also retaining our rural style. We are paying particular attention to what is happening this year."

Other places are also reporting an increase. In Dutchess County, N.Y., home of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, the number of cases of Lyme disease has doubled from the same time last year, according to Rick Ostfeld, animal ecologist at the institute.

"We had an extremely warm winter," Ostfeld said. "And it is known that the ticks are more active in these temperatures."

Although the incidence of Lyme disease is up this year in some counties, the number of cases reported statewide in Virginia and Maryland is about the same as last year.

But it's hard to deduce much from those statistics because doctors so often fail to report cases to health authorities, said David Dennis, physician coordinator of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Lyme disease program.

Often, Dennis said, doctors don't order all the lab tests needed to conclusively diagnose the disease, relying instead on Lyme's signature bull's-eye-shaped rash to decide when to prescribe antibiotics.

Most researchers agree that, if caught early, Lyme disease can be treated successfully with up to six weeks of antibiotics.

But there are some patients who discover the disease late or who receive treatment but later report chronic pain, severe fatigue and a host of neurological problems. Their hands shake. They suffer from facial paralysis.

Interest groups representing Lyme disease sufferers say some patients must leave their jobs, become unable to walk or get out of bed, and need years of antibiotic treatment. The issue has become acrimonious, however, with medical experts divided on whether symptoms result from chronic Lyme disease or some other illness, and insurance companies often refuse claims for long-term treatment.

In the end, some researchers believe the best way to fight the disease is to spend more time and money curbing tick populations.

"We know far less about ticks than we do about mosquitoes, and we don't have good ecology studies or enough studies on ticks," said Durland Fish, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University. "Spraying is not a very ecological method, and we need to spend more on controlling ticks."

A Lyme disease vaccine was taken off the market after it produced severe side effects that prompted several hundred lawsuits. Health officials place new hope in federal research being conducted into ways of controlling deer ticks.

For now, though, groups like National Capital Lyme Disease Association, based in McLean, say awareness of ticks is the most important protective step.

"Wear light-colored clothes and long shirts and pants," advised Monte Skall, executive director of the group, who has Lyme disease. "And the most important thing to do is a tick check. It's really important this season."

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