For anyone troubled by the specter of Lyme disease and seeking information on this modern-day plague, a forum is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in the Cronin Auditorium at Bromfield.
The hour-long presentation by keynote speaker Dr. Sam Telford will be followed by a question-and-answer period, said Board of Health member Lorin Johnson at the Oct. 13 meeting of the board. Johnson, who has helped organize the event with Harvard resident Beth Drummey, says the Board of Health sees this as “an effort for the community good.”
Johnson said he was so energized by Telford’s talk at an Aug. 6 presentation sponsored by the Boxborough Deer Control Study Committee, that he set out to get the speaker to come to Harvard. Telford is an epidemiologist with Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Infectious Diseases section. He is a specialist in tick-borne illnesses, including Lyme disease.
“[Telford] has suggestions that people may rail against,” Johnson told the board, “[such as] the careful use of pesticides and more lenient regulations regarding hunting may be the answer.”
Johnson said that Boxborough selectmen are considering filing a petition to the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) to extend hunting season and allow both doe hunting and widespread application of pesticide.
At the Oct. 21 presentation, Johnson said, Telford will discuss the history of Lyme disease and, using a slide show, will present a two-pronged approach necessary to beat it back to pre-1970 levels, when it did not exist.
The first level of attack is the personal, Telford says: taking responsibility for your yard and maintaining conditions unfavorable to the existence of the deer ticks that spread the disease. The second is the community approach, involving policy related to pesticide spraying and hunting. The solution to the problem must be regional, Telford believes, requiring concerted action by area towns.
“We need to step back a bit and be open to suggestions,” said Johnson of some of Telford’s recommendations. “He has researched this and done experimentation in the field, and tried to determine why [the disease spreads] exponentially.” Telford points to the white-tailed deer as a major source of the problem.
Continued inaction, said Johnson, will lead to Harvard’s developing the dangerous levels of Lyme disease found on the Cape and on Nantucket. The latter took drastic action by culling the deer herds and saw an 80 percent reduction in ticks.
Johnson acknowledged the role played by crusader and former state representative candidate Kurt Hayes, founder of LymeLITE (www.lymelite.org), in bringing the Lyme disease issue to the forefront in the media and in state government. Hayes is busy spreading the word in surrounding towns, which are also holding similar forums to educate their residents.
First detected in Lyme, Conn., in 1962, the disease continued to grow and spread, until it became the subject of the first real study in 1984. Ticks are the largest vector for spreading disease to humans, resulting not only in Lyme disease, but Tularemia and Babesiosis, to name a few others. Lyme disease may present with the bull’s-eye-shaped rash (although not always), and may include chills, fever, fatigue, headache, and muscle and joint pain. Left untreated, it can lead to chronic arthritis as well as heart and nervous system problems.
People with Lyme disease can visit TickedOffMass.com, an online Lyme disease support group.
