Speaker 1: Hello, Stuff you should know listeners, if you want to
Speaker 1: come see s live, You've only got a couple of
Speaker 1: more cities this year that still have tickets, and that
Speaker 1: is Orlando in New Orleans. Yeah, we'll be in Orlando
Speaker 1: on October nine at the Plaza Live, and we'll be
Speaker 1: in New Orleans at the Civic Theater the following night
Speaker 1: October and friends, like Chuck said, you better go get
Speaker 1: your tickets. Go to s Y s K live dot
Speaker 1: com for info and ticket links and everything you need
Speaker 1: to come see us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. This is Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. Uh, the podcast and Chuck, I have
Speaker 1: a question for you. You know it kicks me off
Speaker 1: lime disease. I'm so mad at you blaming me for
Speaker 1: that one. She's like, you should say this, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I should totally say that. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is sort of a follow up to our July
Speaker 1: two thousand ten episode Why Ticks Suck, which in which
Speaker 1: which is sort of a legendary episode because we uh
Speaker 1: falsely promised to send people T shirts if they made
Speaker 1: it all the way through the episode. We were just kidding,
Speaker 1: but we still get those requests of where's my shirt? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's hilarious. I forgot about that and also wants sued today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably so. Um. I also want to point out and
Speaker 1: shout out our former website how Stuffworks dot com because
Speaker 1: a couple of the articles that we used for much
Speaker 1: of this episode is from the old hs W website. Nice.
Speaker 1: They're holding it down over there, they're holding it down
Speaker 1: and this is some good stuff. Yeah. So we're talking
Speaker 1: today about lime disease in particular, not limes. No, we
Speaker 1: should say it's capital l y m E disease. And
Speaker 1: the reason it's called that is because it's named after
Speaker 1: a town which is one of three towns where the
Speaker 1: initial outbreak of lyme disease that led to this bacterial
Speaker 1: infection persistent bacterial infection um was first uh described medically.
Speaker 1: But what are the facts of the show? I think, Oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: who knew it was named after a town Lime, Connecticut?
Speaker 1: I knew? Did you know that before this? Sure? Did
Speaker 1: we cover that? And why tick suck? I don't think so,
Speaker 1: all right, well you're smarter than me. That No, it's
Speaker 1: not that. I think. What what got me was I
Speaker 1: heard about people saying like, no, lyme disease, like people
Speaker 1: take it for granted, but it's actually some really mysterious illness.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what are you talking about? So I
Speaker 1: think I looked into this year's back and that's what
Speaker 1: I found out. All right, that was all. So we're
Speaker 1: equally smart, right exactly. I'm not smarter than you, and
Speaker 1: what it is smarts. It's just like someone happens to
Speaker 1: know one thing, someone else knows another. Sure, I say,
Speaker 1: they cancel out, we're all smart. There you go. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you pulled that out because I would have been like,
Speaker 1: what is smart? Uh? I couldn't have come up with
Speaker 1: the definition so lyme disease. Um, We'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: hit you with a couple of stats here. Uh. Lyme
Speaker 1: disease in the United States is more than doubled since nine.
Speaker 1: That's astounding, it is, uh And it is spread too.
Speaker 1: It used to be very much localized in kind of
Speaker 1: the Northeast, sort of mid Atlantic areas, some in the South,
Speaker 1: but now you can get lyme disease, and I believe
Speaker 1: the entire lower forty eight is that correct? There there
Speaker 1: are cases in all forty eight states. Supposedly half of
Speaker 1: the counties in the United States now are considered at
Speaker 1: high risk for lyme disease. And like all of this
Speaker 1: happened just in the last like twenty or so years, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, there's there's a lot of debate
Speaker 1: over the CDC calls lyme disease endemic, which is a
Speaker 1: disease that has become a like an ongoing art of
Speaker 1: an area or region, and some other people are saying, guys,
Speaker 1: what what we're talking about here is an epidemic. This
Speaker 1: is an epidemic, and you should start calling it that
Speaker 1: because it will kind of raise the alarm to the
Speaker 1: next level or two where it should be, because this
Speaker 1: is a very alarming spread of disease that we're seeing
Speaker 1: right now. Lime disease is the number one vector borne
Speaker 1: disease in the United States. It's way more prevalent than
Speaker 1: things like West Nile or chicken guna or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but it's still kind of treated as like up there
Speaker 1: in the northeastern US thing, and that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: It's it's spread every in every direction except east because
Speaker 1: it hit the Atlantic, but everywhere else where. It can
Speaker 1: spread into the interior of the United States and up
Speaker 1: into Canada. It's starting to Yeah, and there's also a
Speaker 1: history continuing to this day even where lyme disease can
Speaker 1: be UM, overlooked, misdiagnosed, UM, not taken as seriously by
Speaker 1: your doctor as it should be UM, including what we'll
Speaker 1: get too later on something called post treatment lime disease syndrome. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's all very frustrating if you have been a
Speaker 1: an individual that has had lime disease. There's a big
Speaker 1: community out there. People they're like, why woult anyone listen
Speaker 1: to us? Why won't our doctors take us seriously? And
Speaker 1: what do we have to do here? Like do we
Speaker 1: have to start dropping dead? Yeah, there's a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of frustration in in that community because that there's this
Speaker 1: sentiment among the medical establishment that you know, take some antibiotics. Exactly,
Speaker 1: it's easy to cure lime disease. Here's some antibiotics. You
Speaker 1: still have persistent symptoms because are probably in your head.
Speaker 1: We're not going to say there in your head, but
Speaker 1: they're in your head and the people who are experiencing
Speaker 1: these symptoms are like, no, my life has has been
Speaker 1: derailed by these symptoms and you guys aren't doing anything
Speaker 1: about it. It's frustrating. I know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there that are pretty pretty stoked right now
Speaker 1: to be hearing this. Yeah, you know, we're advocating for
Speaker 1: you guys, not patting myself on the back, although I
Speaker 1: am literally patty like I see you chuck here. That
Speaker 1: elbow is sticking out pretty far. So. Lime disease is
Speaker 1: a disease. It's an infection caused by the bacterium uh
Speaker 1: bore leah burg door ferry wow borg de ferry, burg
Speaker 1: de ferry. We're gonna get you an apron and call
Speaker 1: you the word butcher burg door fairy work, work, work,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to why it's called that in a bit.
Speaker 1: But if you haven't caught on by now, it is
Speaker 1: transmitted through tick bites, right, So, a tick, and in
Speaker 1: particular a nymph stage of a tick, which is a
Speaker 1: like young adul or juvenile tick um, will transmit this bacteria,
Speaker 1: the Borelia burg door ferry um, into a human. And
Speaker 1: the reason we usually get it from nymph's chuck is
Speaker 1: because an adult tick doesn't find humans particularly appetizing, but
Speaker 1: a nymph tick will because they're stupid. They don't know
Speaker 1: anything yet. So as they're feeding on us. After somewhere
Speaker 1: maybe around twenty four to thirty six hours of feeding,
Speaker 1: this infected tick that has this bacteria in the bacteria
Speaker 1: will make its way from the mid gut to the
Speaker 1: tick saliva, and the tick transmitted transmits it into the
Speaker 1: human blood stream where it's just absolutely reeks havoc on
Speaker 1: the human body. Yeah, and you said something really key
Speaker 1: there hours later, really really important. They have to be
Speaker 1: attached to you for that long, sometimes even longer to
Speaker 1: transmit this bacterium. So if you find a tick on
Speaker 1: you and you get it off, you don't need to
Speaker 1: sweat lime disease. No, if you get it off in
Speaker 1: due time, right exactly, I feel like you see it's
Speaker 1: still crawling on you. It's unattached. You don't worry about
Speaker 1: it at all. Um, But when it is attached, and
Speaker 1: when when it when it has transmitted the bacteria. What
Speaker 1: it's transmitted. This b burg door ferry is like really
Speaker 1: amazing at its job, which is infecting you, giving you
Speaker 1: a bacterial infection. Um, it has figured out how to
Speaker 1: zoom through the bloodstream but then also take itself out
Speaker 1: of the bloodstream by latching onto the cell the walls
Speaker 1: of your blood vessels. Yeah, this was crazy about the
Speaker 1: cellular stuff that once it's attached to a cell. They said,
Speaker 1: it's like a slinky. It doesn't let go. It just
Speaker 1: like basically reaches out and grabs the next cell without
Speaker 1: letting go of the previous cell and just sort of
Speaker 1: walks end over end, never unattaching itself right exactly. So Um,
Speaker 1: as it's moving along, it's never it's not going to
Speaker 1: get kind of you know, washed away in the extracellular matrix.
Speaker 1: It's stuck to the cell. If it wants to be
Speaker 1: stuck to the cell, it can do the same thing
Speaker 1: to the blood vessel walls to pull itself out of
Speaker 1: the blood stream and then go attack you know, specific
Speaker 1: parts of the body. So it's really good at hanging on.
Speaker 1: That's one thing that makes it kind of pernicious and
Speaker 1: like another thing exactly, it's basically yeah, it's like the
Speaker 1: bacteria version of a tick. I didn't think about that, um.
Speaker 1: And then another thing does Chuck, I think this is
Speaker 1: really really recent research. It can actually change its protein
Speaker 1: expression at a much faster rate than the normal mutation
Speaker 1: rate for bacteria, something like fifteen times faster. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: what that does is that just makes it really hard
Speaker 1: for our human immune system to catch up to it, right,
Speaker 1: because our immune system will produce antibodies based on the
Speaker 1: initial infection. But by the time the antibodies come around
Speaker 1: the um this, the bacteria may have changed the itself
Speaker 1: so that the antibodies won't recognize so they'll just go
Speaker 1: right past it because it doesn't it doesn't fit the
Speaker 1: description that the antibodies have. That's right, And you'll know
Speaker 1: that something's bad is happening. First of all if you
Speaker 1: find that tick. But if you get headaches, fever, fatigue
Speaker 1: is a huge, huge symptom. But the real tell tale
Speaker 1: is what's called e m It's an expanding skin rash
Speaker 1: called er athema migrants and it like, uh, it's that
Speaker 1: circular pattern. And then we did talk about this on
Speaker 1: the Ticks episode. But it's a circular pattern with a
Speaker 1: what looks like a bull's eye in the center of it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you can take off your butcher's apron now because
Speaker 1: you just that was beautiful. Put on your chef's chef's hat.
Speaker 1: You're sweating over there. So, UM, that that particular rash,
Speaker 1: that bull's eye rash, that is like just an absolute
Speaker 1: telltale sign that you have a lime boreolis bo bore
Speaker 1: uh boreliosis infection. UM. That only comes around and like
Speaker 1: maybe se cases. I think if every if every person
Speaker 1: got that rash, we would not have this this problem
Speaker 1: with lime disease because it would be caught very quickly
Speaker 1: because you get that within usually about a week or
Speaker 1: less of getting infected. But it doesn't come up in
Speaker 1: all cases. And um with some of those other symptoms
Speaker 1: like you said, like weakness, headaches, UM, flu symptoms like
Speaker 1: those could be a lot of different other things, joint pain, um.
Speaker 1: And so the lime disease infection goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, are did for many, many years.
Speaker 1: It's just now that they're starting to kind of recognize
Speaker 1: it or suspect lime when otherwise they might not have.
Speaker 1: I mean literally hundreds of things can be can have
Speaker 1: the same symptoms as lime disease. So lime has been
Speaker 1: around for a long time. UM, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: history here in a minute, as far as the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies go and official recognition, but it's been around, I believe.
Speaker 1: The Yale School of Public Health find the bacterium and
Speaker 1: ancient North America like sixty thousand years old before the
Speaker 1: arrival arrival of humans. Uh, they have an autopsy of
Speaker 1: a fifty three hundred year old mummy that had lime disease. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know Ootsy the ice Man, remember him, Remember Brutcy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was disappointed that they referred to him as a
Speaker 1: fifty year old ummy. It's like, no, it's Ootsy that
Speaker 1: I and everybody knows him, give his name, but he
Speaker 1: had lime disease. He did. And there was a German
Speaker 1: physician named Alfred buck Wald who described this that e
Speaker 1: M skin rash that we now call lime disease about
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty years ago. Right, So, so lime
Speaker 1: disease has been around a while, but we are just
Speaker 1: now seeing a huge again, an epidemic of it um
Speaker 1: and in a massive spread of it not just in
Speaker 1: North America, but there's also two other kinds of ticks
Speaker 1: that transmit to other kinds of lime causing bacteria in
Speaker 1: Europe and Asia and in all three places North America,
Speaker 1: Europe and parts of Asia. Um, the incidents of lyme
Speaker 1: disease is picking up at an alarming pace. I think
Speaker 1: we should slow down our pace, take a break. We'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll talk about Lime, Connecticut right after this. Alright, So, Lime, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: something is very old hat to you branded about it
Speaker 1: for years Lime, Old Lime. And what was the third town?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. No, let's just call it a new Lime.
Speaker 1: It was not. They're gonna be so mad. They're high
Speaker 1: school football team is gonna go berserk on Old Lime
Speaker 1: this year in the es. So there were a group
Speaker 1: of children and adults in these towns in Connecticut that
Speaker 1: we're having all these weird symptoms, uh, swollen knees, skin rashes, headaches,
Speaker 1: all this severe fatigue. And it's bad enough these days.
Speaker 1: But in the early nineteen seventies, doctors were definitely did
Speaker 1: not have this on the radar. And we're very dismissive
Speaker 1: of what was going on in these towns. And if
Speaker 1: it were not for the work of Judith Minch and
Speaker 1: Polly Murray to just regular moms. Although Polly Murray did
Speaker 1: work for the World Health Organization for a while they
Speaker 1: were advocates, they were patient advocates because their families were
Speaker 1: getting sick and no one would listen. And they were like,
Speaker 1: someone's got to do something. Something's going on here, and
Speaker 1: these doctors are not being any help. And it was
Speaker 1: a big deal. Polly Murray ended up writing a book
Speaker 1: she made it sort of her life's work, called The
Speaker 1: Widening Circle. And because of sort of the persistent sexism
Speaker 1: and science, they were largely discounted, even though they had
Speaker 1: a list of thirty seven individuals they researched on their
Speaker 1: own contacted scientists. Uh, I just we just really need
Speaker 1: to shout them out. Poly Murray died just about a
Speaker 1: month ago at the age that right. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: a persistent cuss as they call him up in the
Speaker 1: Yankee States. So um, On the one hand, yes, from
Speaker 1: the everything I've read and all the impressions I have,
Speaker 1: they were very much dismissed and it was very much sexist,
Speaker 1: and also I think because they weren't doctors. But on
Speaker 1: the on the other hand, the doctors who were being
Speaker 1: presented with these cases were like, I have no idea
Speaker 1: what this is, so let's just pretend it's not real.
Speaker 1: But Luckily those two women in the groups that they established,
Speaker 1: they went on and they contacted Yale Medical School, they
Speaker 1: contacted the state, and they really kind of put this
Speaker 1: on the map. But they said, there is a mysterious
Speaker 1: epidemic that's going on where you have a lot of
Speaker 1: kids who suddenly have juvenile arthritis out of nowhere. What
Speaker 1: are you guys gonna do about it? And because of
Speaker 1: their agitation, this mystery made its way to the desk
Speaker 1: or I guess, the microscope of a guy named Willie
Speaker 1: um Burgdorfer, and he was at the time the world's
Speaker 1: foremost authority on what's called Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which
Speaker 1: is another tickborn bacterial infection. Remember that when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, that was a big news item. It was
Speaker 1: he was working out in Colorado, and Colorado was ground
Speaker 1: zero for Rocky Mountain spotted fever for a while. UM,
Speaker 1: which is, yeah, you do not want to have that.
Speaker 1: It's a really bad bacterial infection. But by this time
Speaker 1: they had done thanks to the legwork UM done by
Speaker 1: the moms and the patient advocate groups in Lime, Connecticut, UM,
Speaker 1: it had been pretty well established that the common thread
Speaker 1: between all these people besides the where they lived. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it was um Chuck Lime old Liman,
Speaker 1: East had him, sorry, East had him Um. Aside from
Speaker 1: the fact that they all lived in the same region,
Speaker 1: was that all of them were almost all of them
Speaker 1: were called being bitten by a tick, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them had a mysterious rash right before the symptoms presented.
Speaker 1: So it came to this guy, Willie um Bergdorfer's microscope
Speaker 1: because they had said, there's something in the ticks here
Speaker 1: that is creating this disease that we haven't encountered before.
Speaker 1: That's right, and he had already discovered this bacterium h
Speaker 1: called it. How do you how do you pronounce that
Speaker 1: spirit chet, spire key sparke. But the spiro keet is
Speaker 1: a type of bacteria and that's what give me the apron.
Speaker 1: They all right, spiral chet and you just made me
Speaker 1: think of the older brother Chet and weird science. Now
Speaker 1: go make yourself one. But wad Man, that guy had
Speaker 1: some good quotes. Yeah, r I P What what Bill
Speaker 1: Paxton when, oh he died a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: Very sad? Are you sure you thinking of Bill Pullman? No,
Speaker 1: Bill Paxston died. It was so sad because I had
Speaker 1: just listened to his Mark Marin interview and he was like,
Speaker 1: after that episode, I wanted nothing more than to be
Speaker 1: Bill Paxton's friend and neighbor. And he just sounded like
Speaker 1: the best guy and best family man. And he passed
Speaker 1: away way too early. Yeah, really, I did not know
Speaker 1: about that. I saw a Frailty not too many weeks ago.
Speaker 1: It's still pretty good. Was it the first viewing er? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I've seen it before, but yeah, great movie. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: he wrote and I believe directed and starred in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so good and I love a good Powers
Speaker 1: Booth cast and call for sure it was. It was
Speaker 1: unusual and surprising, but it wasn't perfect. Very good underrated film.
Speaker 1: Where are we? Oh? Yeah, we were talking about Rocky
Speaker 1: mont and spotted fever. Willie Berg door for identifying the
Speaker 1: spiral keet um that was causing right, spiral check dumb dumb? No,
Speaker 1: remember we established were all smart. He Yeah, so he
Speaker 1: discovered this, uh, this Paara keet and he was honored, uh,
Speaker 1: this discovery and naming that thing after himself. That's why
Speaker 1: has that interesting name. I get the impression he didn't
Speaker 1: name it after himself. They named it after him. Go on, okay,
Speaker 1: but there's a big difference between him saying this thing
Speaker 1: is called the burg door fury bacteria and somebody saying
Speaker 1: we're going to name this after you. I totally agree. Okay,
Speaker 1: So burg door fury or burg doorfur. He figures out
Speaker 1: what is the basis of lyme disease, which is great.
Speaker 1: That's an enormous breakthrough. It establishes that yes, it is
Speaker 1: its own thing, it's its own disease. And because it
Speaker 1: was a bacteria, it's a spira key, which again it's
Speaker 1: a kind of a snakelike shaped bacteria specific kind that
Speaker 1: walks like a slinky um. Because it was a bacterial infection,
Speaker 1: the medical establishment said, oh, we got this. Here, take
Speaker 1: some antibiotics and over you know, the course of several years,
Speaker 1: starting in I think the nineties, is when they really
Speaker 1: started to say, okay, ay, we can cure lyme disease,
Speaker 1: especially if we catch it early on um by a
Speaker 1: two to four week round of antibiotics. Here you go,
Speaker 1: and they said case closed, were the medical establishment. Let's
Speaker 1: go have a party for ourselves. Yeah, and here's the thing,
Speaker 1: like many times, that can take care of the problem.
Speaker 1: So it's not like they were just lazy and not
Speaker 1: doing their work. But I think they closed the book
Speaker 1: a little too soon, and a lot of people do
Speaker 1: because that that oral that round of oral antibiotics. Um,
Speaker 1: if you catch it early, it can really work. But
Speaker 1: and I think they say, what like nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, if you catch it early, then that will
Speaker 1: that will work right there. So they're so persistent with
Speaker 1: that assertion that if you find a tick on yourself
Speaker 1: and you live in an area where lyme disease is
Speaker 1: known to thrive, um, if you can't say how long
Speaker 1: that tick's been on you, they're probably just going to
Speaker 1: give you a round of antibiotics and lactically. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and again, like you said, in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: and I believe, from what I've read, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of cases in early stage lime disease, that round of
Speaker 1: antibiotics should work. Yeah. And they say that if you
Speaker 1: and this is from the American Lime dias Is Foundation,
Speaker 1: uh quote, if you live in in endemic area, have
Speaker 1: symptoms consistent with early lyme disease, and suspect recent exposure
Speaker 1: to a tick, present your suspicion to your doctor. So
Speaker 1: that he or she may make a more informed diagnosis.
Speaker 1: So show up to your doctor and say, yeah, madam sir,
Speaker 1: I would love to present my suspicions to you. Please
Speaker 1: sit down. Well, they're saying sort of, still, you still
Speaker 1: sort of need to be your own advocate because it
Speaker 1: is so hard to diagnose still, because if you're going
Speaker 1: on symptoms alone, like we said, there are hundreds of
Speaker 1: things that share those symptoms and lime disease may not
Speaker 1: be the first thing they think of. That's a huge
Speaker 1: problem with lime disease. Another huge problem is that the
Speaker 1: test we use to test for line disease doesn't actually
Speaker 1: test for the b burg door free um bacteria. It
Speaker 1: tests for the antibodies that should be present in your
Speaker 1: blood stream if you have a bacterial infection, not even
Speaker 1: specific to that one, but a bacterial infection. The problem
Speaker 1: is it takes days, if not maybe a week or
Speaker 1: two before your body mounts an effective immune response against
Speaker 1: this infection. So if you find a tick and they
Speaker 1: give you a test, say within the first couple of days,
Speaker 1: it's gonna come back negative, even though you very much
Speaker 1: have a burg door free um infection, it's gonna come
Speaker 1: back negative because it's the antibodies haven't been created yet.
Speaker 1: The other part of the problem is even if you
Speaker 1: take a blood test that tests directly for the burg
Speaker 1: Door free bacterium, it moves out of the blood stream
Speaker 1: really easily and within several days. So there's a very
Speaker 1: brief window of time where you can directly test for
Speaker 1: the burg Door free um bacteria and find it in
Speaker 1: a simple a blood test. Yeah, you can also get
Speaker 1: false positives. Uh. And they're advocating now for two tiered
Speaker 1: testing for confirmation of the diagnosis. So if you get
Speaker 1: that first positive test, uh, sometimes now you'll get a
Speaker 1: different test, a Western blot test that's gonna really get
Speaker 1: more specific to that antibody, not just the general antibodies. Right.
Speaker 1: So part of the other problem is the a lot
Speaker 1: what the reason a lot of patient activists and patient
Speaker 1: advocate groups say no, doctors, you're wrong, like this is
Speaker 1: not good enough, is that there's a sneaking suspicion among
Speaker 1: people who have what's called chronic lime or post treatment
Speaker 1: lime disease syndrome, is that the round of antibiotics, the
Speaker 1: two to four week round of antibiotics that seemingly cured
Speaker 1: the lime disease symptoms that you had actually failed to
Speaker 1: fully knock out the bacteria that created this infection. This
Speaker 1: created this lime disease in the first place, that it
Speaker 1: just burrowed further into your body. And because the medical
Speaker 1: establishment said we got it, it's fine, You're these antibiotics
Speaker 1: cured it and didn't go deeper. Um that that bacterial
Speaker 1: infection is allowed to fester and then present in worse
Speaker 1: ways later. Yeah, and it's a really big deal because
Speaker 1: you know what will happen is they'll say, you're cured.
Speaker 1: We gave these antibiotics. They worked. But weeks and months
Speaker 1: and even years later, when people have persistent fatigue and
Speaker 1: muscle aches and headaches and you know, like your knee
Speaker 1: joints hurt, they said, like a brain fog can happen.
Speaker 1: And these are all things that are I don't want
Speaker 1: to say generic, but if you walk into your doctor
Speaker 1: and say I feel like I'm fuzzy and have a
Speaker 1: brain fog and get headaches and I'm tired, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a wide it's hard to pinpoint what's going
Speaker 1: on and there and they think you're cured of the
Speaker 1: lime disease. So that's where some of the more dismissive
Speaker 1: um at least from the lyme disease community. They're saying like,
Speaker 1: I have this chronic issue, and they're saying, but no,
Speaker 1: there's no such thing. It's a chronic issue, right. Well,
Speaker 1: they're also saying like, look, we gave you a test
Speaker 1: for lyme disease and you came back negative. You know,
Speaker 1: we know you had it before we tested you. We
Speaker 1: came back positive, we treated with antibiotics. Now we've tested
Speaker 1: you again and it's coming back negative. You don't have
Speaker 1: lyme disease anymore. So there's a huge debate whether they're
Speaker 1: the antibiotic course is not enough and that the lime
Speaker 1: disease is persisting elsewhere in the body, and that maybe
Speaker 1: it's changed its form so that it won't show up
Speaker 1: on the tests like it should, or um there's remnants
Speaker 1: of it. I saw one one article that suggested that
Speaker 1: the cell wall from the spial keet the brig door
Speaker 1: free spiro key can remain even after the things dead
Speaker 1: and persistent like joint tissue and cause an immune response there,
Speaker 1: which would explain this long term arthritis is like a
Speaker 1: post treatment lyme disease syndromes emptem um or is it
Speaker 1: that it converts into an entirely different disease, like an
Speaker 1: autoimmune disorder. Yeah. Some people think that it could trigger
Speaker 1: an autoimmune response and the infection is gone, and this
Speaker 1: is what's happening later on? Is uh, Is you have
Speaker 1: this autoimmune response, it can lead to other things like
Speaker 1: rheumatic heart disease. I think we do we cover Gian
Speaker 1: Bear syndrome or just talk about it in different episodes.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it, and I think, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: is g a bar a GiB? I'm pretty sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could both be wearing the apron for this one, though.
Speaker 1: We'll split it up. I get the half, all right,
Speaker 1: I get the top half on Porky pig in it
Speaker 1: all right. I'm gonna just cover my bits down there. Uh.
Speaker 1: But regardless of of what's happening, what people know is
Speaker 1: is that they don't feel right, and it's extremely frustrating
Speaker 1: to to feel these symptoms months and years later and
Speaker 1: not be taken seriously in the doctor's office. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying that we should we
Speaker 1: these This course of antibiotics shouldn't be two to four weeks,
Speaker 1: it should be many months because you really need to
Speaker 1: get all of the spiral keyed out of there or
Speaker 1: else it's going to persist and you're going to have
Speaker 1: big problems. And then the medical establishment is saying like this,
Speaker 1: what you're talking about doesn't even exist. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of frustration, Like you're saying, a big disconnect, and
Speaker 1: this is something that is probably going to keep playing out,
Speaker 1: although it seems like it maybe on its way out
Speaker 1: because of the epidemic proportions lime is taking now in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, I mean, the statistics are mounting
Speaker 1: up such that it can't be ignored any longer. Not
Speaker 1: that it was ignored, but you know, that's probably a
Speaker 1: harsh statement, but it's being taken way more seriously now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something like there's an expectation that there's going to
Speaker 1: be something like three hundred to four hundred thousand new
Speaker 1: cases of lime disease in the United States alone, and
Speaker 1: that tend to of those patients will end up with
Speaker 1: chronic lime disease. Yeah. I mean, I spend a fair
Speaker 1: amount of time hiking around the woods with my dogs
Speaker 1: and have pulled plenty of ticks off of them, and
Speaker 1: plenty of ticks off of myself and I have fatigue
Speaker 1: a lot because I have a four year old and
Speaker 1: every now and then I'm like, I have lime disease. Well,
Speaker 1: probably not, and here's why. Well, I've never had the
Speaker 1: bull's eye. First of all, okay, that's a big one.
Speaker 1: But also the ticks you pull off of your dog,
Speaker 1: those are dog ticks. They do not transmit lime. It's
Speaker 1: specifically the long lay or black legged tick, which is
Speaker 1: a type of dear tick. Well, but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of deer ticks in the woods. Are
Speaker 1: you saying that they if they would not latch onto
Speaker 1: a dog, and they'd be like, oh, no, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because there's deer ticks all over the woods. Sure,
Speaker 1: there definitely are. Um, I don't know if if dear
Speaker 1: ticks will latch onto a dog. That's entirely possible they
Speaker 1: won't since there's such a differentiation between dog ticks and
Speaker 1: deer ticks. But I do know that dog ticks don't
Speaker 1: transmit lime. Well, I think we should talk about My
Speaker 1: favorite thing from the Ticks episode, and this is when
Speaker 1: I will lay on people from time to time, is
Speaker 1: remember how ticks attached themselves They just hang out on
Speaker 1: blades of grass and things and just snap their little
Speaker 1: claws constantly, just waiting for something to pass by. Right,
Speaker 1: they since the CEO two and of the mammal that's
Speaker 1: walking past, so interesting and Chuck. One thing I read
Speaker 1: is that somehow the lime lime infected ticks because they're
Speaker 1: infected themselves. Lime resides as in like small mammals and
Speaker 1: rodents as a reservoir. They're infected, but they don't have symptoms.
Speaker 1: Ticks get infected with this stuff and they're just passing
Speaker 1: it along. It's not like they're the ultimate source of
Speaker 1: of lime disease. Ticks are misunderstood. They're really great, right,
Speaker 1: But from what I saw, the ticks that are infected
Speaker 1: with the line bacteria are actually better finding hosts than
Speaker 1: non infected ticks. Like it's somehow enables them to be
Speaker 1: better parasites. It's interesting. Yeah, that sounds familiar. Did we
Speaker 1: cover that or do I just know that because I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but I do. I remember you talking
Speaker 1: about in the Ticks episode about how they wave their
Speaker 1: arms in the airway somebody passed by, and I remember
Speaker 1: one of our listeners made some art of that we
Speaker 1: gotta find it, that's right, and from snapping their little
Speaker 1: fingers on a blade of grass to my dogs, but
Speaker 1: to my scrotum, it's quite a it's quite a ride.
Speaker 1: It's a wild ride. And then to Emily eventually plucking
Speaker 1: that thing out for me, that's nice, gotta that's what
Speaker 1: marriage is all about. Folks. Yeah, you just have your
Speaker 1: forearm thrust across your eyes. You're like, get it out,
Speaker 1: get it out. Uh. So let's take another break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about prevention, and then a
Speaker 1: little bit about some very recent interesting, uh wacky things
Speaker 1: going on in Congress about lime disease as a bioweapon. Okay, okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you talked about prevention. How do you keep from having
Speaker 1: to have a tick pulled from your crotch? Don't ever
Speaker 1: go into mother nature. Just stay in your mid century
Speaker 1: modern home with tiled floors, and don't go into the woods.
Speaker 1: It sounds delicious. No, I love the woods. You love
Speaker 1: the woods? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I love watching the woods
Speaker 1: on television from your mid century house. No I do.
Speaker 1: I love the woods myself. Yeah, I'm just getting get
Speaker 1: in the woods. But um, they recommend things like deep
Speaker 1: I don't use that stuff on my own body. But
Speaker 1: some people will say put that all over your body
Speaker 1: and put it on your clothes and put it on
Speaker 1: your socks and shoes and just walk around spraying a
Speaker 1: cloud of it around you constantly while you're in the woods.
Speaker 1: What I do is I just check for ticks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a good thing to do, seriously, it looks super dorky,
Speaker 1: but what do you care is to tuck your pant
Speaker 1: legs into your socks. Uh? When? When? And then when
Speaker 1: you come out, like wear light colors too, because you
Speaker 1: can see the ticks a lot more easily. And then
Speaker 1: when you when you come out of the woods, Um,
Speaker 1: take your clothes off and take a shower as soon
Speaker 1: as you can, and just inspect yourself, Inspect your growing,
Speaker 1: your armpits, your scalp. Part of the problem with lime
Speaker 1: disease though, is remember you get it from TIMPs? Do
Speaker 1: you get it from ticks in the nymph stage which
Speaker 1: are really really small. So you've got to check really
Speaker 1: really well to see, um, if you have that tick
Speaker 1: on you. Yeah, and just while you're at it, take
Speaker 1: off the adult tis as well. Yeah, don't just leave
Speaker 1: those and check your dogs. You know you check your
Speaker 1: dogs under their haunches, like on the armpit of their
Speaker 1: legs whatever that's called their leg bits. Uh, check behind
Speaker 1: their ears, check under their collars, because ticks are trying
Speaker 1: to you know, they're not gonna hang out just like
Speaker 1: on the top of their back. They may start there,
Speaker 1: but they're going to try and find a place that's
Speaker 1: dark and warm and out of out of view. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to say you can't get lime disease
Speaker 1: from an adult chuck. It's just that the nymphs are
Speaker 1: far more likely to feed on a human than an
Speaker 1: adult is. But a line infected adult tick will transmit
Speaker 1: sure line to you too. Very important distinction. So now
Speaker 1: we move on to the US Congress very recently, about
Speaker 1: a month ago, and did July I think, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a US House Rep named Chris Smith, Republican out
Speaker 1: of New Jersey, who introduce legislation that said, hey, Department
Speaker 1: of Defense, you should review these claims that I'm seeing
Speaker 1: that our own Pentagon researched using ticks to spread lime
Speaker 1: disease as a bioweapon in the mid twentieth century. I'm
Speaker 1: reading a lot about this in books and articles that
Speaker 1: we did research on Plumb Island and we we and
Speaker 1: other insects too, not just ticks, of turning them into bioweapons.
Speaker 1: And this thing passed. And a lot of this comes
Speaker 1: from a book written by Chris Newby called Bitten Colon
Speaker 1: The Secret History of Lime Disease and and Biological Weapons.
Speaker 1: And this book, like I think Chris Smith, the representative
Speaker 1: from New Jersey said, like this book really inspired me
Speaker 1: to to take up this legislation. Um. But in the book,
Speaker 1: Newby basically says, the government at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, and
Speaker 1: I'm Plum Island, New York, before it was turned into
Speaker 1: an animal disease research center, we're doing it was an
Speaker 1: insect disease research they were they were looking into, um
Speaker 1: well they've they definitely were doing biowarfare research there. Um
Speaker 1: but and then Fort Dietrich into for however long if
Speaker 1: they're not still doing it now, but them they were
Speaker 1: apparently looking into ticks as delivery systems for biological weapons.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find that that is actually verified, but I
Speaker 1: find that highly believable. But what Nubia is saying is
Speaker 1: they were doing that research and then the way we
Speaker 1: got lime diseases. Whatever research they were coming up with escaped,
Speaker 1: say a ticket attached to a bird that flew off
Speaker 1: a plumb island and landed in the area around Lime, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: And these ticks got off and they started to breed
Speaker 1: and they they became endemic in this area. And that's
Speaker 1: where lime disease came from. There was actually a biological
Speaker 1: weapon that was produced and then inadvertently, probably not purposefully
Speaker 1: released into the larger population in the northeast. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: here's my question. I haven't read the book. Uh, but
Speaker 1: are they saying that that that we created lime disease
Speaker 1: or that we just weaponized it, because those are two
Speaker 1: very different things. Yeah. I don't know what she's saying either,
Speaker 1: And I think, um, she stopped short of saying that,
Speaker 1: but that it's implied that if you put two and
Speaker 1: two together, the government was looking into biological warfare and
Speaker 1: they were talking about, um, you know, using ticks at
Speaker 1: some point, and you know, it's really close to this
Speaker 1: ground zero of where the tick epidemic began you put
Speaker 1: two and two together. That's the impression I have is
Speaker 1: that she didn't actually come out and say it, but
Speaker 1: that she lets the readers surmise for themselves. Which is
Speaker 1: the problem. Well, I mean that's very easy to disprove
Speaker 1: if she's actually claiming that they created lime disease, because
Speaker 1: we just got through saying it was in who was
Speaker 1: the Mummy? It was aut ars Ago over in the Alps. Uh. Well, true,
Speaker 1: but it also in the United States. I mean it
Speaker 1: came around in the Uh we first discovered it in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and like several different places. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: lime Connecticut. They found it in California. And you can't
Speaker 1: just that just it doesn't add up that it would
Speaker 1: be popping up in all these random places if it
Speaker 1: escaped from Long Island Sound in nineteen fifty three, right,
Speaker 1: which I think somebody who subscribed to this conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: and that's very much what it is, is a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory that um, well, then the release wasn't purpose or accidental,
Speaker 1: it was purposeful, and that they spread it around the
Speaker 1: northeast California and then Spooner, Wisconsin, which supposedly is the
Speaker 1: actual place where the first case of lyme disease was
Speaker 1: described in the United States in nineteen sixty nine, about
Speaker 1: six years before this cluster of juvenile arthritis cases popped
Speaker 1: up in old lime lime in East HadOM. Well, it's
Speaker 1: a very bad idea if that's what went on, because
Speaker 1: you have to depend on a lot of things, which
Speaker 1: is a these ticks definitely finding their way to uh
Speaker 1: the enemy, be they attached to the enemy successfully and
Speaker 1: transmit the disease. And then what does it transmit? A
Speaker 1: very slow acting disease that will give people headaches and
Speaker 1: fatigue over the course of a long time. Right, that
Speaker 1: also produces a one of a kind telltale rash that
Speaker 1: tells you, supposedly in plenty of time that you have
Speaker 1: this um this disease that needs to be treated with
Speaker 1: a simple course of oral antibiotics. Yeah, and it has
Speaker 1: to be probably in the country. They're not. They don't
Speaker 1: thrive well in the city. So it's just it doesn't
Speaker 1: make a good biological weapon. No. And then again, people
Speaker 1: who subscribed as a conspiracy theories say, well, they can't
Speaker 1: all be winners. But maybe it was just something they
Speaker 1: were experimented with and it wasn't very good. Trust me.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've done enough research on stuff our American
Speaker 1: government used to do and continue to do that it's
Speaker 1: not the most outlandish thing in the world. No, it's not.
Speaker 1: And that's also why Chris Smith, the representative from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand, because it's entirely plausible.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's not just a complete wacko idea. The
Speaker 1: other reason Christmas shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand
Speaker 1: is because he is a true lime warrior. He introduced
Speaker 1: other legislation called the Tick Act, and of course he
Speaker 1: had to make tick an acronism. That um an acronym,
Speaker 1: not in an acronism for the ticks, Colon, Identify Control
Speaker 1: and Knockout Act. He was really grasping like a tick
Speaker 1: on a blade of grass with that one. But the
Speaker 1: point is knockouts not one word unless he used his
Speaker 1: knockout that's what he's saying. I guess because um. But
Speaker 1: it would create an additional hundred and eighty million dollar
Speaker 1: is in federal funding for lyme disease research, which was
Speaker 1: sorely needed right now. That's awesome. I didn't know he
Speaker 1: was such an advocate. That's good. He really is. He
Speaker 1: hates lyme disease like like a lot. I was about
Speaker 1: to say something, but I wish I could take a
Speaker 1: pill that would bulk up my analogy region in my brain. Oh,
Speaker 1: your analogies are great. What were you gonna say, I
Speaker 1: want to know we can beep it up. I was
Speaker 1: gonna get political. I was gonna say, he hates ticks
Speaker 1: like he hates Okay, can we leave that and bleep it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll find out right. So, um, the
Speaker 1: whole idea that it's a bioweapon almost certainly not the case, right,
Speaker 1: but it makes for good press. I mean, like if
Speaker 1: you look up like lyme disease and bioweapon. There is
Speaker 1: a lot of recent articles right now. It just because
Speaker 1: a member of Congress introduced this legislation. What a lot
Speaker 1: of people are all are saying is, look, it makes
Speaker 1: sense like this conspiracy theory that people would go to that.
Speaker 1: But on the same at the same time, there's another
Speaker 1: really great explanation for it, and it's climate change that
Speaker 1: this whole thing came about in the seventies, because we're
Speaker 1: starting to see what was called, um, the first epidemic
Speaker 1: from climate change. And there's this really great article on
Speaker 1: a On, which is a great website by Marybeth Phifer
Speaker 1: spells it like Michelle Phifer with the p called ticks rising,
Speaker 1: and um, she's an investigative reporter, science journalist who really
Speaker 1: went to a lot of troubles to explain how climate
Speaker 1: change has created a new world for ticks and we
Speaker 1: are now living in it. Yeah, I mean, in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, the e p A actually started to use
Speaker 1: for new indicators about what's going on with climate change
Speaker 1: and the impact, and one of them was the spread
Speaker 1: of lime disease. So like the e p A officially
Speaker 1: uses that as a factor uh in an indicator in
Speaker 1: determining the impact of climate change now right, and so
Speaker 1: the whole the whole basis of this idea is that
Speaker 1: because of warmer weather, ticks are being killed off in
Speaker 1: far fewer numbers from over the winter, so they're surviving
Speaker 1: longer there. Um, as it it gets warmer and warmer,
Speaker 1: higher and higher up their range is spreading rather rapidly.
Speaker 1: And wherever these ticks go, lime disease is game to
Speaker 1: go with them. So the spread of lyme disease is
Speaker 1: increasing as the spread of ticks is increasing too, and
Speaker 1: ticks have gotten totally out of hand in some areas.
Speaker 1: In that same aon article, um Marybeth Pheiffer was talking
Speaker 1: about how moose are dying in their thousands in like
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and the Dakotas because they're being bled to death
Speaker 1: by a hundred thousand ticks at once. It's amazing that
Speaker 1: never happened before. And now all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: kind of becoming routine because the ticks aren't dying off
Speaker 1: in the winter like they're supposed to. And again it's
Speaker 1: because of climate change. And then in the Northeast, Chuck,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why there's been this explosion of
Speaker 1: ticks is because there's been an explosion of deer to
Speaker 1: support the tick population. Sure, back in the day, there
Speaker 1: were things like mountain lions, and there were predators that
Speaker 1: would help control the deer population. Wolves, wolves. They're even
Speaker 1: suggesting reintroducing wolves to help control the deer population. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you can bet that's going to happen. Really, no, I
Speaker 1: mean do you think so? Yeah? Totally, Like a three
Speaker 1: thousand people a year coming down with lime in the
Speaker 1: United States, they're gonna start reintroducing wolves to combat if
Speaker 1: it has even a half of a chance to be
Speaker 1: interested to see if that happens, because humans are gonna
Speaker 1: want to hunt those wolves. Yeah, you know, it just
Speaker 1: brings it out on us for some reason. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean they hunted the mountain lions, right, but I
Speaker 1: think that's the idea of of oh wait a minute,
Speaker 1: really weird and um circuit. As bad things happen when
Speaker 1: we overhunt mountain lions and wolves, maybe when we reintroduce them,
Speaker 1: we won't have to, you know, or we won't follow
Speaker 1: that impulse, will just let nature take its course. Right.
Speaker 1: Who knows you got anything else? Man? I got nothing else.
Speaker 1: So there's a solution around of antibiotics and some wolves
Speaker 1: that will cure what ails us. Yeah, advocate for yourself still,
Speaker 1: people in the wolves persistent. That's good advice for everything.
Speaker 1: Chuck agreed, Um, almost everything. There's certainly cases where persistence
Speaker 1: is not a good idea, but you know what I'm saying, right, Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about lyme disease, go
Speaker 1: check out all of the articles there are to read.
Speaker 1: And again, go check out the a on article by
Speaker 1: Marybeth fight for it's really interesting. Um. And since I
Speaker 1: said it's interesting, that means it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this neat story about how great stuff
Speaker 1: he should know listeners are from Portland, Maine. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: my wife, daughter and I all stuff you show listeners
Speaker 1: for years. Decided last minute to buy tickets to the
Speaker 1: show while on vacation at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, just
Speaker 1: a short drive south of Portland. We had nosebleed seats
Speaker 1: naturally because we waited until just an hour before showtime. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that was more than cool by us, and we
Speaker 1: were totally stoked just to be there, whatever the seats.
Speaker 1: When we got to our balcony seats, a friendly fellow
Speaker 1: named Matt approached us, said he had three tickets for
Speaker 1: orchestra seats and asked if we'd like them. The tickets
Speaker 1: were intended for friends of his who were stuck in
Speaker 1: labor day weekend traffic couldn't make it to the show.
Speaker 1: Turns out he had been scouting the crowd for forty
Speaker 1: minutes looking for a group of three even in listening
Speaker 1: the help of the ushers to find three people together,
Speaker 1: and we were the first group that he saw. Brief
Speaker 1: walk downstairs and there we were three rows from the
Speaker 1: stage for the supremely excellent show about podcast topic redacted.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Matt and his friends being stuck in traffic.
Speaker 1: We went from not having tickets an hour before showtime
Speaker 1: to having third row ten minutes before you guys took stage.
Speaker 1: We considered it a little piece of true magic. So
Speaker 1: while I'm confident this lengthy set up and telling you
Speaker 1: the story is way too long for the air, no,
Speaker 1: not true, Richard Clark, the whole family would be for
Speaker 1: ever grateful if you could give Matt and the Connecticut
Speaker 1: groundskeeper a huge thank you from Rich Susan and Emily
Speaker 1: and Upstate New York for sharing those seats with us.
Speaker 1: That is fantastic. I love our shows, man, it's great.
Speaker 1: People are so kind. And that is from Richard Clark,
Speaker 1: not Dick Clark, but rich Clark. Oh that's even better.
Speaker 1: Dick Clark's taken. That's right. Thank you for rich Clark
Speaker 1: for recognizing that too. Yeah, thanks for coming to the show,
Speaker 1: rich and bringing the family. And thank you Matt for
Speaker 1: being such a cool dude. That was very nice of you.
Speaker 1: I'm utterly unsurprised because our fans are pretty great people. Yes, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, you
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