Lyme Disease Threat Continues To Tick Locally

By Kaaren Valenta

Ask Maggie Shaw, Holly Willsey-Walker, Mary Beth Olah or Doug and Kim Harrison about Lyme Disease, and they will tell harrowing stories about how the tick-borne illness has affected their families.

Representing several local organizations, including the Newtown Lyme Disease Task Force, the group met with officials of the town, the schools and the local health district last week at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills to urge a concerted effort to stem the increasing incidence of Lyme Disease in Newtown.

Attending the meeting requested by the task force were Health District Director Mark A.R. Cooper; Dr Thomas Draper, medical advisor; First Selectman Herb Rosenthal; Superintendent of Schools John Reed; Dee Cupole, the school district’s head nurse; Rotary Club representatives Ed Osterman and Bill Wiemels; and representatives of Women Involved in Newtown, the Newcomers Club, Newtown Youth Service’s New Moms Club.

“Thirty-nine percent of the households in Wilton, Ridgefield, and Newtown – four in ten – contain an individual who has been diagnosed with Lyme Disease,” said Doug Harrison, citing an independent study that was done for the Wilton Lyme Disease Task Force.

“Connecticut leads the nation in Lyme Disease, with one-third of the cases reported in Fairfield County,” he said. “Fifty percent of the reported cases involve children under the age of 12.”

Most of the members of Maggie Shaw’s extended family have had Lyme Disease. Holly Willsey-Walker’s two children have the tick-borne disease and one of them, a high school student, had to be home-schooled to complete his junior year. Mary Beth Olah, a physical therapist, said she initially did not test positive for Lyme, but now does and has been forced to cut her work schedule back to part-time.

While medical experts continue to debate the most effective ways to treat Lyme Disease, and the accuracy of statistics also is questioned, there is one area of agreement: Prevention is still the best hope for those at risk of contracting the tick-borne illness.

  But many of those attending the meeting felt local officials, and particularly the health district, were not doing enough.

“Our top priority is prevention,” Mr Harrison said. “That means we have to change our landscaping practices and we have to do more education – get the word out.”

Mr Cooper agreed, but later cautioned about accepting statistics at face value.

“We can definitely say that the numbers of ticks positive for Lyme are increasing, but just how much we don’t know,” he said. “Although one-fourth of the ticks out testing came back positive, that doesn’t mean that 25 percent of the ticks in Newtown carry tick-borne diseases.”

“We have found that the health district has a lot of repeat customers – people who have already brought in ticks,” Mr Cooper said. “We explain that if you found one tick in your yard that tested positive, then you should assume that they all probably do. It’s not helpful to keep bringing in ticks. What is needed is prevention – a change in your behavior so that you don’t keep getting tick bites.”

That means changing landscaping practices, wearing protective clothing – socks, long pants, and long sleeves – when in likely tick areas, and doing daily checks for ticks. The tiny nymph deer tick, believed to be responsible for up to 90 percent of the transmission of Lyme disease to humans, makes its home in the leaf litter that accumulates on the forest floor, around stone walls, and under groundcover.

“Nearly 70 percent of ticks on residential lawns are found within nine feet of the forest edge,” Mr Harrison said. “They don’t fly, they don’t jump, or drop from above.”

Lyme experts recommend that a three-foot barrier made of wood chips, mulch or gravel be installed where a lawn meets the woods to create a “tick safe zone” and make it more difficult for the ticks to migrate onto a property.  Don’t attract deer or other wildlife; deer ticks also are carried by many small animals including mice and birds. Place woodpiles far from the house; locate bird feeders outside the tick safe zone.

Sunshine reduces the tick habitat. Locate children’s swing sets and play areas in the sun and way from the woods. Locate mailboxes, sheds, picnic tables, and recreational areas in the sun. Trim tree branches and clear away brush, weeds and leaf litter.

Dr Reed recommended that both an education committee and a site committee be formed. The site committee would walk school properties and town parks to see what needs to be done to keep children and adults away from likely tick habitats.

“We have 500 kids who play outside at Head O’ Meadow School every day and the playground is close to the woods,” Dr Reed pointed out. “If it only means putting down a barrier of wood chips, fine, we can easily do that. If it means we have to relocate playground equipment that is set in cement, that is more costly and has to be budgeted.”

Mr Rosenthal said that educational handouts about Lyme Disease prevention should be provided by the health district and distributed through the Parks & Rec office for sports teams and for the summer camp programs at the town parks. Brochures also can be distributed through other town offices, day care centers, the offices of physicians and veterinarians, the fire companies, library, and other locations.

“I’m sympathetic – this is a horrible disease for those who have it,” Mr Rosenthal said. “But I’m reluctant to hand out information on treatment because the medical community is so divided.”

The first selectman also said spraying with pesticides brings up other concerns, and spraying on school property requires approval by the state. He said he would find out how other towns are handling their Lyme problems.

The group discussed providing tick removal kits in the schools and at the parks, with training for the school nurses and staff on how to use them.

Dr Reed said he would be willing to produce a series of educational videos about Lyme to show on Channel 17, would send home information with the students, and would have an information booth at the school open houses.

“We have done all these kind of things sporadically,” Dr Reed said. “But how do you get people convinced that they want to read it and do what is recommended?”

Dr Reed also criticized the state for not showing more interest in the Lyme problem.

“We are almost the headquarters of Lyme Disease and not one dollar has been allocated by the state,” he said.

The task force members said the school district should be more cognizant of the symptoms of Lyme, but Dr Reed said that diagnosis and treatment are outside of the jurisdiction of the schools, and some symptoms attributed to Lyme also are displayed by students with substance abuse problems.  “If a medical test becomes 95 to 99 percent effective in diagnosing Lyme, we will make it part of the IEP (individual education program) process,” he said, “but I’m not looking for school staff to be diagnosticians.” 

Dr Draper said that because Lyme is a relatively new disease, effective treatments and diagnosis are just emerging. “The public has access to information almost at the same time as the medical community,” he said. “I think we have to develop a sense of tolerance and work together.

“But prevention is the name of the game,” he said.