Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Brian today. Ahead of the July 4th weekend, we'll end the show today with a closer look at maybe one of summer's least favorite features, ticks. Researchers at Fordham University released their tri-state ticket tick risk index. This year, the risk of being bitten by a tick in the New York City area is extremely high. Joining us now to talk about what led to the population surge and best practices to avoid picking up ticks outdoors and the diseases they carry is Thomas Daniels, research scientist in vector ecology, director of the Louis Calder Center in Armonk, the biological field station of Fordham University. Thomas, welcome to WNYC.

Thomas Daniels: Good morning.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we're going to open the phones to you right away. Anything you've ever wanted to ask a tick expert but never had one over for dinner to ask, give us a call now at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number or any of you out there notice the uptick, pardon me, in ticks this summer in particular. Maybe you've been bit, maybe you're a doctor or nurse treating an increase in tick-borne diseases. Help us report the story. What do you think people should know? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Thomas, the Fordham Tri-State tick risk is a 10 out of 10 this summer, according to the website. Wow. The risk is so high that people it suggests should consider going to the movies instead of a hike. Walk us through what this 10 out of 10 risk assessment means practically.

Thomas Daniels: What it practically means is that there are more potentially infected ticks at this time of year than there are, let's say, early in the spring, and then that there will be later in the summer and the fall. It's a relative risk. We've been doing the tick index since 2008, and it actually was started by my colleague, Dr. Rich Falco, who works with me on this. He's actually representative of New York State Health Department. Our lab is actually a mixed venture between Fordham and the State Health Department. We decided to revitalize the tick index back in 2008 because we saw it as a public health service.

It's our attempt to let people in the region know that the risk varies over the course of the spring and summer. It's highest right about now. We know this because we've been monitoring ticks for almost 40 years. We started doing the tick surveillance work that we do back in 1985. We've got a very good handle on when ticks become active, when they peak, and when they go down. Right now, they're at peak, and they've been at peak for the past two weeks. I anticipate, if we look back historically, things will start to drop off in the next week or so.

We'll probably head down to a 9 or an 8 pretty soon, but right now, people need to be careful when they're outdoors.

Brigid Bergin: Wow. Even an 8 or 9 still sounds pretty high.

Thomas Daniels: It's pretty high.

Brigid Bergin: The report notes that the nymph in adult ticks are active at this time of year, although the smaller nymph is responsible for many more cases of Lyme disease. Can you explain that a little bit further? Why do nymphs carry a higher risk? Really, what do nymphs look like? Are they harder to spot?

Thomas Daniels: They are harder to spot. They're very small. They're the size of a poppy seed. One of the reasons we have-- This tick has a two to three-year life cycle, and it overlaps with the next generation. What happens, these ticks are not born infected with the agent that causes Lyme disease, but they feed on recently reinfected rodents that are out in the environment. All those rodents were reinfected by the nymphs that are out now. The nymphs come out, they reinfect all the wildlife just in time for the next generation of ticks to become active.

Those are the larval ticks. They pick various infections up, depending on what the hosts are carrying. We're going to see those newly infected larvae show up as nymphs the following year. When the adults are around later in the fall, they're only about 10% of the total number of nymphs that we see. The reason the nymphs are so important is because they're out at the time of year when we like to be out in the woods, when we tend to wear shorter or less clothing because it's hot out. The ticks themselves are very, very small and numerous. Consequently, virtually all the Lyme disease cases that get reported to physicians and to the State Health Department are the result of these infected nymphs. About 25% to 30% of these nymphs are going to be infected with the agent that causes Lyme disease. It's a very, very high infection rate, and it accounts for the kinds of numbers that we see. Lyme disease is the most important vector-borne disease in the country.

Brigid Bergin: We have a lot of calls and questions for you. Let's go to first, Jeremy in Middletown, New Jersey. Jeremy, if you could just ask your question quickly, because we want to get more callers in here, too.

Jeremy: Yes, thank you. I'm just wondering how long it takes for an infection to set in between the time a tick bites you, and how long between that time does it take for Lyme or something like that to take hold, and have some-

Thomas Daniels: Got you.

Jeremy: -treatment and testing?

Thomas Daniels: Testing is a separate issue. Let me answer the time question first. It depends on the pathogen. Now, this tick is a Pandora's box of pathogens. In addition to Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the agent of Lyme disease, we've got an agent of Anaplasma, we've got an agent of Babesia, we've got a relapsing fever spirochete, and we've got a virus. Every one of them has a different time that they would be transmitted. Lyme disease is the big one to be concerned about.

You've got about 24 to 48 hours after the tick attaches before you are really at risk of whatever that tick has if it's infected with the agent of Lyme disease before it is actually going to transmit it to you. The cautionary tale of this entire thing, all of these different pathogens, is you find the tick on, you get it off as soon as possible. As for the testing-- I'm sorry, as for the testing, usually about two weeks after you've been infected is likely to show up. It's an antibody test, and so it takes a while for the antibodies to develop. If you're feeling sick in the interim, you get to see your doctor, especially if you know you've been bitten by a tick.

Brigid Bergin: Thomas, just a follow-up question on the time to remove the tick. What is the best way to remove a tick? I think there are a lot of people out there with different suggestions and recommendations, but from your perspective, if you're telling someone they've got a tick on them, they find a tick on their pet, how do they remove it?

Thomas Daniels: The best way is to grab a nice pair of sharp forceps or tweezers and grab the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull it straight out. There's a misconception that ticks sort of burrow into the skin, and you can't see them. The only part of a tick that actually goes into the skin are its mouthparts. Even if you break the mouth parts off while you're pulling the tick off, those will be taken care of by your immune system.

You get the tick off with its abdomen and its salivary glands off the skin; that's really the part to be concerned about. I wouldn't try smothering it. I wouldn't expect that if you had to it to catch you could take a hot shower and expect that the tick is going to come off. That's not going to happen. Just grab it, pull it off as quickly as you can.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Heather in Sunnyside, Queens. Heather, thanks for calling.

Heather: Hi. I have this unnatural Lyme disease phobia because when I was 15, I worked in a library and I put together the file folders because I'm dating myself of articles on Lyme disease. I'm very careful about, I use deets and all of that stuff. Why isn't there a vaccine? If this is such a prominent disease, and I think there is one for dogs, right? Why isn't there a vaccine--

Thomas Daniels: Yes, there is one for dogs. There was a human vaccine over a decade ago, and it didn't sell well. It actually had a very unusual way of working. It was geared toward a particular-- Spirochetes are fascinating organisms, and they take steps to evade the immune system. When they're in the tick, they have a certain kind of protein that can be detected. When they get into a warm-blooded host, they switch that off and turn on another one. The vaccine that was originally designed actually worked very well inside the tick.

Not so well once the spirochete was actually transmitted. Then there was a lot of concern. It was actually a lot of misinformation about how people would get the vaccine, get the vaccine, and get Lyme disease, or that the vaccine caused Lyme disease. There was never any evidence of that. Because of a business decision, it simply didn't make sense. The vaccine was pulled from the market. Now, we learned what worked and didn't work with that vaccine. There are a number of places that are working on new vaccines.

In general, bacteria are harder to vaccinate against than something like a virus. They're a lot more complicated. The testing continues, and there's hope that there will be a vaccine in the future, but that's why we don't have one at the moment.

Brigid Bergin: Thomas, a listener texted, "My kids are going away to camp and I don't feel confident they will apply insect repellent consistently. Is it worth treating clothing with tick repellent?"

Thomas Daniels: That's a good choice, actually. There is a product called [unintelligible 00:10:36], and it's an artificial pyrethroid. You can treat the clothing with it. You let it dry for a couple of hours, and it actually acts to some extent as an insecticide and not only repels ticks, but if ticks get on it, they can be killed. It's not a bad idea if you're going to be fully, fairly regularly exposed to ticks, to treat. Repellents are always a good idea. Then the final backstop is when you come inside, you have to make sure you check yourself to see if there's anything crawling on you or if there's something attached, you have to get it off.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Vic in Putnam. Vic, thanks for calling.

Vic: You bet. Thank you. I'd just like a comment on the spread of the Lone Star tick from the deep south to the northeast because of global heating and what they carry or transmit the Alpha-gal, which is a contraction for the syndrome that they carry. Yes.

Brigid Bergin: Great.

Thomas Daniels: The Alpha-gal allergy is an allergy to a carbohydrate. This carbohydrate is basically a sugar molecule that is in all mammals, except, oddly enough, apes and Old World monkeys. We happen to be in the group of apes. We're not used to having that protein in us. When we do get it from a Lone Star tick, as the listener was suggesting, we can have that molecule transmitted into us, and our immune system goes into overdrive, and it wants to get rid of what's not supposed to be there.

Anytime afterwards, you'll have an allergic reaction, it can be pretty severe. Usually, it happens a few hours after you've had a meal of meat. It can be any meat, basically, except bird. Obviously not. It's mammals. You can have chicken and turkey. You're not going to have a problem. If you have lamb or pork, or beef, you could potentially have a problem. It takes a few hours to develop. Sometimes people don't make that connection between the state they had three hours earlier and the fact that they're not feeling very good now.

Brigid Bergin: Thomas--

Thomas Daniels: That's a problem with the Lone Star tick. As the listener was suggesting, the population has moved north, and it is making inroads into the lower Hudson Valley. We don't have a lot of it at the Louis Calder Center. Matter of fact, we don't have any, but we're constantly monitoring and looking for it. There's a ton of Lone Star ticks on Long Island. It also transmits a type of Ehrlichia, so it's not anything you want to mess around with.

Brigid Bergin: Thomas, just very quickly, I'll read a text from a listener. "My doctor recommended taking two tablets of doxycycline following a tick bite for prevention. Just briefly, what do you think of this?"

Thomas Daniels: That's an idea that-- Physicians have been suggesting that for over a decade, and there's good evidence for-- It's a prophylactic treatment. One or two doses of doxycycline tries-- The attempt is to nip it in the bud. When spirochete gets into the body, it takes a while to get around. If you can get an antibiotic in very, very quickly, you have a good chance of nipping it.

Brigid Bergin: Great. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. My guest was Thomas Daniels, research scientist in vector ecology, director of the Louis Calder Center in Armonk, the biological field station of Fordham University in the state of New York. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Thomas Daniels: It was my pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.

Brigid Bergin: The Brian Lehrer Show's producers are Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Amina Serna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Our interns this summer are Vito Emanuel and Adelina Romero. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio, and Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz are at the studio controls. This is The Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Brigid Bergin from WNYC and Gothamist newsroom. Thanks for listening. Have a great 4th.

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