Here & Now

Noon Wednesday with guest Scott Gordon

Marisa Wojcik:

Welcome to “Noon Wednesday.” I’m multimedia journalist Marisa Wojcik with “Here & Now.” It’s the dreaded tick season that’s upon us and here to talk to us about tick trends and Lyme disease is WisContext reporter Scott Gordon. Scott, thanks for being with us today.

Scott Gordon:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Marisa Wojcik:

So when and where do we see the highest populations of ticks?

Scott Gordon:

Well they’re kind of starting to emerge around this time of year and as you go on into summer and fall the presence of ticks across Wisconsin heads towards its peak. The north and west parts of the state get the worst of it but the ticks, the black legged ticks that spread Lyme disease are in basically every county in the state.

Marisa Wojcik:

And black legged ticks are deer ticks, is that right?

Scott Gordon:

Yes, yeah, those are used interchangeably and those are kind of the main spreaders of Lyme disease at least in Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

Okay, so if there are more ticks does that mean more Lyme disease?

Scott Gordon:

Well it could, but it couldn’t also. It depends on such a wide variety of factors and basically how likely the ticks that are out there are to pick up Lyme disease from other animals they’re feeding on throughout their life cycle before potentially passing them on to humans. And all sorts of other things about when exactly they’re emerging and where they’re at in their lifecycles at different points of the season.

Marisa Wojcik:

And Wisconsin has climates and environments that ticks like?

Scott Gordon:

Yeah, warm and humid is generally good for ticks, yeah.

Marisa Wojcik:

So Lyme disease in Wisconsin, there was over 1,000, maybe like 1,700 cases confirmed last year?

Scott Gordon:

Yes.

Marisa Wojcik:

So if it’s confirmed that means one definition, but people could have potentially have had Lyme disease and it wasn’t a confirmed case?

Scott Gordon:

Right, in public health, confirmed kind of means someone ran a lab test on blood samples or whatnot from the patient. There’s also other categories of reporting that could be based on a doctor diagnosing someone just off of the symptoms but not bothering to run a blood test and just going okay you’ve got the telltale rash and what have you so we know what it is and let’s just treat it. So there’s always that issue there with whether or not Lyme disease is under reported and whether or not that’s a problem. That’s something we looked into a bit last year.

Marisa Wojcik:

Is it hard to diagnose Lyme disease?

Scott Gordon:

It’s not necessarily that it’s hard to diagnose. It’s just that not all physicians are going to bother sending in a blood sample and doing extensive testing for all cases when they are able to diagnose based on symptoms and get the patient started on antibiotics or what have you. And last year I talked with public health officials around the state and they said they totally understood that. And that, of course, leaves folks like the epidemiologists at the state Department of Health Services to kind of estimate and project what might the overall picture have looked like based on what we do know?

Marisa Wojcik:

So that number– it’s like 1,788– is that historically high for Wisconsin?

Scott Gordon:

It’s part of an upward trend as far as health officials in the state know and it’s a 22% jump from what was reported in 2016. And with public health data it’s definitely important to not make too much of what happens from one year to the next and instead to look at the broader upward trend. But it’s still in keeping with an increase in Lyme disease around the state.

Marisa Wojcik:

So if we’re looking at the broader trend, the longer term trend, what is that showing us?

Scott Gordon:

It’s showing it going up and the Midwest and Northeast really get the worst of it in the United States. So it kinda makes sense and we’ve also seen Lyme disease kinda spread out more throughout the state. Again, the Northern and Western Wisconsin still seem to get it the worst, but it’s become more prevalent, it’s kinda moved south and east.

Marisa Wojcik:

And Wisconsin gets it more than other parts of the United States too?

Scott Gordon:

Yeah, it’s particularly bad in the upper Midwest, so Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota and in the Northeast. It’s less severe down south for a whole variety of reasons. Ticks in the south are thought to actually behave a little bit differently and that can make them less likely to go and do what scientists call questing, which is actually getting out there on branches or in tall grasses or whatever where they might seek out hosts like people or dogs or what have you. In the south, they’re apparently a lot more likely to kind of stick close to the ground and find hosts there. Also in the Midwest and Northeast there are more of these mice, the white footed mice, that make good carriers of Lyme disease, whereas ticks are more likely to feed on other animals down south.

Marisa Wojcik:

So here it’s mice and deer?

Scott Gordon:

Mice and deer. It’s also thought that various birds and other animals can make good reservoirs for Lyme disease but the mice are definitely a big one and deer are a big one. Although the deer aren’t known to be reservoirs, they’re just known to be good food sources. So the deer population can be one sort of harbinger of what’s happening with the tick population.

Marisa Wojcik:

So the Centers for Disease Control came out with an image that has kind of jarred some people. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Scott Gordon:

Oh yeah the CDC put out a tweet recently where they showed a picture of a poppy seed muffin and said can you spot the ticks on this muffin? And of course unless you’re looking really close it’s really hard to tell the difference between one of the poppy seeds and ticks. And of course the reaction to this was widespread revulsion. But I thought it was interesting because it’s kind of disgusting but it’s good messaging in a way. And that’s such a big part of the battle with any kind of public health issue is just getting the word out. And I suppose if you’re a public health official and you’re kind of having to bang on year after year telling people about tick prevention and so forth, then maybe that kinda cuts through people’s ability to tune things out.

Marisa Wojcik:

So for the people that want to get into the great outdoors what are some things that we can do? And there’s an app that might be able to help us, right?

Scott Gordon:

Yeah, so there’s a lot of basic things like wearing pants and sleeves and so forth and avoiding anywhere that trees or plants are super dense and ticks might be hanging out. And of course checking yourself for ticks and so forth. And there is this app, and I’m not sure how officially it’s been rolled out yet. I’m still working on figuring that out. But it is on the App Store and it’s called the tick app. And some folks at UW-Madison, some entomologists there are involved with this. And by the looks of it it’s a mobile app where you can send in photos of ticks in case you’re trying to identify it, you can keep a tick diary apparently, which is exciting. You know what Susan Paskewitz who’s kind of one of the leading lights in this field and a UW-Madison professor has told me is there’s obviously a mission here to kind of help people identify ticks that they’re encountering, but they’re also hoping to learn more about where and when people are encountering ticks around the state.

Marisa Wojcik:

Very cool. Well Scott, thanks so much for being here and for telling us about your reporting and all your knowledge on this.

Scott Gordon:

Thanks a lot, Marisa.

Marisa Wojcik:

If you like the information that you heard today please share it. And we want to hear from you so leave your comments below. For more from WisContext, visit WisContext.org and for more “Here & Now” coverage visit wpt.org and thanks for joining us on “Noon Wednesday.”