Claims of autoimmune-type side effects led to several lawsuits, and though CDC and FDA found no connection to the vaccine, the public largely rejected it.
Anything that can help prevent tick borne diseases is a win in my book. In Western Europe, in many cases that should probably include restoring wildlife habitats...
Also, I've only seen people mentioning Lyme disease, but Rocky Mountain spotted tick fever is another tick borne disease you don't want to catch. My understanding it's also one of the main reasons a biosafety level 4 facility is being built in Hamilton, MT [0]. Though, I had thought the facility had been built a long time ago.
[0] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/biosafety-labs-needed
There was also a followup a few weeks ago - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/retur...
Fortunately, we are good friends and I could tell her without any kind of trouble.
Yes, she had a tick on that precise place a week before. Yes, it looked like erythema migrans, a typical early sign of a Lyme infection (borreliosis). No, she never heard about that and was a bit reluctant about doing anything about it. Yes, I persuaded her to see her doctor now. She got antibiotics immediately and seems to be fine.
It’s a common story to hear about people who don’t connect the dots, and don’t get properly diagnosed early when it’s more treatable.
Also I expect/hope vaccinations will develop into some kind of regular maintenance thing like software updates. With the mRNA technology that would be really easy. Scary for many people, also, but really, why not? Every year there are scientifical reasons to update the immunization for almost everyone against certain antigens. This way we may eliminate many strains of Sars-Cov-2, Influenza, other cold viruses, measles, maybe even HIV and the Herpes family eventually.
This isn't a replacement, you still have to check even if you're vaccinated.
"Also that would only tell you that you have a tick and then you need to check again that you see the red swelling to know you are infected."
Wrong. The red swelling does no occur in all cases. You can be infected without it. Generally, one should have the tick examined to see how long it was attached (if they don't know).
"Then you need to get the antibiotics and then you need to hope that works."
You would need to do this even if you have the vaccine (assuming the tick was attached for longer than 24 hours or there's reason to believe it was interrupted from a previous meal and then but you - testing the tick will tell).
Prevention is always better than a cure, so yes you still have to check. Yes I know the Erythema is optional. Yes I know a vaccine isn't 100% effective. I'm actually a licensed veterinarian you are trying to mansplain here...
Isn’t the typical treatment a course of antibiotics? In other words the risks from being “unnecessarily” treated should be fairly low.
While certainly not ideal, with 8 million prescriptions in the US alone, I'm not sure an additional potentially unnecessary course of doxycycline is the worst thing in the world when compared to the possibility that the alternative is full blown Lyme disease.
https://therevelator.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lyme-US-...
Indeed, it is not just "east northern states."
See point 3 in the study's stated limitations[1]:
> 3. Surveillance data are captured by county of residence, not county of exposure.
Given that he was 1 of 12 cases in that year, I wouldn't interpret that table as proof that the range of Lyme-infected ticks has spread to Washington state.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/
I think it’s a shame it was withdrawn, with a low effectiveness of 80% and even requiring annual boosters I’d view that as a great option if I lived somewhere with deer ticks. Lyme disease is scary.