Can they do something similar for ticks. Ticks seem to be picking up steam as a disease vector spreading more than just Lime disease, as if that were not enough.
That would completely depend on your definition of 'annoying': ticks spread more diseases than just Lyme. For example, I'm really not sure whether Human Anaplasmosis [1] is only as annoying as a leech.
Lyme disease is a couple times more common than other diseases, and it can have permanent, sometimes debilitating effects. In many people it can be hard to recognize or diagnose before permanent effects set in. The other things you can get just make you sick.
But true, its very hard to get sick from a leech. A mosquito or black fly would be a better comparison. Without the vaccine, ticks are second only to like... bot flies and tarantula wasps.
> The idea that the vaccine could cause this “autoimmune arthritis” stemmed from a hypothesis, named the molecular mimicry hypothesis, which suggested that the protein used in the vaccine displayed similarity to a protein found in the human body, but was still different enough to be recognized as foreign by the immune system. This would mean that, alongside attacking the foreign bacterial protein, the immune system would also start targeting the normal human protein and thus lead to an autoimmune reaction.
It's not quite as simple as "anti-vaxxers shut it down", but it's also pretty clear that an effective, useful vaccine is unavailable for largely political (or non-medical) reasons.
Same thing as the "vaccines cause autism" crowd. For Lyme disease, it was fear that it would cause arthritis (Lyme disease causes arthritis). Despite repeated proof that it did not, the vaccine was banned in the US.
The tick/lyme disease problem is indeed serious. I think you would have to control influence acorn production though there since acorn abundance seems to be linchpin.
Seems the tick population is increasing the The Netherlands as well [0]. I am kinda scared to go outside in nature in The Netherlands, due to these little buggers.
I am kinda scared to go outside in nature in The Netherlands, due to these little buggers
Your fear isn't completely irrational, but not going outside anymore because of it would be (imo). Learning how to avoid them, or find them, or remove them, or spot symptoms (all in that order) should make the chances of any serious damage quite small. E.g. people often seem to forget it takes time, up to many hours, from a tick landing on your clothes to actually bite. (anecdotal, but I've spotted tens of times more ticks on me than I've actually been bitten). That is already quite a barrier: proper clothing + knowing how and where to check can reduce the chance of getting bitten. And even the, not all is lost. As it takes again many hours before any possible disease transmits. If there is already a disease, to start with. Since you're talking about the Netherlands: there's quite a difference between areas when it comes to rick of ticks actually carrying Lyme, see https://www.tekenradar.nl/ for instance.
Bitten? Past 10 years like 15 times or so. Spotted on my clothes or on me easily over 100.
You convinced me to never go outside
You're kidding, right? I got all those ticks just because I knowingly spent time in specific tick-heavy areas. I could also have chosen to avoid them, and those numbers would be close to zero.
Ticks are terrble. Also lice. A parent yesterday told me her kid got them and she had some lice expert spend three hours removing them with a brush. haha
Yeah, a very fine comb is the best way to get rid of lice (and their eggs, more importantly) - they're quite resistant to the meds/chemicals on the market, even most of the prescription ones.
A bunch of peeps didn't like the haha but the parent and I laughed a lot in person. It's one of those terrible things you laugh about after the fact. But I'm serious they'd be good to get rid of.
Part of my haha was actually about the idea that there are people you can call to handle that with a brush. I would have never known. The child sat there patiently with an iPad for 3 hours around midnight getting combed by a stranger. Until the expert explained that the lice were feeding off her scalp. :)
