[sinanju]

“He was the subject of an Aug. 6, 2008, Post-Dispatch article about his battle with mental illness attributed to Lyme disease. The man’s mother, Ruth Abernathy, said her son, an avid hunter and outdoorsman, may have contracted the disease after being bitten by an infected tick on a family farm in the late 1990s.

He became ill during his junior year at Edwardsville High School and had taken several medications, including anti-seizure drugs, to combat the disease. It nearly killed him in 2003, but he survived after a series of treatments and was reported to have lesions on his brain.”

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Horrible. So it can make both men and chimps crazy?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"Horrible. So it can make both men and chimps crazy?"

Dunno about chimps, but men: yes, very much so. It's a spirochete, much like syphilis. And although ticks are a major vector, any bloodsucking insect can carry it. I caught it from a horsefly bite in Munich, where it is endemic. There, they don't even bother with blood tests. Get bitten, get a round rash, get antibiotics. Doxycycline works and is well tolerated and cheap, but you must be on it for at least two months to catch the spirochete throughout its life cycle.