Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change

by Mary Beth Pfeiffer

"Superbly written and researched."  — Booklist

"Builds a strong case."  — Kirkus

Lyme disease is spreading rapidly around the globe as ticks move into places they could not survive before. The first epidemic to emerge in the era of climate change, the disease infects half a million people in the US and Europe each year, and untold multitudes in Canada, China, Russia, and Australia.

Mary Beth Pfeiffer shows how we have contributed to this growing menace, and how modern medicine has underestimated its danger. She tells the heart-rending stories of families destroyed by a single tick bite, of children disabled, and of one woman’s tragic choice after an exhaustive search for a cure.

Pfeiffer also warns of the emergence of other tick-borne illnesses that make Lyme more difficult to treat and pose their own grave risks. Lyme is an impeccably researched account of an enigmatic disease, making a powerful case for action to fight ticks, heal patients, and recognize humanity’s role in a modern scourge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Climate Change, Environment, Medical, Health, History

304 pages, Hardcover

Published April 17, 2018

Reviews

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Tick is No Longer Just a Tick

When I was growing up I had no fear of ticks. I just pulled them off of myself or my pets and went on my way.

In 2006, we moved to the outskirts of a town in Oklahoma. I loved that we had the woods in our back yard and on both sides of our house. While I still love the scenery after all of these years, I don’t love the ticks, chiggers, or mosquitoes that we fight with year after year.

I loved how lush it is in this part of Oklahoma that they call Green Country. I also love seeing wildlife daily. Little did I know about the ticks, mosquitoes and chiggers.

When spring came that first year, I became very sick. First, my stomach churned, and I had a headache and fatigue. I went to Urgent Care and was asked if I had been bitten by a tick. Yes, I had, more than once. I was given some type of shot and oral antibiotics. When my lab work came back, it was negative. It took me two months to feel better. My husband was ill too, but he waited because he couldn’t believe that he had tick fever. When his fever got too high, he went in and was given the same treatment. Only his lab test said that he had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. At least they put both of us on antibiotics before any blood test came back. He waited too long, though, as he had fatigue, headaches, and achy muscles. He still gets headaches and muscle aches from time to time, and I think it is the tick fever, but he won’t listen. But for a long time whenever he was bitten by a tick, he would get antibiotics or if he still felt ill, he would tell the doctor that he was bitten again even if he wasn’t. But now, no oe would ever believe him if he did say that he believed his headaches and muscle aches were from the tick fever that he once had. Every doctor here, I think, believes that a short round of antibiotics works.

So, in our neck of the woods, if you are bitten by a tick, my doctor will give you antibiotics. Some will ask if you have symptoms and when and where were you bitten. If they ask questions, I am afraid that I won’t get an antibiotic if I say I have no reaction yet, that is, if I hadn’t gone to my own doctor but to Urgent Care.

So, I say that I have a headache and am tired and that I had been bitten 4 or more days ago. The latter being truthful. I never add the body aches since that would more than likely be accompanied by a fever.

I know a woman who gets an antibiotic from her vet since she worked for him. She would put it on the bite and then spread DMSO on it to get it into her system. I even think that Farm Supply has doxycycline for chickens, but I am not sure. They did when we lived in Creston because it was suggested that I give it to our own chickens.

We used to place tick granules on the ground in our yard, but then we quit seeing lightning bugs and other insects, plus, it didn’t help much as far as the ticks went. Then in later years we took to just taking showers after working in the yard and then checking for ticks later on that evening and finding more. And now we use bug repellent on our clothing, which spray I don’t trust. Only this year, we have seen very few ticks. I wondered if it was because we had a lot of rain, but I don’t know.

Then the author mentioned that mice carry the disease and foxes eat the mice, which in turn gets rid of ticks. Well, in the last two years we have had three foxes living here. I have not seen mice in years because we have three feral cats, had more in the past, and now only one housecat. Yet, we still had ticks all of those years.

What I could not understand in this book was the relationship between foxes and mice. I also had read that ticks infect the mice, but then ticks infect other animals as well, so why would it help to get rid of mice by having foxes around? I need a life cycle diagram because she wrote this book in bits and pieces. Why don’t all ticks carrydiseases? Why is it because they have multiplied, there are more diseases in the ticks? If other animals have tick diseases, why wouldn’t it spread just as much if there were no mice? Do animals die from tick diseases? From the looks of it, they don’t, but we can and do.Why don’t they die? I even listened to parts of the book again, and I got nowhere, but this is more than likely my own problem. And then I grew tired of listening to it again and gave up. Yet, this book is very interesting and well written.

It is also a sad book because doctors don’t seem to understand and often ignore clients who come in with tick fever. The tests are not always correct, and sometimes when they are the doctors still ignore it, and if they give you antibiotics, it is short lived. You will hear a lot of horror stories from people who have been bitten by ticks and ignored by doctors.

I look at our three foxes differently now. I quit worrying about them getting my cats, especially since my friends, who live in the country, and have both foxes and cats, never miss any of their cats.

I had a close friend here who had Lyme Disease, and claimed that it comes back and that the antibiotics are not given long enough. She also claimed that the doctors didn’t believe her and claimed she didn’t have Lyme Disease, even though she had the bull’s eye rash. Just that her test was negative. She did what she could to get antibiotics, and at least she was given some when she first came in to see the doctor since they give them to you right away before the test results come back.After reading this book, I can see that she wascorrect about her claims. My husband used to just go to the doctor and say that I
was bitten again, and the doctor would give me more antibiotics. Still, I think that his symptoms of headaches andsometimes his muscle aches are still from the tick fever, but he doesn’t listen.

Well, this book is eye opening as to how doctors treat this disease, if they believe you have it at all. I didn’t get much out of it than what my own friend had been telling me for years.

I also didn’t know that Lyme disease is an epidemic and that it has spread around the world. Ticks can now live up North due to climate change. But, if it isn’t ticks it is the mosquitoes, and we have plenty of them and just hope to not get Nile Fever, which has already reared its ugly head in our neck of the woods.

The worse case of ticks that I had ever seen was the day that I drove down to the river to walk our dog. We got down to the riverbed when a young dog came running up to us. She stopped to urinate, which is how I knew that she was a female, and she cried and cried when she reached me. I brought her home and fed her. She was so exhausted that she fell to sleep. I called the Humane Society and was told that that they would come and get her. I sat for two hours pulling off ticks. They were literally an inch apart all over her body. Two hours later, I was still getting them off her. The man from the Humane Society came and took her away. I called later and was told that she was anemic. I called back two days later, and they had found her a home.

What purpose do ticks have? The author found none. But neither do mosquitoes, fleas or chiggers, as far as I can tell. What purpose do any poisonous animals have? While Climate change is killing off all the wrong creatures, I wish that it could make some horrible ones exttinct. And antibiotics seems to not be helping people like it did in times past. Well, what is next?

[Kilrose · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are several big issues with this book:

1. Most importantly, there is no mention whatsoever of the fact that we HAD a vaccine for Lyme disease. (It was heavily criticized by anti-vaxxers, and the manufacturer stopped making it in 2002. https://www.vox.com/science-and-healt...) Why such a glaring omission by the author? She devotes lots of space to discussing robots that kill ticks, genetic engineering of hosts, and other complicated/expensive proposed solutions without a word on the important public health tool we already had.

2. The title is quite misleading: it’s mostly not about Lyme disease as a function of climate change, and instead is an argument in favor of chronic Lyme as a diagnosis.

3. No footnotes. Not a single one. For a book about science/medicine, not citing your sources doesn’t inspire confidence, or help the reader at all.

4. Lots of typos, misspellings, etc. also don’t inspire confidence. There is a fair bit of jumping around, poorly constructed sentences, digressions into personal anecdotes, etc. Overall, the editor didn’t do a very good job.

I found sections on issues with the existing diagnostics and on bird migration and transportation of ticks to be interesting, which is why I’m giving the book 2 stars. Overall, however, there are some seriously problematic issues that make me leery of the quality and accuracy of the information the author puts forth.

[E.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ancient monster has been awakened from its unquiet slumber by the arrogant foolishness of humans, and is now coming to feed on you and your children, while scientists and government officials sit back and do nothing, or actively distribute misinformation.

The plot of the latest supernatural horror film? No, this is the non-fiction book "Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change." In it Mary Beth Pfeiffer chronicles the rise of Lyme disease from a rare curiosity to a fast-growing menace that is destroying millions of lives even as it is downplayed and ignored by the mainstream medical community.

As the title makes clear, Pfeiffer argues that the spread of Lyme disease and other related tick-borne illnesses is linked with climate change, although she presents a more complicated picture than that. She describes how ticks are now surviving in regions that would have been intolerable for them even 20 or 30 years ago, showing up on mountain tops and the Arctic, bleeding moose to death in the deep bush and attacking suburban kindergarteners during recess with equal fervor and success. She also discusses how the reintroduction of small plots of forest in suburban areas, full of dense brush and small rodents, but lacking in predators, has led to a situation in which humans come into contact with ticks on an unprecedented scale, even as tick season expands and expands: Pfeiffer opens the book with the story of finding 21 ticks on her dogs after a walk on the day after Christmas.

Pfeiffer also chronicles the false starts and blind alleys of the research into Lyme disease, the problems with the tests for it (spoiler alert: they're not very reliable, as I can attest from personal experience), the controversy surrounding treatment options and the fact that many people (like me!) seem to need months or years of antibiotics to make even small improvement, and never recover completely, a problem compounded by the refusal of many doctors to treat such patients, or even admit that their illness is real.

"Lyme" is an excellent overview of the state of Lyme disease around the world for the lay person, and the complexity surrounding attempts to deal with it (Are deer part of the problem or are they actually reducing the spread of Lyme disease? How do you test for a disease that many times can't be cultured from a blood sample? What do you do when doctors, intentionally or not, lie to your face?).
It's also a frightening book, and it's meant to be. Pfeiffer is a vivid, compelling writer, and she issues a clear challenge in the final chapter, telling us:

"This is an epidemic. It is global and dangerous. It is spreading to new places on earth and affecting places in the human body, the brain for one, in ways that are not fully understood. History teaches us that medicine sometimes clings fiercely to convictions that are ultimately proven wrong. Lyme disease is one such time. Believe this, because ticks are out there...On balance, they have power far greater than our own."

If you already have Lyme disease or know someone affected by it, this book will most likely ring true for you. If you don't (yet) have Lyme disease, this book will mostly likely be in turns fascinating, enlightening, and terrifying.

Scared? You should be.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things have changed a lot since I had Neurological Lyme disease for the first time in the 90’s, now you can get Lyme in the middle of the Winter and many people are now getting Lyme mixed with other illnesses. “Ticks can, and sometimes do, deliver two, three, or four diseases in one bite.” People are now getting Lyme with Babesiosis which will make your Lyme three times worse. Not long ago a moose might have 1,000 to 20,000 ticks. In Vermont now, moose are showing up with over 100,000 ticks, each. “These magnificent animals were literally being bled to death.” On some of these animals you can’t find a free spot in the tick’s favorite places. Lyme is now pretty much found around the world. Where is Lyme found in Spain? Everywhere. 300,000 to 400,000 new cases are reported worldwide every year. This is helped by the strange fact that infected ticks “are more efficient at finding prey than uninfected ticks.” An infected tick can smell a meal from 50 feet. Its bite passes into the bloodstream without raising the usual alarms in the human body. A female Ixodes tick lays thousands of eggs. Lyme spirochetes look under the microscope like “so many tiny, whirring drills.”

A Lyme infested tick biting a deer can cause Lyme 10% of the time, but a Lyme infested tick biting a mouse will infect it 90% of the time. Mice can easily have 20-30 larval ticks. Find an environment where mice are kept in check, and you will find less Lyme disease. Killing deer wouldn’t work because “chipmunks, shrews, squirrels, even raccoons, all are better at imparting Lyme spirochetes to ticks than deer.” The only reason Borrelia burgdorferi is a problem, is because ticks exist to transport it. Ticks can’t see but they sense, and they can go months without eating. Oh joy… Kris Kristofferson, it was thought, had Alzheimer’s in 2016, turns out it was just Lyme. His memory returned, although he now thinks Bobby McGee is a Verizon operator in Detroit. Lone Star ticks are the athletes of the tick family, in seconds they can travel up your leg to your scalp. Soldiers in training, crawling in grasses in Maryland can have “up to five hundred nymphal Lone Star ticks – per soldier, per hour.” Each year, migrating birds bring an estimated 50 million to 175 million I. scapularis ticks (Lyme ticks) just into Canada. Ticks live around two years, mosquitos live only about two weeks. This book recommends permethrin-treated clothing for people always in the woods because it gives you 75x less chance of being bitten. While permethrin is a “weak carcinogen”, tests have shown people exposed to it for “eighteen-hour-per-day exposure to the clothing for ten years” to no ill effect. Lyme is creating a further fear of being in nature that is echoed throughout the culture already addicted to screen time, in lieu of community time or nature time. Having just finished Lyme treatment again for the third time in the past two years, this book was very helpful. Great quote inside: “A healthy person has 1,000 wishes, a sick person only one.”

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you think the Earth will be inherited by ticks?

While not a plesant read per se, a very much enlightening one.

[Elizabeth A.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a journalistic treatise not written by a scientist but does provide the general reader an awareness of this tick-borne disease called Lyme disease and the problems and controversy related to its diagnosis, treatment, and research funding. Climate change is a catalyst for the proliferation, spread, and survivability of tick-borne illness but the author does not focus on that fact in her analysis. Rather, the focus of the book is the indictment of the governmental health leaders' guidelines for the testing for Lyme disease and researchers and doctors who "toe the line" in fear of loss of funding or professional reprimand. She draws two distinct "sides" that are pitted against each other in the battle to conquer this disease and the cohort tick-borne diseases that make Lyme worse in patients. This is not a hopeful picture in quelling the devastating human toll nor in the increasing presence of the disease throughout the world. While government health guidelines are detrimental to the eradication of the disease the hope the author sees is in private funding, research and treatment.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I will say, yes, I agree that, with global climate change, we are experiencing an "up-tick" in incidents of infestation and infection caused by the profusion of ticks in certain areas of the world, and at ever higher elevations. Like the author, I live in the Hudson Valley in New York State and ticks, deer, mice and other rodents share my property. I rarely see foxes (who eat mice), but I often hear coyotes at night.
My biggest problem with the book is that it is too long and repetitive. It is prose-heavy, wordy, too diligent in including names of people and researchers, rather than sticking to a clear and concise narrative. I found the book to be full of anecdotes and descriptions that were neither scientific nor easy-to-read, informative journalism. In its attempt to appeal to the general public, to raise awareness and concern about the increasing disease-bearing tick population - a worthy cause! - the book straddled a hybrid region. I would much prefer to see some photographs, maps, graphs and charts throughout the text than to read long paragraphs describing charts, or word heavy paragraphs with percentages and so forth. One picture is worth a thousand words.
In order to make her case that Lyme is not an endemic, but an epidemic, Pfeiffer cherry picked her sources, glossed over those with a more cautious approach and appealed to emotions by including spotlights on people who suffered from the effects of untreated Lyme, or were poorly diagnosed or late diagnosed sufferers. One woman even committed suicide.
Lyme - or Borreliosis - disease is not polio, small pox, malaria, TB, AIDS, ZIKA, or cancer. It is no surprise that government funding is not more generous than it is. Luckily, world-wide, despite this dearth of generous government funding in the US for Lyme research, private organizations in the US and elsewhere, from foundations to universities and other countries, especially in the European Union, are engaged in multi-pronged efforts to understand the causes, explore treatments (including vaccination, which is probably not likely to succeed), prevention, and increase public awareness. Lyme disease is serious, climate change is serious, and I do not need convincing that the two are related. I am not sure I can agree that Lyme is the first epidemic of climate change, as Pfeiffer asserts. https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/c...
The tick-born disease known as Lyme causes debilitating symptoms if not caught soon enough. It is treatable with antibiotics when caught in the early phase. I myself had the rash - the erythema migrans - and my physician recognized it right away and put me on doxycycline, which cleared it right up. People should know enough to seek medical intervention, they should know how to remove ticks and to recognize the bull's eye rash.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was asked to review this by the Nursing Times Journal

What was it like?

The author explores climate change – a wake up call for us all. Tick borne diseases and the battle to find treatments and to somehow fight what is affecting millions of people in the States and other countries. For readers in the UK this is possibly news to them, but the message needs to get out there as climates get warmer, ticks will breed where they would not have before.

What were the highlights?

The highlights for me personally were the interviews with patients, specialists, and researchers around the world, this made this a reality and the author demonstrates the case for Governments, World Health Organisations and public health to do something before it is too late. The author clearly states that it is people and larger animals who will suffer. A simple bite can be fatal.
Frightening to think we managed to rid people of small pox, polio (although still prevalent in some countries is treatable) so many children I grew up with had callipers and suffered with diseases we thought had gone away and now something more deadly.
Frightening the author statement that we are ultimately to blame as we unleashed the lyme pathogen.
This is such an incredibly powerful book.

Strengths & weaknesses:

Well researched and beautifully written. The text is not overburdening to the reader. The argument is well presented and backed up with data. Very much a world-wide issue and now needs backing from the UK also. It urges the reader to be caring for the planet also we all have a part to play. The author is an investigative reporter and this shines through the writing and argument.
I found no weaknesses in this book.

Who should read it?

Pathology staff, clinical staff junior staff in training, patient advocates and researchers.

[Redpoet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Same stuff repeated,over and over again. I am not someone who writes off Lyme disease at all, nor do I write off the effects of climate,change on numerous disease vectors. I expected more than a defensive book with lots,of insinuations about not getting enough “respect” from the powers that be. That is no surprise and nothing news. I was heavily involved with AIDS from the early days on. We got less than no respect. We got stigmatized and abused. We fought and persevered. No, this is not the book I was looking for. As a bit of an epidemiologist on emerging infectious diseases, and as an anti-capitalist, I can say those concerned and fighting Lyme disease deserve more than they are getting and more than this book gave as well.

[Olwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, although somewhat alarming reading. But the text didn't answer my own burning question: why oh why is this not an accepted diagnosable condition? What's the obstacle?

[Rachel B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This takes a look at Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses and blames climate change, among other things, for the increasing prevalence of ticks and tick-borne disease.

The author doesn't get into treatment options much in this book, except to complain that the United States, and therefore other countries, tend to view the use of long-term antibiotics as purely negative, though it helps many people manage their illness.

I learned a few things in this book, which surprised me since I've read a fair amount on the subject already. I always love it when I can learn something more!

There are references to Darwinian evolutionary theory as fact, and at least one instance of profanity used in a direct quote.

[Don Rea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pfeiffer is a journalist, not a scientist, and it shows. Here she tries to make three cases at once: That chronic Lyme disease is real, despite the denials of the NIH; that tick-borne diseases in general are much more dangerous and serious than is commonly known; and that in step with climate change, pathogen-bearing ticks are increasing in both numbers and range.

Her arguments for the latter two points are convincing, and alarming. She explains the science showing that there are other serious tick-borne diseases than Lyme disease (including the often fatal Rocky Mountain spotted fever), and that even those that are not normally fatal can be encountered together, and the situation for those with co-infections is much worse. And there is a great deal of evidence that ticks are on the increase, surviving winters in places where that used to be impossible due to the cold, and spreading into areas that were once too cold on average for them to take hold at all.

But those arguments are convincing precisely because they are based on science. Her evidence for chronic Lyme disease (not the same as late-stage untreated Lyme disease) is entirely anecdotal; there is no real science supporting the claims that these cases are due to the Lyme pathogen. Pfeiffer says this is because of an irrational avoidance of the subject on the part of the government and other public funding sources, but she offers no explanation for why that might be. As sympathetic as one might be to the suffering people she describes, Pfeiffer can point to no rigorous evidence that the Lyme pathogen is the cause of their suffering.

The time spent reading this book is well spent for the knowledge gained about ticks and tick-borne pathogens in general, which she admirably summarizes.

[Chloe Thonus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting but the title rather misleading. Yes, climate change is mentioned as a factor but the primary focus of the book is the poor testing and lack of good treatment for Lyme disease, as well as the disease not being taken seriously by medical professionals. Although I do agree with this take, it gets incredibly repetitive and is discussed in almost every chapter. I think it is important to bring attention to Lyme, and the book does a good job of explaining the flaws in the medical system as well as the ecological factors that caused the spread of tick-based disease. I think the information is valuable and the book did keep me engaged, but it is presented in a way that made me feel like I was reading the same points over and over again.
I also find the lack of footnotes troubling, it is hard to connect references to facts in a book like this, so I had to research much of my own information. I feel like with a major edit this book could be quite good. But unfortunately I can only review what I am given.

[David Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are one that refuses the Tick-borne diseases issues even exist. This book is based on facts and great investigative reporting. This book is a must read for all those who want to know why what when where of this medical debacle. Thank you, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, for your dedication to this very big problem.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrifying and fascinating subject but it needed a stronger edit. Stories of people suffering are picked up, interrupted by 5 other stories, tied in a whirlwind of statistics and then finally finished.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the premise of the book intriguing, but the book was plagued by poor organization, and disjointed writing.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Lyme Mary Beth Pfeiffer makes a powerful case that Lyme disease, along with other tick-borne pathogens, is an epidemic that is proceeding apace, yet not acknowledged as such by the medical establishment.

From a small cluster of victims in mid-70s Connecticut, Lyme disease has exploded to 400,000 infections a year in the USA alone. As climate change increases the geographical area in which ticks can survive, the pathogen is spreading inexorably into areas in which it was formerly unknown.

This is the point where medical conformism clashes with reality. The official line about Lyme disease has been that it is easy to detect, easy to treat and that there is no such thing as long-term Lyme disease. In a spectacular demonstration of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, anybody who presents with symptoms that contradict this official line is dismissed as obviously not having Lyme disease, even when they have the antibodies in their blood. Furthermore, people who show symptoms in areas where Lyme is not supposed to be present are told they have something else, despite the migration of the ticks. This causes frequent misdiagnosis and delays in treatment, with serious results.

The other disturbing thing is that Lyme conformists are so sure of themselves they do not believe that it is worth allocating research money to Lyme disease, therefore preventing their conclusions from ever being challenged. Lyme patients must fund and publish their own research.

There is a chapter in which Pfeiffer talks about children who presented with Lyme disease being misdiagnosed, with dire results. It is heartbreaking stuff, especially one boy who died after effectively being told he was faking it to get out of school.

There seems little doubt that tick-borne pathogens need the kind of urgent and focused attention that AIDS and the Zika virus got. More and more people in ever-widening areas are going to be bitten by infected ticks. Some will be OK with antibiotic treatments, some will have severe symptoms for the rest of their lives, and some will die. It seems that the only thing that can stop this impending disaster is some kind of Kuhnian paradigm shift among the medical establishment that allows them to take this disease seriously.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do doctors and medical researchers think they know absolutely all there is to know about medicine when science tells us that we don't everything and likely never will. Doctors refused to wash their hands before and after surgery and killed the very people they were supposed to be helping because they didn't care to admit they were doing something wrong or that they didn't already know everything. They blamed ulcer patients for their own problem, caused by stress the doctors claimed, when in fact it was a bacteria that caused the problem. The first response from the medical establishment seems to be "it is all in your head" when they don't have the answer.

It is no different for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. They are here and they are getting worse and more widespread, but the CDC and doctors generally think Lyme is easily treated even in the face of mounting evidence. The medical establishment is so convinced it is correct that they won't even allow research to be conducted. Doctors, once again, allow people to die because they won't admit that they don't have all the information.

This book is a serious call to action. Well written, well researched, very convincing. It is mostly about ticks, how Lyme is spreading and isn't the only tick-borne disease to worry about, and how the medical establishment is in denial. There is little about climate change, contrary to the subtitle, other than the fact that it might be the thing that is causing Lyme to spread faster than in the past.

I used to believe that we could count on the CDC and doctors in general to protect our health; I used to trust in their expertise. After reading this book and others like Doing Harm, Good Calories Bad Calories, and similar titles I now feel like they are more interested in protecting their egos than in protecting us.

[Ashley K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've done a ton of reading on this topic and this is the best book by far. It just came out this year, so it is up-to-date, which is crucial because so many advances in understanding Lyme disease have only been achieved in the last 5 years or so. It is also remarkably well-researched and provides reputable, peer-reviewed references for every claim.

As a patient who has suffered from Lyme disease for 28 years now, reading this book feels incredibly vindicating. Lyme is a highly controversial disease. Mainstream medicine has, for decades, cherry-picked evidence to support the idea that Lyme is hard to catch, easy to treat, and doesn't have chronic effects. Doctors and researchers (and especially patients) who argued otherwise have largely been shunned. But in the past few years, research has generated an incredible amount of evidence to support the "alternative" view, that Lyme is widespread, difficult to treat, and (for some patients) has chronic effects that linger well after treatment.

We are in the middle of a paradigm shift on how we understand this disease. The so-called "Lyme loonies" like myself (whose doctors told us that our symptoms were just in our heads) are finally starting to get the recognition we have earned after years of ignored suffering. This book presents a strong argument with solid evidence to back it up. Chronic Lyme is real, and I think there's enough data in this book to convince any skeptic.

It also makes a fascinating read for anyone generally interested in disease ecology or climate change.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well researched and very informative book. It is also very scary. Ticks are benefitting from climate change and other environmental lapses in human judgement, and creating an unrecognized pandemic of multiple diseases.

I went into this with a healthy knowledge of Lyme disease and other vector-borne diseases, but was shocked at how the medical community deals with it. The author provides a plethora of heartbreaking stories of people who suffer horrible tragedies. I do not understand how this goes on. There is so much eveidence that tick bites can cause chronic conditions of all kinds and even death, yet very little is being done. When Zika virus became a threat, health agencies and the govenment issued a quick response-and this was a good thing. Tick-bourne illness have been causing problems for decades and very little is being done. The biggest shock to me was funding. There is very little funding. It is as if the medical community wants to aviod the idea of Lyme and its nefarious possiblities.

I could go on and on here, but the bottom line is that people need to be tick knowledgeable. We need to be proactive in our own health care. I highly recommend this book.


One last thing. I told a co-worker that I was reading this book, and she said her niece had a bulls-eye rash on here leg after a tick bite. She went to the doctor, and he initially refused to do a test. She demanded the test. It was positive.

[Shaelene (aGirlWithBookss) · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the age of 13, I got sick with a mysterious and debilitating illness. I went to countless doctors and no one could tell me what was wrong with me. After two years of being sick and bed-bound, I finally knew why I was sick- Chronic Lyme Disease. Unfortunately, I didn’t respond well to antibiotics and haven’t recovered. Being a Lyme patient I had to be my own doctor in a way, which meant I had to educate myself on the ins and outs of Lyme.

This book right here does a perfect job explaining all the infuriating bull surrounding a Lyme diagnosis. The illness itself is punishing enough, obtaining a diagnosis and treatment is like performing a circus act on broken legs, and the bureaucracy is enough to leave an entire group of people destitute and disabled.

This book is very thorough in fleshing out the complexities surrounding Lyme in such an easy to understand way.
I could recommend this book to family and friends and be comfortable knowing they would have a much better understanding of the illness than I could ever possibly explain to them.

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand Lyme Disease. I commend the author for tackling such a controversial subject and shedding much light on the situation.

5 stars.

[Wanda Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was diagnosed in July 2016. I did not have any rash that I know of. I was bit by a tick when I was on vacation in Gettysburg, PA. I became very lethargic and my joints, especially my neck was hurting, some flu-like symptoms. My doctor checked EBV, Mono and Lymes. Lymes was positive. Tried 21-days of Doxy. Felt a little better, but then the bottom dropped out. Retested by PCR and positive. I was on 30-days of IV Rocephin. I felt better, but still had bad days, so I decided to start on a Natural Lyme Formula treatment protocol from Health Herbs Clinic (ww w. healthherbsclinic. com), the treatment effectively treated my Lyme disease condition. The stiffness, fatigue and joint/muscle/body pains has subsided, I feel better overall than i have felt in years. 3 months after the treatment, I made an appointment with a rheumatologist in Houston, after examining me, she looked at me and told me I did not have Lyme disease because all the usual Lyme symptoms had stopped. Its almost like a miracle! I Just wanted to share for people suffering from this disease💚

[Wanda Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

My husband and I were tested for Lyme disease 3 years ago and both tests came back positive. My symptoms were never as bad as my husband, but the doctor treated us with doxycycline for 13 months, about $3 each per month! He said that he, his wife and one daughter, also a doctor, has had Lyme. He believes a simple round of doxycycline for 13 months will totally wipe out Lyme! After 13 months on doxycycline we didn’t seem to be improving, we decided to quit the meds due to side effects. Our care provider Dr Miller introduced us to Health Herbs Clinic Lyme herbal treatment. The treatment is a miracle. We are both cured as well as his family. Many doctors don't know that a few months of antibiotics simply will not kill Lyme, Going back to my farm work again gives me so much joy. I recommend healthherbsclinic Lyme herbal formula for anyone out there with same condition. visit their website healthherbsclinic .com.

[László · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is exceptional. This book is the most comprehensive about tick born diseases I read so far. It also has lots of statistics, if you like numbers as I do. Absolutely must read. If you suffer in an undiagnosed diseases you might find your diagnose here. Unfortunately must of the doctors are not Lyme and other tick born diseases educated, you need to be your own doctor. If you are a lucky one who doesn't suffer in any disease you want to read this so you know what is out there and educate yourself. If you are sick this book will help you letting you know you are note alone.
To the very new ones: there is almost never just Lyme. Ticks carry much more diseases, Lyme is just one out of them.

[Annalise Kraines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hard-hitting, well-written, vital book on a topic that very few people are willing to talk about. As the daughter of a Lyme survivor, I know firsthand the reactions of people and doctors when the subject of chronic Lyme is brought up in conversation. Most believe that it doesn't exist and that Lyme is easy to treat. Pfeiffer has thoroughly covered every facet of Lyme disease, how it is spread, how ticks spread it, the current treatment, and some potential solutions. This was a fascinating book and it is important for more people to be aware what this disease can do and how to avoid contracting it.

[Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really hoping this would be the evidence-based, incisive and go-where-the-evidence-takes-us deep dive that strong investigative journalism is so good at. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The book has an agenda and a clear bias that, while understandable (who wouldn’t want to help people in pain who can’t find treatment?), undermines its scientific credibility. Please see Dr. David Scales’ excellent review for an informed medical perspective (something you won’t find much of in this book):

Lyme Disease, Climate Change, and Science (or the Lack of It)

https://undark.org/2018/08/03/book-re...

[Steve Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you ever wanted to know about Lyme and other tick related diseases. An excellent read and resource, up to date, well researched and full of studies to back up her statements. These tiny bugs could wreak real havoc if we don't start giving them more attention.
I had a chance to hear her speak on the subject and meet the author in person a couple of days ago, a very nice articulate woman. What she had to say is pretty much covered in this book. Highly recommend but get ready to wade through some science speak.

[Clivemichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary: Is this organism living inside ticks the climax species? Certainly sensationalist but well documented and researched.
Quoting Garth Ehrlich-" Why the Lyme disease field has become the most polarized field in microbiological science I don't really understand" he told me. "It is an enigma to me why people are so ferverently religious in their statement that it can't possibly cause chronic disease to the point they attack their colleagues. Neither side has enough data to assure they are right."But one thing was clear to Ehrlich: "Orthodoxy has just killed research in Lyme disease."

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to give this a 2 because I consider much of it repetitive but upgraded based on the info shared. It's worth a read to learn about ticks - sounds like they have been here and are as hardy as cockroaches! They are expanding their range, and they carry not just Lyme bacteria, but multiple other diseases as well. As an outdoors person I need to know this stuff... The book also discusses the politics? gamesmanship? of treating Lyme disease, a serious problem for sufferers.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Global warming x lyme

I think this is kind of science fiction when I found this title on Kindle, seems like this is an epidemic that occurred in some nations. This is a well researched topic and quite balance in the writing. Many people argue that this disease was occurred because of global warming, but it's just too rush to blame global warming for everything bad occurred.