LYME DISEASE

LYME DISEASE, an infectious disease transmitted by the deer tick, was first identified conclusively in 1975 in New England. The cause initially eluded investigators, who found inconsistencies in the symptoms affecting inhabitants of Old Lyme, Connecticut, where it was first observed, and neighboring communities. The illness manifested itself in one or more symptoms, including fever, chills, lethargy, headaches, muscle aches, backaches, sore throats, nausea, and stiff necks. Some, but not all, victims incurred a rash that resembled a bull's-eye roughly six centimeters in diameter. While most recovered, about 15 percent were left with neurologic problems and a few with life-threatening cardiac conditions.

The disease initially appeared most frequently in the northeastern, north-central, and northwestern United States, in woods and transitional areas between woods and grassy fields. Investigators eventually traced the disease to ticks that transmitted the disease into the bloodstream by burying themselves in human skin. In 1982 Willy Burgdorfer of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, identified the spiral-shaped bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, that causes Lyme disease. By 1987 physicians had detected the disease in the southern United States. Reported cases grew from 545 in 1989 to 8,000 in 1993. Symptoms seldom linger in victims who obtain early treatment with antibiotics, although as of 2001 doctors disagreed about how easy it is to diagnose the disease and about what to do for patients whose symptoms last beyond the typically effective four-week antibiotic treatment. Some fear that using additional antibiotics too readily will expose patients to uncomfortable side effects and, worse, engender resistant bacterial strains of the disease.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barbour, Alan G. Lyme Disease. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Kantor, Fred S. "Disarming Lyme Disease." Scientific American 271 (September 1994): 34–40.

Lang, Denise V. Coping with Lyme Disease. 2d ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.