HARDSCIENCEONLYME: Biofilms Made Easy

I thought I would share a few prevention practices identified at the Institute of Medicine Lyme disease workshop as effective by Dr. Mathew Liang of Harvard Medical School. One idea focused a study in Nantucket by Daltroy (2007) on an educational outreach method. The 5-year study randomized 29,000 people traveling by ferry to Nantucket and exposed the study group to an entertainment-based information session about Lyme disease and steps to prevent it. Participants also received a card with a Braille dot on it the size of a tick and a plastic shower card similar to those used for breast self-exam, tweezers, and a map of the island where ticks were prevalent. The study showed a reduction in Lyme disease in the group who received the message, both among year round residents and among visitors, who constitute a high-risk population.

When journalist Michel Specter was interviewed by NPR’s Terry Gross on Fresh Air, he got a few things right, but he also repeated some of the inaccurate information he presented in his recent New Yorker article. That information came from the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) propaganda mill.

One of the hot topics in Lyme disease is whether the bacteria that causes Lyme disease persists. There are a lot of factors that go into proving this, but one is whether there is a “plausible biological mechanism for persistence.” What this means is whether there is a mechanism in biology that might allow the bacteria to survive. Simply put, the Infectious Diseases Society of America says there isn’t and other researchers disagree. The most recent article on this subject is from Straubinger, who is best known for his research on persistence in dogs. The highlights of the study after the jump. . .

David Leiby, of the Red Cross, has declared the risk of blood transfusion for Babesia microti to be unacceptably high. Babesia microti is a coinfection of Lyme disease that is transmitted primarily by ticks. Over the past 30 years, between 70-100 cases of transfusion transmitted Babesia have been reported, with at least 12 fatalities. Although the need to screen for the parasite which lives in red blood cells is now recognized as urgent, the method of screening blood has yet to be determined and several obstacles remain before screening practices are adopted. However, according the Leiby, failure to screen is "no longer a viable alternative". The abstract to the article follows the jump. . .

During his interview with NPR’s Terry Gross on Fresh Air, journalist Michael Specter got a key piece of information WRONG: that a tick must be attached for at least 36 hours before it can transmit infection.