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This mild, short winter means most of Minnesota's tick population survived. Even though it's only early March, the disease-carry blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, are already out and active. "We know they can be active when the temperatures are in the mid -to upper-30s, so that could be today," University of Minnesota Entomologist Jeff Hahn said. "They are out there, and we have already seen them looking for hosts," he said. Blacklegged ticks are becoming more of a problem here in the Twin Cities metro. As a result, the number of reported cases of Lyme disease are on...

According to KOCO, four days after visiting Grand Lake, Jo Rogers thought she had the flu. The mother of two was tested for both West Nile Virus and meningitis, but the test results came back negative. Doctors said her organs were starting to shut down. Rogers’ cousin, Lisa Morgan, told KOCO, “…her arms and feet were turning dark blue and black. It was crawling up her limbs.” It turned out that a tick bite that went unnoticed caused Rocky Mountain spotted fever to attack the 40-year-old woman’s body. Doctors had no choice but to amputate her limbs. “(They had) to...

The United States has an epidemic brewing within our borders, and the problem is much more serious than most people realize. Lyme disease is spreading fast, and it only takes the bite of a poppy-seed-size tick to contract. Even after treatment, symptoms can be difficult to shake. Those infected can develop severe, rheumatoid arthritis-like joint and muscle pain. Fatigue and neurological disorders — such as numbness, tingling, weakness, and cognitive impairment — can set in too. Left untreated, infections can lead to brain inflammation or heart problems. At least a handful of such cases have proven fatal. A recent study...

Loren Grush, Popular Science August 18, 2014The Lone Star tick. Mike Abley will always remember the last hamburger he ever ate. It was more than 20 years ago, and he recalls the meat being particularly juicy and delicious. But a few hours after dinner, Abley started itching like mad. He burst into hives, his tongue swelled, and he eventually passed out, prompting his wife to call 911. At the hospital, doctors determined he had gone into anaphylactic shock—a potentially deadly allergic reaction. Fortunately, Abley pulled through, and he later met with an allergist to determine what had caused the terrifying...

Ted SieferJune 16, 2014 Deer ticks, also known as blacklegged ticks, are the prime carriers of Lyme disease, which is particularly common in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Large numbers of ticks, the parasites that carry Lyme disease, are expected to emerge in New England in the coming weeks, experts said on Friday. Abundant snow over the winter and a wet spring have created ideal conditions for ticks to come out in the warm weather and try to latch onto hosts, they said. "The next three to four weeks is the peak season of risk," said Sam Telford, an infectious disease...

An Oklahoma man has died after acquiring the Heartland virus, making him the second person in the U.S. to die after coming down with the illness, state health officials said Tuesday. The state Department of Health released few details but said the man was from Delaware County in northeast Oklahoma, was over the age of 65 and died recently from complications of the virus, which is found in the lone star tick and is likely spread through tick bites. The virus was first identified in 2009, in Missouri. …

Vestal, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Standing just feet from a cement trail leading to Binghamton University's East Gym, biologist Ralph Garruto demonstrated how he has found ticks hiding in plain sight. "If you have a picnic table out over there, under a tree like that or just off to the edge, ticks are in this kind of leaf litter," Garruto said. Garruto has been studying tick behavior since the pests arrived in Broome County en masse six years ago. Through his research, he's found more ticks living around building and in man-made environments than in the deep woods. Recently, after testing...

Some children living in the U.S. Southeast have a rare meat allergy linked to tick bites, according to a new study. Bites from ticks, usually lone star ticks, cause the body to become allergic to a protein called alpha-gal — which also happens to be found in some mammals, including cows, pigs and sheep, the researchers said. When people who have been bitten develop this allergy, and then eat meat from these animals, they can experience hives, swelling, or more rarely, a life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.

New 'Heartland' Virus Discovered In Sick Missouri Farmers Aug 29, 2012 5:00 PM ET Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff WriterTwo men in Missouri who became severely ill after sustaining tick bites were found to be infected with a new type of virus, according to a study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Both men were admitted to hospitals after experiencing high fevers, fatigue, diarrhea and loss of appetite. They were originally thought to be suffering from a bacterial infection, but doubts arose when they didn't improve after being treated with antibiotics. Further tests revealed their blood contained a...

Where I live and grew up there was hardly a tick to be found. We children played and played in weeds and woods and never had or saw one tick on us. Not anymore. The ticks are ramped. We love to hike and be outdoors, but of course, hate the ticks. Even hiking on a short grassy path almost two months ago you could see them crawling up your shoes and legs. They really are creepy and they are also know to pass any number of rather nasty diseases. So my question is, do any of you have any remedies...

Ticks on a snake:

Does anyone have recommendations for treating heavily wooded property for ticks? My one-year-old basset hound (Sophie) is an indoor dog, but she has free access to a little over an acre of heavily wooded property. (300+ oaks and pecans.) I've tried every treatment I can find to put on Sophie to prevent ticks, but I'm still finding them on her once every few days. She sleeps on my daughter's bed, so I'm worried about a tick dropping off in the bed. She's a lemon basset hound so the ticks are easy to see unless they're really small. Is there anything...

> Although the early symptoms of the illness are quite mild, if left untreated, it can result in serious damage to the skin, the joints, the heart and the nervous system, and effective therapy becomes very difficult. A team of researchers led by the veterinary bacteriologist Professor Reinhard Straubinger at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) München has now shown, in an animal model, that application of a gel containing the antibiotic azithromycin to the site of the bite rapidly terminates the infection. The efficacy of this local antibiotic therapy for the treatment of borreliosis in humans is now being tested in a...

A tick-borne infection known as Babesiosis, which can cause severe disease and even death, is becoming a growing threat to the U.S. blood supply, government researchers said on Monday. There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate blood.

"In fact, babesiosis is one of a raft of under-the-radar tick diseases spreading across the United States. "We've seen pretty dramatic increases," says Jennifer McQuiston, an epidemiology team leader in the vector-borne disease division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta." Disease ridden illegals will only serve to EXACERBATE the problem.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan SNIPPET: "Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Israel's Mitam is a tick's green nemesis By Karin Kloosterman October 12, 2008 Send to a Friend Printer Friendly View Who doesn't love bringing our favorite furry friends into the house - even to curl up on the bed? But the freeloading ticks Rover brings under the covers with him are a nuisance and a health hazard, causing Lyme disease in North America, and a host of other ailments. While chemical solutions can control ticks, the cost is adverse health effects to humans, animals and the environment. Now, an Israeli company Mitam has developed a chemical-free, environmentally safe anti-tick spray...

ROMA — Texas border cattlemen have a message for Homeland Security officials grappling with publicity nightmares over the Rio Grande Valley segment of the border fence: Bring it west, to their ranches. That way, the fence can deter not only undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers but also the dreaded fever tick. "For the whole cattle industry, it would be great," fourth-generation rancher Hector Guerra said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 102-year-old fever-tick eradication program saves the country's livestock industry an estimated $1 billion annually in potential losses from the disease that the ticks spread. Border ranchers are working feverishly to...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — South Texas ranchers brought nilgai antelope from a California zoo decades ago, when it became fashionable to stock their sprawling acreage with exotic quarry. These days the species native to India and Pakistan are not so much a rarity in South Texas as a nuisance. For cattle ranchers they are a possible nemesis, threatening to spread a deadly tick to their herds. Federal wildlife officials say they are competing with native Rio Grande Valley species for food and trampling the brush they are trying so hard to preserve. The fast-running, 600-pound antelope have wandered all around the...

Awesome Animals More Weird Mating Habits: The longest-lasting copulation, according to University of Arizona biologist John Alcock (interviewed for an August Knight Ridder story), is that of the lowly "stick insect" (of the phasmida family), which goes on for several months at a time, even though, he said, it is "not clear this is welcome to the female." The male attaches himself to the female's back, which allows her to continue with her daily routine during the mating, while also discouraging competitor males. According to other biologists, some ticks spend up to eight hours on what resembles foreplay, and butterflies,...