Lyme Disease Over Thirty Years Old. Do We Continue To Do Nothing?

In the mid 1970s Lyme disease was being discovered in Connecticut. By the late 70s, the disease was labeled Lyme arthritis, I suppose because the symptoms of the illness were arthritis-like. In the 1980s, further studies revealed the presence of Lyme disease. Nearly 30 years later and residents of Connecticut still fear the disease. Learn more of the history of Lyme disease in Connecticut by clicking this link.

The Connecticut Coalition to Eradicate Lyme Disease has decided it is time to take a more active role in actually doing something about stopping this crippling disease. They believe that science shows that reducing deer populations down to levels the state’s wildlife biologists agree with of around 8 – 10 deer per square mile, will drastically reduce the presence of the disease, if not totally eliminate it.

Peter Knight, a member of the CCELD, in a recent column published in the Hartford Courant, says that the deer population in Connecticut has jumped from a low of 12 deer in 1896 to somewhere around 150,000 today. If is because of this “unnatural” population of deer, that the disease is so easily spread.

The root cause of Connecticut’s epidemic is an unnatural, environmentally destructive population explosion of deer. The deer are not infected with the disease themselves, but they feed, transport and disperse the deer ticks that pass it on to humans. Just one tick-infested deer can facilitate the delivery of about 1 million deer tick eggs that it scatters as it walks through our backyards, parks, playgrounds, meadows and playing fields. The eggs hatch and turn into ticks that then infect their victims.

Knight says that proof exists in three New England states that reducing deer populations eliminates Lyme disease and that no other methods employed so far in New England or elsewhere have reduced Lyme disease cases. How does a reduction of deer eliminate Lyme disease?

When deer populations are reduced to around 10 per square mile, the deer ticks that spread Lyme and other diseases become locally extinct. It takes a lot of deer to keep the tick species reproducing successfully in an area. But when there are no ticks left, there is no Lyme disease.

Much of the work that led to this understanding was done here by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, funded by the state.

The CCELD is supported by many including the Connecticut Audubon Society, the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, seven of Connecticut’s Regional Councils of Government representing more than 70 towns, plus emergency physicians, pediatricians, Lyme disease task forces, veterinarians along with many others.

Not everyone agrees with this approach. Mike Gorfinkle, a co-founder of Connecticut No Arrows or Bullets, that advocates for co-existence with wildlife, says in a Connecticut Post editorial that killing deer is not the cure for eliminating Lyme disease. He claims the information that the CCELD is using to promote eradicating Lyme disease is “simplistic” and outdated. Gorfinkle cites studies done by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

It’s quite interesting that Gorfinkle chooses to cite these studies when they don’t really support his claims. It is also difficult to take serious someone’s claims that killing deer won’t stop the disease when his agenda is to stop the killing of deer.

CIES’s studies are about biodiversity. Gorfinkle makes the claim that a reduction in deer population would actually increase the risk of Lyme disease.

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Wildlife Division erroneously concurs with the coalition that reducing the deer population to eight per square mile in Connecticut would eliminate Lyme disease. The DEP bases this conclusion on the outdated work of Spielman. In fact, as stated above, recent scientific studies have shown that reducing the number of deer will increase the risk of human exposure to Lyme disease due to questing ticks searching for a new host.

This statement is simply not true. As a responsible scientist, one would have to take into consideration the entire study which is claiming that a balanced and diverse ecosystem is a healthy one and one they believe would reduce diseases and the spread of them. From the CIES website:

Thus far, their ecosystem approach has demonstrated that Lyme disease risk decreases when vertebrate communities contain many species (high biodiversity) and increases when the habitat is highly fragmented with lower diversity. Through identifying the conditions that regulate Lyme disease risk, their findings will help determine how ecosystems can be best managed for human health.

From the modeling study itself(pdf), researchers say that science has not been well developed in claims that species diversity reduces Lyme disease.

The concept that species diversity per se may influence risk of exposure to disease has not been well developed, however. We present a conceptual model of how high species richness and evenness in communities of terrestrial vertebrates may reduce risk of exposure to Lyme disease……

The study looks at two aspects of species diversity – richness and evenness. Richness refers to the number of a particular species in a community and evenness suggests a proportional representation of each species and emphasizes species evenness as being the more important.

Ideally, the most appropriate independent variable in our state and regional analysis would be species evenness, because evenness represents the total distribution of opportunities for ticks to feed from each host species.

If we were to assume that the information in this study is accurate and should be considered, for Gorfinkle to claim that a reduction in deer numbers would increase the risk of disease would be to assume that a species evenness already exists. The Connecticut Coalition to Eradicate Lyme Disease bases their approach, which is also supported by Connecticut wildlife biologists, that because there are too many deer, a species evenness as would be called for by the Cary study, doesn’t exist. As a matter of fact, in some areas there are so many deer they have created a huge imbalance of species much due to over browsing.

Further claims by Gorfinkle are actually quite ridiculous. His analysis, as he says in his article, proves deer densities have no effect on Lyme disease.

The DEP reported the 2006 deer density in Windham County to be 28.7 deer per square mile and in Fairfield County to be 29.4 deer per square mile.

l The Department of Public Health reported the 2006 incidence rate of Lyme disease in Windham County to be 135 per 100,000 population, which is more than three times greater than the 40 per 100,000 population in Fairfield County.

Both counties have about the same deer density, yet the incidence rates of Lyme disease are grossly different. Contrary to conclusions of the DEP and Lyme disease coalition, the issue of more deer equaling more Lyme disease is false.

Surely nobody can accurately conclude that this simple comparison makes for any conclusions concerning the incidents of Lyme disease. There are just too many factors to be considered such as habitat, human population densities, etc. Gorfinkle himself expresses that.

Clearly, the deer/Lyme disease relationship is extremely complex and cannot be conveniently solved with archaic and simplistic approaches like killing deer.

Or making claims that reducing deer populations will increase Lyme disease risk.

Gorfinkle calls for “intelligent” Connecticut residents to rely on good science in finding cures for the existence and spread of Lyme disease. It appears to me that is exactly what the CCELD is doing. They have done their homework and are presenting facts to support their ideas. Many prominent, influential and knowledgeable people are getting on board to finally do something about this disease.

I contacted Dr. Geogina Scholl, who is part of the CCELD and been a very active and outspoken advocate for reducing deer populations. I wanted her to help me find information and understand about this claim of “recent studies” showing reducing deer would increase Lyme disease. This is part of what she sent back to me.

There’s no such specific study. He’s talking about the temporary and false impression that tick numbers go up when deer are completely removed as the adult questing ticks are still there looking for a deer. They are on the ground instead of on the deer waiting to drop off and lay eggs. This effect only lasts one or two years at most as the ticks die out in 2 years and no more eggs are laid. They know that. They are just intentionally confusing people. This is the same “evidence” that Laura Simon of the Humane Society used to derail the Nantucket Lyme prevention hunts in 2005 and that she gave as testimony on march 10 to the Environment Committee. Its shameless distortion. You will find this effect referred to in many good tick and deer studies. It is a well known temporary phenomenon and quite irrelevant to the long term reduction of Lyme disease.

It is shameful that people are getting ill and nothing is being done about it. Kudos to the CCELD for their efforts and honest approach at getting something done.

Hunters are conservationists and most understand the importance of a healthy forest. Good deer management requires controlling populations to what the habitat will support. This benefits everyone.

Tom Remington

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