Juliet Rose, from Harrow, UK, is 25 years old, weighs just 70-pounds, is confined to a wheelchair and can no longer eat solid food because of her Lyme disease. She believes she has harboured the infection, spread by ticks, since childhood. Juliet has not long to live.
"This is an illness that has been minimized, underestimated, and politicized," says investigative reporter May Beth Pfeiffer in her new book, Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change. Non-specific symptoms and other complexities make tackling Lyme a formidable challenge.
More and more people spending increasing hours outdoors has resulted in more to the risk on contracting Lyme disease. This includes gardeners.
Lyme disease is known from more than 80 countries and is the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. It affects between 2,000 and 3,000 people in England and Wales a year, according to National Health Service. In 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tallied about 30,000 confirmed cases. Considering gaps in case reporting, some estimates put the number at closer to several hundred thousand.
Lyme disease is primarily caused by an infection with Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, which are spread by the bites of black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). It is also known to vector anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan disease.
There are about nine species of ticks liable to spread disease in North America. The most serious of these are the American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) and the Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum). The latter was until recently also included as capable of causing Lyme disease, but research has proved this to be incorrect (Journal of Medical Entomology). But its bite makes people allergic to red meat and has recently been reported in Canada. At present it appears that the black-legged tick to be the villain.
In the wild, agricultural areas, even city parks the ticks are spread when they suck the blood of mammals and birds. Although deer certainly pick up ticks, the name 'deer fever' is due to a misidentification. Mice are far better at spreading infected ticks. These miniature mammals flourish when oaks yield a bumper crop of acorns. In the past it was claimed a good acorn year meant more mice and so Lyme disease. Now it appears any year may be equally deadly.
Black-legged ticks live in the northeastern, mid-Atlantic and north-central United States, and south-central Canada while western black-legged ticks reside along the Pacific coast, including southwestern British Columbia, and can also transmit B. burgdorferi.
The many presentations of an illness known as the "great imitator," and its inherent complexities, are why medical communities have often failed to find a common ground on diagnosis and treated, wrote James G. Logan in the journal Nature. The manifestations range form no symptoms, or mild influenza-like ones, to severe complications such as inflammation in joints or the brain and persistent neurological problems . . . Misdiagnosis is this all too common, warns Logan.
Canadian gardeners and many others are increasingly at risk from this insidious disease. Blame climate change. Prior to the turn of the century it was almost unknown. Simply, the vectoring ticks could not survive south-central Canada's winters. Across the nation in 2004 just 40 cases were reported. Within a dozen years later Ontario had 343
Ottawa resident Nicholas H. Ogden of the Public Health Agency of Canada explained to writer Susan Milius, Science News, how:
Even the little park near his house has gone from a dud research site where he struggled to find any ticks to study to a danger zone where he demands full tick checks if his kids wander in. With climate change and ticks, he says, "we have gone from a hypothesis to a public health reality."
Ogden is right to be alarmed. Last year, the number of reported human cases of Lyme disease in Ottawa jumped from 74 to 168 confirmed human cases. Officials said it is likely the infections will only increase in the years ahead, reported CBC News. The risk of infection is believed to be highest in spring and summer.
Obviously gardens close to ravines or river valleys are at increased risk to harbour infectious black-legged ticks. But deer and mice can travel surprisingly distances from such habitats to arrive in urban gardens elsewhere. They have, for example, been reported from the islands, part park, part residential, that lie off Toronto's harbour in Lake Ontario. Birds may have been responsible as they can certainly be for ticks arriving in private urban gardens.
There is currently no human vaccine, and research on the disease has struggled to keep up. The only proven effective protection for gardeners -- and all those active outdoors -- is the repellant DEET.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
Juliet Rose, from Harrow, UK, is 25 years old, weighs just 70-pounds, is confined to a wheelchair and can no longer eat solid food because of her Lyme disease. She believes she has harboured the infection, spread by ticks, since childhood. Juliet has not long to live.
"This is an illness that has been minimized, underestimated, and politicized," says investigative reporter May Beth Pfeiffer in her new book, Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change. Non-specific symptoms and other complexities make tackling Lyme a formidable challenge.
