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Lyme and Other Tick-Borne Disease Seminar

 

 

Press release for Ukiah Conference, 2002

 

Embargoed for release April 1, 2002
Contact Person: Phyllis Mervine,
President, Lyme Disease Resource Center and Editor, the Lyme Times

The Lyme Disease Resource Center, in collaboration with the Mendocino County Public Health Dept. and the California Dept. of Health Services, will present a Lyme and other tick-borne disease conference on Friday, April 12, from 3 to 7 pm at the Mendocino College Little Theater. Mendocino College is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road in Ukiah. Three (3) contact hours of continuing medical education credit will be available for health professionals and veterinarians. Contact Phyllis Mervine at pmervine@lymedisease.org for more information or for a registration form. The public is being asked for a $5 donation and no registration is required.

Feature Article

Local Lyme Nonprofit Presents Lyme Disease Conference

Lyme-infected ticks have been found in 41 of California’s 55 counties so far, and UC Berkeley entomologist Robert Lane thinks it is just a matter of time – and more surveillance – before they will be found in the remaining 14 counties. The western black-legged tick that carries Lyme disease has already been found in all but 3 counties. Dr. Lane will be sharing his extensive research in Mendocino County at a conference sponsored by the Lyme Disease Resource Center, an affiliate of the Lyme Disease Association (LDA), on Friday, April 12, from 3 to 7 pm at the Mendocino Community College Little Theater. Health professionals may attend for credit and the public is also invited.

Thanks to over a decade of research by Dr. Lane, Mendocino County is the most studied county in the state as far as tick-borne diseases are concerned. In a 1989 study, he and his colleagues found that 24% of the residents in a rural subdivision west of Ukiah had positive Lyme tests, and 37% had definite or probable Lyme disease. Tick surveys of the area revealed that the nymphal tick infection rate averaged 13% (and as high as 41%), comparable to or higher than hyperendemic areas in the northeastern United States. Poppyseed-sized nymphal ticks are the cause of most human cases of Lyme disease. They are found primarily in leaf litter under deciduous trees and their bite is painless.

Frequently quoted state figures based on lower adult tick infection rates give a false impression of low risk in California. Many doctors think Lyme disease is “rare” and are reluctant to diagnose Lyme, much less report it. An active surveillance study of Mendocino, Sonoma, Lake and Humboldt Counties conducted by the State health department in 1994 concluded that Lyme disease was both underdiagnosed and underreported.

Current tests are not perfect and are often misused to exclude Lyme disease. Public Law 107-116, signed by President Bush on January 10, 2002, states:

“The current state of laboratory testing for Lyme disease is very poor. The situation has led many people to be misdiagnosed and delayed proper treatment. The vaccine clinical trial has documented that more that one third (36 percent) of the people with Lyme disease did not test positive on the most sophisticated tests available. The ramifications of this deficit in terms of unnecessary pain, suffering and cost is staggering.”

Conference organizer Phyllis Mervine of Ukiah, who herself has arthritis triggered by Lyme disease, hopes that the conference will raise awareness of Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases that are just being recognized - diseases with hard-to-pronounce names like ehrlichiosis and babesiosis. Some of these diseases cause symptoms similar to Lyme disease, but require different treatments. Having more than one TBD (tick-borne disease) complicates diagnosis and treatment.

Mervine thinks the worst effects happen when the infection affects the brain. She just met a Connecticut pediatrician who is treating a 6-year old child with cortical blindness caused by Lyme. With antibiotic treatment, the child’s vision is gradually returning, Mervine said. Lyme usually has less catastrophic but nevertheless serious effects: the LDA provides annual inservice training for educators to teach them how to accomodate the children who have excessive fatigue, impaired memory and concentration, confusion, anxiety, mood swings, as well as physical problems caused by Lyme. Such children may be eligible for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.

For more information about the April 12 conference, call 707-468-8460.

The Lyme Disease Resource Center publishes a lay journal called the Lyme Times which is available for $25 for a year’s subscription. Write to PO Box 707, Weaverville. CA 96093 or check the LDRC website at www.lymedisease.org.