0:00

Hello, Stuff you should know listeners, if you

0:02

want to come see s live, You've only

0:04

got a couple of more cities this year that still

0:06

have tickets, and that is Orlando in New

0:09

Orleans. Yeah, we'll be in Orlando on October

0:11

nine at the Plaza Live, and we'll be in New

0:13

Orleans at the Civic Theater the following

0:16

night October and friends,

0:18

like Chuck said, you better go get your tickets.

0:20

Go to s Y s K live dot

0:23

com for info and ticket

0:25

links and everything you need to come

0:27

see us. Welcome

0:30

to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart

0:32

Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

0:39

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

0:41

There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry

0:44

over there. This is Stuff you Should

0:46

Know. Uh,

0:49

the podcast and Chuck, I

0:51

have a question for you. You

0:54

know it kicks me off lime

0:57

disease. I'm

1:00

so mad at you blaming

1:02

me for that one. She's like, you should say this, and I

1:04

said, you know what, I should

1:07

totally say that. Uh.

1:09

Yeah. This is sort of a follow up to our July

1:11

two thousand ten episode

1:13

Why Ticks Suck, which

1:16

in which which is sort of a legendary episode

1:18

because we uh falsely

1:20

promised to send people T

1:22

shirts if they made it all the way through the episode.

1:25

We were just kidding, but we still get those requests

1:27

of where's my shirt? Yes, that's hilarious.

1:30

I forgot about that and also wants

1:32

sued today. Yeah,

1:34

probably so. Um. I also want

1:36

to point out and shout out our

1:38

former website how Stuffworks dot com

1:41

because a couple of the articles that we used for

1:44

much of this episode is from the old

1:46

hs W website. Nice. They're

1:49

holding it down over there, they're holding it down and this

1:51

is some good stuff. Yeah.

1:53

So we're talking today about lime

1:55

disease in particular, not limes.

1:58

No, we should say it's capital l

2:01

y m E disease. And the reason

2:03

it's called that is because it's named after a town

2:05

which is one of three towns where

2:07

the initial outbreak of lyme disease

2:10

that led to this bacterial

2:12

infection persistent bacterial infection

2:15

um was first uh described

2:17

medically. But what are the facts of the show? I think,

2:20

Oh, yeah, sure, who knew it was named

2:23

after a town Lime, Connecticut? I

2:25

knew? Did you know that before this? Sure?

2:27

Did we cover that? And why tick suck? I don't

2:29

think so, all right, well you're smarter than

2:31

me. That No, it's not that. I think. What

2:33

what got me was I heard

2:35

about people saying like, no, lyme disease,

2:38

like people take it for granted, but it's actually some really

2:40

mysterious illness. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

2:43

So I think I looked into this year's back and that's

2:45

what I found out. All right, that was

2:47

all. So we're equally smart, right exactly.

2:49

I'm not smarter than you, and what it is smarts. It's just

2:51

like someone

2:53

happens to know one thing, someone else knows another. Sure,

2:56

I say, they cancel out, we're all smart. There

2:59

you go. I'm glad you pulled that out because I would

3:01

have been like, what is smart? Uh?

3:04

I couldn't have come up with the definition so

3:07

lyme disease. Um, We'll

3:09

go ahead and hit you with a couple of stats here. Uh.

3:12

Lyme disease in the United States is more than doubled

3:14

since nine. That's astounding,

3:17

it is, uh And it is spread

3:19

too. It used to be very much localized

3:22

in kind of the Northeast, sort

3:24

of mid Atlantic areas, some

3:26

in the South, but now you

3:28

can get lyme disease, and I

3:30

believe the entire lower forty eight is

3:32

that correct? There there are cases

3:35

in all forty eight states. Supposedly half

3:37

of the counties in the United States now are

3:39

considered at high risk for lyme

3:42

disease. And like all of this happened

3:44

just in the last like twenty or so years,

3:48

Yeah, which is I mean, there's

3:50

there's a lot of debate over the CDC

3:52

calls lyme disease endemic, which

3:55

is a disease that has become

3:57

a like an ongoing art

4:00

of an area or region, and

4:02

some other people are saying, guys, what what

4:04

we're talking about here is an epidemic. This is an

4:06

epidemic, and you should start calling it that because

4:08

it will kind of raise the alarm to the

4:11

next level or two where

4:13

it should be, because this is a very alarming

4:16

spread of disease that we're seeing

4:18

right now. Lime disease is the number

4:20

one vector borne disease

4:24

in the United States. It's way

4:26

more prevalent than things like West Nile

4:28

or chicken guna or anything like that, but

4:30

it's still kind of treated as like up there

4:32

in the northeastern US thing, and that's just

4:34

not the case. It's it's spread every

4:37

in every direction except east because

4:39

it hit the Atlantic, but everywhere

4:41

else where. It can spread into the interior

4:43

of the United States and up into Canada. It's

4:46

starting to Yeah, and there's also

4:48

a history continuing to this day

4:50

even where lyme disease

4:52

can be UM, overlooked,

4:55

misdiagnosed, UM,

4:57

not taken as seriously by your doctor

4:59

as it should be UM, including

5:02

what we'll get too later on something called post

5:04

treatment lime disease syndrome. Uh.

5:07

And it's all very frustrating if you have

5:09

been a an individual

5:11

that has had lime disease. There's

5:14

a big community out there. People they're like, why woult

5:16

anyone listen to us? Why won't our doctors

5:18

take us seriously? And what do we

5:20

have to do here? Like do we have to start

5:22

dropping dead? Yeah, there's a tremendous

5:25

amount of frustration in in that community

5:27

because that there's this sentiment

5:29

among the medical establishment that you

5:32

know, take some antibiotics. Exactly,

5:34

it's easy to cure lime disease. Here's some antibiotics.

5:36

You still have persistent symptoms because

5:39

are probably in your head. We're not going to say there in

5:41

your head, but they're in your head and the

5:43

people who are experiencing these symptoms are like,

5:45

no, my life has has been derailed

5:47

by these symptoms and you guys aren't doing anything

5:50

about it. It's frustrating.

5:52

I know there's a lot of people out there that are pretty pretty

5:55

stoked right now to be hearing this. Yeah,

5:57

you know, we're advocating for you guys,

6:00

not patting myself on the back, although I am literally

6:02

patty like I see you chuck here. That

6:06

elbow is sticking out pretty far. So.

6:08

Lime disease is a disease. It's

6:10

an infection caused by the bacterium

6:13

uh bore leah burg

6:16

door ferry wow

6:18

borg de ferry, burg de ferry. We're

6:20

gonna get you an apron and call you the word

6:23

butcher burg door fairy work,

6:25

work, work, and we'll get

6:27

to why it's called that in a bit. But if

6:29

you haven't caught on by now, it is transmitted through

6:31

tick bites, right, So, a

6:34

tick, and in particular a nymph

6:36

stage of a tick, which is a like

6:39

young adul or juvenile tick um,

6:42

will transmit this bacteria, the

6:44

Borelia burg door ferry

6:46

um, into a human. And the reason we

6:48

usually get it from nymph's chuck is

6:51

because an adult tick doesn't

6:53

find humans particularly appetizing,

6:56

but a nymph tick will because they're

6:58

stupid. They don't know anything yet. So

7:00

as they're feeding on us. After somewhere

7:03

maybe around twenty four to thirty six hours

7:05

of feeding, this infected tick

7:07

that has this bacteria in the bacteria

7:09

will make its way from the mid gut to

7:12

the tick saliva, and the tick transmitted

7:14

transmits it into the human blood stream where

7:17

it's just absolutely reeks havoc on

7:19

the human body. Yeah, and you

7:21

said something really key there hours

7:25

later, really really important.

7:27

They have to be attached to you for that long, sometimes

7:29

even longer to transmit this bacterium.

7:32

So if you find a tick on you

7:34

and you get it off, you don't need to sweat lime

7:36

disease. No, if you get it off

7:39

in due time, right exactly, I feel like you

7:41

see it's still crawling on you. It's unattached. You don't

7:43

worry about it at all. Um, But

7:45

when it is attached, and when when it when it has

7:47

transmitted the bacteria. What

7:50

it's transmitted. This b burg door ferry

7:53

is like really amazing

7:55

at its job, which is infecting you, giving

7:58

you a bacterial infection. Um,

8:00

it has figured out how to zoom through

8:03

the bloodstream but then also take itself

8:05

out of the bloodstream by latching onto

8:07

the cell the walls of your blood vessels.

8:10

Yeah, this was crazy about the cellular

8:12

stuff that once it's attached to

8:14

a cell. They said, it's like a slinky.

8:16

It doesn't let go. It just like

8:19

basically reaches out and grabs the

8:21

next cell without letting go of the previous

8:23

cell and just sort of walks end

8:25

over end, never unattaching itself

8:28

right exactly. So Um, as it's

8:30

moving along, it's never it's

8:32

not going to get kind of you know, washed

8:35

away in the extracellular matrix. It's

8:37

stuck to the cell. If it wants to be stuck to the cell,

8:39

it can do the same thing to the blood vessel walls

8:41

to pull itself out of the blood stream and then

8:43

go attack you know, specific parts

8:45

of the body. So it's really

8:48

good at hanging on. That's one thing

8:50

that makes it kind of pernicious and

8:52

like another thing exactly, it's

8:54

basically yeah, it's like the bacteria version of a

8:56

tick. I didn't think about that, um.

8:59

And then another thing does Chuck, I

9:01

think this is really really recent research.

9:03

It can actually change its protein

9:06

expression at a much faster

9:08

rate than the normal mutation rate for bacteria,

9:12

something like fifteen times faster. Yeah.

9:14

Well, what that does is that just makes it really

9:16

hard for our human immune

9:18

system to catch up to it, right, because

9:20

our immune system will produce antibodies based

9:22

on the initial infection. But by the time

9:25

the antibodies come around the um

9:28

this, the bacteria may have changed

9:30

the itself so that the

9:32

antibodies won't recognize so they'll just go right

9:35

past it because it doesn't it doesn't fit the

9:37

description that the antibodies have. That's

9:39

right, And you'll know that something's bad

9:41

is happening. First of all if you

9:44

find that tick. But if you get

9:46

headaches, fever, fatigue

9:49

is a huge, huge symptom.

9:51

But the real tell tale is what's

9:53

called e m It's an expanding skin rash

9:55

called er athema migrants

9:59

and it like, uh, it's that circular

10:01

pattern. And then we did talk about

10:03

this on the Ticks episode. But it's a circular

10:06

pattern with a what looks like a bull's eye in the center

10:08

of it. Yes, and you can take off your

10:10

butcher's apron now because you just that was

10:13

beautiful. Put on your chef's chef's

10:15

hat. You're sweating over there. So,

10:19

UM, that that particular

10:21

rash, that bull's eye rash, that is like just

10:23

an absolute telltale sign that you have a

10:26

lime boreolis bo bore

10:29

uh boreliosis

10:32

infection. UM. That

10:34

only comes around and like maybe se cases.

10:38

I think if every if every person got

10:40

that rash, we would not have

10:42

this this problem with lime disease because it would

10:45

be caught very quickly because you get that within usually

10:47

about a week or less of

10:49

getting infected. But it doesn't come

10:51

up in all cases. And um

10:54

with some of those other symptoms like you said, like

10:57

weakness, headaches, UM,

10:59

flu symptoms

11:01

like those could be a lot of different

11:03

other things, joint pain, um.

11:06

And so the lime

11:08

disease infection goes undiagnosed

11:11

or misdiagnosed in a lot of cases,

11:13

are did for many, many years. It's just now

11:15

that they're starting to kind of recognize it or

11:18

suspect lime when otherwise they

11:20

might not have. I mean literally hundreds

11:22

of things can be can

11:24

have the same symptoms as lime disease. So

11:28

lime has been around for a long time. UM,

11:30

we'll talk about the history here in a minute, as far as the

11:32

nineteen seventies go and official recognition,

11:35

but it's been around, I

11:37

believe. The Yale School of Public Health find

11:41

the bacterium and ancient North

11:43

America like sixty thousand years

11:45

old before the arrival

11:48

arrival of humans. Uh, they

11:50

have an autopsy of a fifty three hundred

11:53

year old mummy that had lime disease.

11:56

Yeah, you know Ootsy the ice Man,

11:58

remember him, Remember Brutcy. Yeah.

12:01

I was disappointed that they referred to him as a

12:03

fifty year old ummy. It's like, no, it's

12:05

Ootsy that I and everybody knows him, give his

12:07

name, but he had lime disease. He did.

12:09

And there was a German physician named Alfred buck

12:11

Wald who described

12:14

this that e M skin rash

12:16

that we now call lime disease about a hundred

12:19

and thirty years ago. Right, So,

12:21

so lime disease has been around a while,

12:24

but we are just now seeing a

12:27

huge again, an epidemic

12:29

of it um and in a massive

12:32

spread of it not just in North America,

12:34

but there's also two other kinds of ticks

12:36

that transmit to other kinds of

12:39

lime causing bacteria in

12:41

Europe and Asia and in all

12:43

three places North America, Europe and parts of Asia.

12:46

Um, the incidents of lyme disease

12:48

is picking up at an alarming pace.

12:51

I think we should slow down our pace, take

12:54

a break. We'll come back and we'll talk

12:56

about Lime, Connecticut right after

12:58

this. Alright,

13:27

So, Lime, Connecticut, something is very

13:29

old hat to you branded

13:32

about it for years Lime, Old

13:35

Lime. And what was the third town? I

13:37

don't remember. No, let's just call it a new

13:39

Lime. It was not.

13:42

They're gonna be so mad. They're high school football

13:44

team is gonna go berserk on Old

13:46

Lime this year in the es.

13:48

So there were a group of children and adults

13:50

in these towns in Connecticut that

13:53

we're having all these weird symptoms, uh,

13:55

swollen knees, skin rashes, headaches, all

13:58

this severe fatigue. And

14:01

it's bad enough these days. But in the early nineteen

14:04

seventies, doctors were definitely

14:06

did not have this on the radar. And

14:09

we're very dismissive of what was going on in these

14:11

towns. And if it were not for the work

14:13

of Judith Minch and Polly Murray

14:16

to just regular moms.

14:19

Although Polly Murray did work for the World Health

14:21

Organization for a while they were

14:23

advocates, they were patient advocates because their

14:25

families were getting sick and no one

14:27

would listen. And they were

14:29

like, someone's got to do something. Something's

14:32

going on here, and these doctors

14:34

are not being any help. And

14:36

it was a big deal. Polly Murray ended up writing a book

14:38

she made it sort of her life's work,

14:41

called The Widening Circle. And because

14:44

of sort of the persistent

14:47

sexism and science, they were

14:49

largely discounted, even though they had

14:51

a list of thirty seven individuals they

14:53

researched on their own contacted

14:55

scientists. Uh, I just

14:57

we just really need to shout them out. Poly Murray

15:00

died just about a month ago at

15:02

the age that right. Yeah,

15:05

she was a persistent cuss as they call him

15:07

up in the Yankee States. So

15:09

um, On the

15:11

one hand, yes, from the everything

15:14

I've read and all the impressions I have, they

15:16

were very much dismissed and it was very much

15:19

sexist, and also I think

15:21

because they weren't doctors. But on the

15:23

on the other hand, the doctors who were being presented

15:25

with these cases were like, I have no idea

15:27

what this is, so let's just pretend it's not real.

15:30

But Luckily those two women in the

15:32

groups that they established, they

15:35

went on and they contacted Yale

15:37

Medical School, they contacted the state,

15:39

and they really kind of put this on the map. But they said,

15:42

there is a mysterious epidemic

15:44

that's going on where you have a lot of kids

15:46

who suddenly have juvenile arthritis out

15:48

of nowhere. What are you guys gonna do about

15:50

it? And because of their agitation,

15:53

this mystery made its way to

15:55

the desk or I guess, the microscope

15:58

of a guy named Willie um Burgdorfer,

16:02

and he was at the time the world's

16:04

foremost authority on what's called

16:06

Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which

16:09

is another tickborn bacterial infection.

16:11

Remember that when I was a kid, that was a big

16:13

news item. It was he

16:16

was working out in Colorado, and Colorado

16:19

was ground zero for Rocky Mountain spotted

16:21

fever for a while. UM, which is, yeah,

16:23

you do not want to have that. It's a really bad bacterial

16:25

infection. But by this time they

16:28

had done thanks to the legwork UM

16:30

done by the moms and

16:32

the patient advocate groups in Lime, Connecticut,

16:35

UM, it had been pretty well established

16:37

that the common thread between all these people

16:40

besides the where they lived. And

16:42

by the way, it was um Chuck Lime

16:45

old Liman, East had him, sorry,

16:47

East had him Um.

16:49

Aside from the fact that they all lived in the same region,

16:51

was that all of them were almost all

16:53

of them were called being bitten by a tick, and

16:56

a lot of them had a mysterious rash right

16:58

before the symptoms presented. So it

17:00

came to this guy, Willie um

17:02

Bergdorfer's microscope

17:05

because they had said, there's something in the

17:07

ticks here that is creating this disease that

17:09

we haven't encountered before. That's

17:12

right, and he had already discovered

17:15

this bacterium h

17:18

called it. How do you how do you pronounce that spirit

17:20

chet, spire key sparke.

17:23

But the spiro keet is a type of bacteria

17:25

and that's what give

17:27

me the apron. They

17:30

all right, spiral

17:32

chet and you just made me think of the older brother

17:34

Chet and weird science. Now

17:36

go make yourself one. But wad Man,

17:40

that guy had some good quotes. Yeah, r

17:42

I P What what Bill

17:45

Paxton when, oh he

17:47

died a couple of years ago. Very sad? Are

17:50

you sure you thinking of Bill Pullman?

17:53

No, Bill Paxston died. It was so sad because

17:56

I had just listened to his Mark Marin

17:58

interview and he was like, after that

18:00

episode, I wanted nothing more than to be

18:02

Bill Paxton's friend and neighbor. And he

18:04

just sounded like the best guy and best family

18:06

man. And he passed away way too early. Yeah,

18:09

really, I did not know about

18:11

that. I saw a Frailty not too

18:13

many weeks ago. It's still pretty good. Was

18:15

it the first viewing er? No? No,

18:17

no, I've seen it before, but yeah, great

18:20

movie. Yeah. But he wrote and I

18:22

believe directed and starred in it. Yeah, it was

18:24

so good and I love a good Powers Booth

18:26

cast and call for sure it

18:28

was. It was unusual and surprising,

18:30

but it wasn't perfect. Very good underrated film.

18:34

Where are we? Oh? Yeah, we were talking

18:36

about Rocky mont and spotted fever. Willie

18:38

Berg door for identifying the spiral

18:40

keet um that was causing right,

18:44

spiral check dumb

18:47

dumb? No, remember we

18:49

established were all smart. He

18:52

Yeah, so he discovered this, uh, this Paara

18:54

keet and

18:57

he was honored, uh, this

19:00

discovery and naming that thing after

19:03

himself. That's why has that interesting name. I

19:05

get the impression he didn't name it after himself.

19:07

They named it after him. Go

19:10

on, okay, but

19:12

there's a big difference between him saying this thing

19:14

is called the burg door fury bacteria

19:17

and somebody saying we're going to name this after

19:20

you. I totally agree. Okay,

19:22

So burg door fury

19:24

or burg doorfur. He figures

19:27

out what is the basis of lyme disease,

19:29

which is great. That's an enormous breakthrough.

19:31

It establishes that yes, it is its own

19:34

thing, it's its own disease. And

19:36

because it was a bacteria, it's

19:38

a spira key, which again it's a kind of a snakelike

19:41

shaped bacteria specific

19:43

kind that walks like a slinky um.

19:46

Because it was a bacterial infection, the medical

19:48

establishment said, oh, we got this. Here, take

19:51

some antibiotics and

19:53

over you know, the course of several years,

19:55

starting in I think the nineties,

19:58

is when they really started to say, okay, ay, we

20:00

can cure lyme disease,

20:02

especially if we catch it early on um

20:05

by a two to four week round of antibiotics.

20:08

Here you go, and they said case closed,

20:11

were the medical establishment. Let's

20:13

go have a party for ourselves. Yeah, and

20:16

here's the thing, like many times,

20:18

that can take care of the problem.

20:20

So it's not like they were just lazy and

20:23

not doing their work. But I

20:25

think they closed the book a little too soon, and a lot of

20:27

people do because that that oral

20:29

that round of oral antibiotics. Um,

20:32

if you catch it early, it can really work. But and

20:35

I think they say, what like nine times out of ten, if

20:37

you catch it early, then that

20:40

will that will work right

20:42

there. So they're so persistent

20:44

with that assertion that if you find

20:47

a tick on yourself and you

20:49

live in an area where lyme

20:51

disease is known to thrive, um,

20:53

if you can't say how long that tick's been on you,

20:56

they're probably just going to give you a round

20:58

of antibiotics and lactically. Yeah,

21:01

and and and again, like you said, in a lot of

21:03

cases, and I believe, from what I've read,

21:06

the vast majority of cases in early

21:09

stage lime disease, that round of antibiotics

21:11

should work. Yeah.

21:13

And they say that if you and this is from the American

21:16

Lime dias Is Foundation, uh

21:18

quote, if you live in in endemic

21:20

area, have symptoms consistent

21:23

with early lyme disease, and suspect recent

21:25

exposure to a tick, present your suspicion

21:28

to your doctor. So that he or she may make

21:30

a more informed diagnosis. So show

21:32

up to your doctor and say, yeah, madam

21:35

sir, I would love to present my suspicions

21:37

to you. Please sit down. Well, they're saying sort

21:39

of, still, you still sort of need to be your own advocate

21:42

because it is so hard to diagnose still, because

21:45

if you're going on symptoms alone, like

21:47

we said, there are hundreds of things that share

21:49

those symptoms and lime disease

21:51

may not be the first thing they think of. That's

21:54

a huge problem with lime disease. Another

21:56

huge problem is that the test

21:58

we use to test for line disease

22:00

doesn't actually test for the b burg

22:03

door free um bacteria. It

22:05

tests for the antibodies that should

22:08

be present in your blood stream if you have a bacterial

22:10

infection, not even specific to that one,

22:12

but a bacterial infection. The problem

22:15

is it takes days, if

22:17

not maybe a week or two before your

22:19

body mounts an effective immune

22:21

response against this infection. So

22:24

if you find a tick and they give

22:26

you a test, say within the first couple of days,

22:28

it's gonna come back negative, even though you very

22:31

much have a burg door free um

22:33

infection, it's gonna come back negative

22:35

because it's the antibodies haven't been

22:38

created yet. The other part of

22:40

the problem is even if you take

22:42

a blood test that tests directly

22:44

for the burg Door free bacterium,

22:48

it moves out of the blood stream really

22:50

easily and within several days. So there's a

22:52

very brief window of time where you

22:54

can directly test for the burg Door

22:56

free um bacteria and find

22:59

it in a simple a blood test. Yeah,

23:01

you can also get false positives. Uh.

23:03

And they're advocating now for two tiered

23:05

testing for confirmation

23:08

of the diagnosis. So if you get that

23:10

first positive test, uh, sometimes

23:12

now you'll get a different test, a Western blot

23:14

test that's gonna really

23:17

get more specific to that antibody, not

23:19

just the general antibodies. Right. So

23:21

part of the other problem is the

23:24

a lot what the reason a lot of patient

23:26

activists and patient advocate groups

23:29

say no, doctors, you're wrong, like this is

23:31

not good enough, is that there's a sneaking

23:34

suspicion among people who have what's

23:36

called chronic lime or post

23:38

treatment lime disease syndrome,

23:42

is that the round of antibiotics,

23:44

the two to four week round of antibiotics that

23:46

seemingly cured the lime disease

23:49

symptoms that you had actually

23:51

failed to fully knock out the

23:54

bacteria that created this

23:57

infection. This created this lime disease

23:59

in the first place, that it just burrowed further

24:01

into your body. And because the medical

24:03

establishment said we got it, it's

24:05

fine, You're these antibiotics cured

24:07

it and didn't go deeper. Um

24:10

that that bacterial infection is

24:12

allowed to fester and then present in

24:14

worse ways later. Yeah, and

24:16

it's a really big deal because you

24:19

know what will happen is they'll say, you're

24:21

cured. We gave these antibiotics.

24:23

They worked. But weeks and months

24:25

and even years later, when people have persistent

24:28

fatigue and muscle aches and headaches

24:31

and you know, like your knee joints

24:33

hurt, they said, like a brain fog can

24:35

happen. And these are all things that

24:37

are I don't want to say generic,

24:39

but if you walk into your doctor and say I feel

24:42

like I'm fuzzy and have a brain

24:44

fog and get headaches and I'm tired,

24:47

Uh, it's sort

24:49

of a wide it's hard to pinpoint

24:51

what's going on and there and they

24:53

think you're cured of the lime disease.

24:56

So that's where some of the more dismissive

24:59

um at least from the lyme disease community.

25:01

They're saying like, I have this chronic issue, and

25:03

they're saying, but no, there's no such thing. It's a chronic

25:06

issue, right. Well, they're also saying like, look,

25:08

we gave you a test for lyme disease

25:10

and you came back negative. You know, we

25:13

know you had it before we tested

25:15

you. We came back positive, we treated

25:17

with antibiotics. Now we've tested

25:19

you again and it's coming back

25:21

negative. You don't have lyme disease anymore.

25:24

So there's a huge debate whether they're

25:26

the antibiotic course is not enough

25:29

and that the lime disease is persisting elsewhere

25:31

in the body, and that maybe it's changed

25:34

its form so that it won't show up on the tests

25:36

like it should, or um

25:38

there's remnants of it. I saw one one

25:41

article that suggested that the

25:44

cell wall from the spial keet the

25:46

brig door free spiro key can remain

25:49

even after the things dead and persistent

25:51

like joint tissue and cause an

25:53

immune response there, which would explain this

25:55

long term arthritis is like a post

25:58

treatment lyme disease syndromes emptem

26:00

um or is

26:03

it that it converts into

26:05

an entirely different disease, like an

26:07

autoimmune disorder. Yeah.

26:09

Some people think that it could trigger an autoimmune

26:12

response and the infection

26:14

is gone, and this is what's happening later

26:16

on? Is uh, Is you have this

26:18

autoimmune response, it can lead to other things

26:21

like rheumatic heart disease. I

26:24

think we do we cover Gian Bear

26:26

syndrome or just talk about it in different

26:29

episodes. We've talked about it, and

26:31

I think, if I remember correctly, is g a bar a

26:33

GiB? I'm

26:36

pretty sure. Yeah, we could both be

26:38

wearing the apron for this one, though. We'll

26:40

split it up. I get the half, all right, I

26:43

get the top half on Porky pig in it all right. I'm

26:45

gonna just cover my bits down there.

26:48

Uh. But regardless of

26:50

of what's happening, what people know is

26:52

is that they don't feel right, and

26:54

it's extremely frustrating to

26:57

to feel these symptoms months and years

26:59

later and not be taken seriously

27:02

in the doctor's office. Yeah. So a lot of

27:04

people are saying that we should we these This

27:06

course of antibiotics shouldn't be two to four weeks,

27:08

it should be many months because you really

27:10

need to get all of the spiral

27:13

keyed out of there or else it's going to persist

27:15

and you're going to have big problems. And then

27:17

the medical establishment is saying like this,

27:19

what you're talking about doesn't even exist. So there's

27:22

a lot of frustration, Like you're saying, a big disconnect,

27:24

and this is something that is probably

27:27

going to keep playing out, although it seems

27:30

like it maybe on its way out because

27:32

of the epidemic proportions lime is

27:34

taking now in the United States. Yeah,

27:36

I mean, the statistics are mounting up such

27:38

that it can't be ignored any longer. Not that

27:41

it was ignored, but you know, that's probably a harsh statement,

27:43

but it's being taken way more seriously now. Yeah,

27:46

that's something like there's an expectation

27:48

that there's going to be something like three hundred

27:50

to four hundred thousand new

27:53

cases of lime disease in the United

27:55

States alone, and that tend

27:58

to of

28:00

those patients will

28:02

end up with chronic lime disease. Yeah.

28:05

I mean, I spend a fair amount of time hiking around

28:07

the woods with my dogs and have

28:09

pulled plenty of ticks off of them, and plenty of ticks

28:12

off of myself and

28:14

I have fatigue a lot because I have a four year

28:16

old and every now and then I'm like, I

28:19

have lime disease. Well, probably not, and

28:21

here's why. Well, I've never had the bull's eye.

28:23

First of all, okay, that's a big one. But also

28:25

the ticks you pull off of your dog, those are dog

28:28

ticks. They do not transmit lime. It's

28:30

specifically the long

28:33

lay or black legged tick, which is a

28:35

type of dear tick. Well, but here's

28:37

the thing. There are plenty of deer ticks

28:39

in the woods. Are you saying that they

28:41

if they would not latch onto a dog, and they'd

28:43

be like, oh, no, I don't know. I

28:46

don't know, because there's deer ticks all over the woods.

28:48

Sure, there definitely are. Um, I don't

28:50

know if if dear ticks will latch

28:52

onto a dog. That's entirely possible

28:55

they won't since there's such a differentiation between

28:57

dog ticks and deer ticks. But I do know

28:59

that dog ticks don't transmit lime. Well,

29:02

I think we should talk about My

29:05

favorite thing from the Ticks episode, and this is

29:07

when I will lay on people from

29:09

time to time, is remember how ticks attached

29:11

themselves They just hang

29:13

out on blades of grass and things and

29:16

just snap their little claws

29:18

constantly, just waiting for something to pass

29:20

by.

29:22

Right, they since the CEO two

29:24

and of the mammal that's walking past,

29:27

so interesting and Chuck. One

29:29

thing I read is that somehow the lime

29:32

lime infected ticks because

29:34

they're infected themselves. Lime resides

29:37

as in like small mammals

29:39

and rodents as a reservoir. They're

29:41

infected, but they don't have symptoms. Ticks

29:44

get infected with this stuff and they're just passing

29:46

it along. It's not like they're the ultimate

29:48

source of of lime disease. Ticks

29:50

are misunderstood. They're really great, right,

29:53

But from what I saw, the ticks that

29:55

are infected with the line bacteria

29:58

are actually better finding

30:00

hosts than non infected ticks.

30:02

Like it's somehow enables

30:04

them to be better parasites.

30:07

It's interesting. Yeah, that sounds familiar.

30:09

Did we cover that or do I just

30:12

know that because I don't, I don't remember, but

30:14

I do. I remember you talking about in

30:16

the Ticks episode about how they wave their

30:18

arms in the airway somebody passed by,

30:20

and I remember one of our listeners made

30:23

some art of that we gotta find

30:25

it, that's right, and from snapping

30:28

their little fingers on a blade of

30:30

grass to my dogs, but to my scrotum,

30:33

it's quite a it's quite

30:35

a ride. It's a wild ride. And then

30:37

to Emily eventually plucking that thing out

30:39

for me, that's nice, gotta that's

30:41

what marriage is all about. Folks. Yeah, you just

30:44

have your forearm thrust across your eyes.

30:46

You're like, get it out, get it out. Uh.

30:49

So let's take another break. Okay, we'll

30:51

talk a little bit about prevention, and then a

30:53

little bit about some very recent interesting,

30:56

uh wacky things

30:59

going on in Congress about lime

31:01

disease as a bioweapon. Okay,

31:32

okay, Chuck, you talked about prevention. How

31:34

do you keep from having to have a tick pulled

31:36

from your crotch? Don't ever go into mother

31:38

nature. Just stay in your mid

31:41

century modern home with tiled

31:43

floors, and don't go into

31:45

the woods. It sounds delicious. No,

31:48

I love the woods. You love the woods? Right? Yeah?

31:51

Yeah, I love watching the woods on television

31:54

from your mid century house. No I do. I

31:57

love the woods myself. Yeah,

31:59

I'm just getting get in the woods. But um,

32:03

they recommend things like deep I don't use

32:06

that stuff on my own body.

32:08

But some people will say put that all over

32:11

your body and put it on your clothes and put it on your socks

32:13

and shoes and just walk around spraying a

32:15

cloud of it around you constantly while you're in the

32:17

woods. What I do is I just check for ticks.

32:20

Yeah, a good thing to do, seriously, it looks

32:22

super dorky, but what do you care is

32:24

to tuck your pant legs into your

32:26

socks. Uh? When?

32:29

When? And then when you come out, like wear

32:31

light colors too, because you can see the ticks

32:33

a lot more easily. And then when you when

32:35

you come out of the woods, Um,

32:38

take your clothes off and take a shower as soon

32:40

as you can, and just inspect yourself, Inspect your

32:42

growing, your armpits, your

32:45

scalp. Part of the problem

32:47

with lime disease though, is remember you get

32:49

it from TIMPs? Do

32:51

you get it from ticks in the nymph stage

32:54

which are really really small. So you've got to check

32:57

really really well to see, um,

32:59

if you have that tick on you. Yeah, and

33:01

just while you're at it, take off the

33:03

adult tis as well. Yeah, don't

33:06

just leave those and check your

33:08

dogs. You know you check your dogs under their haunches,

33:11

like on the armpit of their legs

33:13

whatever that's called their leg bits. Uh,

33:16

check behind their ears, check under their collars,

33:18

because ticks are trying to you know, they're not

33:20

gonna hang out just like on the top of their back.

33:23

They may start there, but they're going to try

33:25

and find a place that's dark and warm

33:28

and out of out of view. Yeah.

33:30

I don't mean to say you can't get lime disease

33:33

from an adult chuck. It's just that

33:35

the nymphs are far more likely to feed

33:37

on a human than an adult is. But a line

33:40

infected adult tick will

33:43

transmit sure line to you too. Very

33:46

important distinction. So now we

33:48

move on to the US Congress very

33:51

recently, about a month ago, and did

33:53

July I think, Yeah, there was a

33:55

US House Rep named Chris Smith,

33:58

Republican out of New Jersey, who

34:00

introduce legislation that said,

34:02

hey, Department of Defense, you should review these

34:05

claims that I'm seeing that our

34:07

own Pentagon researched

34:10

using ticks to spread lime disease as

34:12

a bioweapon in the mid twentieth

34:15

century. I'm reading a lot about this in

34:17

books and articles that we did research on Plumb

34:19

Island and we

34:21

we and other insects too, not just ticks,

34:24

of turning them into bioweapons. And this thing passed.

34:27

And a lot of this comes from a book written

34:30

by Chris Newby called Bitten

34:32

Colon The Secret History

34:34

of Lime Disease and and Biological

34:36

Weapons. And this book, like

34:39

I think Chris Smith, the

34:41

representative from New Jersey said, like this

34:43

book really inspired me to to take up this

34:45

legislation. Um. But in

34:48

the book, Newby basically says, the

34:50

government at Fort Dietrich, Maryland,

34:53

and I'm Plum Island, New York, before it was

34:55

turned into an animal disease research center,

34:57

we're doing it was an insect disease research

35:00

they were they were

35:02

looking into, um well

35:04

they've they definitely were doing biowarfare

35:06

research there. Um

35:10

but and then Fort Dietrich into for however

35:13

long if they're not still doing it now,

35:15

but them they were apparently

35:18

looking into ticks as delivery

35:20

systems for biological

35:22

weapons. I couldn't

35:25

find that that is actually verified, but I

35:27

find that highly believable. But what Nubia

35:29

is saying is they were doing that research

35:32

and then the way we got lime diseases.

35:35

Whatever research they were coming up

35:37

with escaped, say a

35:39

ticket attached to a bird that flew off

35:41

a plumb island and landed in the area

35:44

around Lime, Connecticut. And these

35:46

ticks got off and they started to

35:48

breed and they they became

35:50

endemic in this area. And that's

35:52

where lime disease came from. There was actually a

35:55

biological weapon that was produced

35:57

and then inadvertently, probably

36:00

not purposefully released into

36:02

the larger population in the northeast.

36:05

Yeah. So here's my question. I

36:07

haven't read the book. Uh,

36:09

but are they saying that that that

36:12

we created lime disease or

36:14

that we just weaponized it, because

36:16

those are two very different things. Yeah. I

36:18

don't know what she's saying either, And I

36:21

think, um, she stopped

36:23

short of saying that, but

36:25

that it's implied that if you put two and

36:27

two together, the government was looking into

36:30

biological warfare and they were talking about,

36:32

um, you know, using ticks at some point,

36:35

and you know, it's

36:38

really close to this ground zero of where

36:40

the tick epidemic began you

36:43

put two and two together. That's the impression I have is

36:45

that she didn't actually come out and say it, but that

36:47

she lets the readers surmise for themselves.

36:50

Which is the problem. Well, I

36:52

mean that's very easy

36:54

to disprove if she's actually

36:56

claiming that they created lime disease,

36:58

because we just got through saying

37:01

it was in who was the Mummy?

37:04

It was aut ars

37:07

Ago over in the Alps. Uh.

37:10

Well, true, but it also in the

37:12

United States. I mean it came around in the Uh

37:14

we first discovered it in nineteen seventies, and

37:17

like several different places. It wasn't just lime

37:19

Connecticut. They found it in California. And

37:22

you can't just that just it doesn't add

37:24

up that it would be popping up in all these random places

37:27

if it escaped from Long Island Sound in

37:29

nineteen fifty three, right, which I think

37:31

somebody who subscribed to this conspiracy theory,

37:33

and that's very much what it is, is a conspiracy

37:35

theory that um, well, then

37:37

the release wasn't purpose or accidental,

37:39

it was purposeful, and that they spread

37:41

it around the northeast California

37:44

and then Spooner, Wisconsin, which supposedly

37:47

is the actual place where the first case

37:49

of lyme disease was described in the United

37:52

States in nineteen sixty nine, about

37:54

six years before this cluster of

37:57

juvenile arthritis cases popped

37:59

up in old lime lime in East

38:02

HadOM. Well, it's a very bad idea

38:04

if that's what went on, because

38:07

you have to depend on a lot of things,

38:09

which is a these ticks

38:11

definitely finding their way to uh

38:14

the enemy, be they

38:16

attached to the enemy successfully and transmit

38:19

the disease. And then what does it transmit?

38:22

A very slow acting disease

38:25

that will give people headaches and fatigue

38:27

over the course of a long time. Right,

38:30

that also produces a one of a kind

38:32

telltale rash that tells

38:34

you, supposedly in plenty of time

38:37

that you have this um this disease

38:39

that needs to be treated with a simple course

38:41

of oral antibiotics. Yeah, and it

38:43

has to be probably in the country. They're not. They don't

38:46

thrive well in the city. So it's just

38:48

it doesn't make a good biological weapon. No.

38:50

And then again, people who subscribed as a

38:52

conspiracy theories say, well, they

38:54

can't all be winners. But maybe it was just something

38:57

they were experimented with and it wasn't very good.

38:59

Trust me. I mean, we've done enough research on

39:01

stuff our American government used to do and continue

39:04

to do that it's not the most outlandish

39:06

thing in the world. No, it's not. And that's also why

39:08

Chris Smith, the representative from New

39:10

Jersey, shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand,

39:13

because it's entirely plausible.

39:15

It's yeah, it's not just a complete

39:17

wacko idea. The other reason

39:20

Christmas shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand

39:22

is because he is a true lime warrior.

39:25

He introduced other legislation called the

39:27

Tick Act, and of course he had to make

39:29

tick an acronism. That um

39:32

an acronym, not in an acronism for

39:36

the ticks, Colon, Identify

39:39

Control and Knockout Act.

39:42

He was really grasping like a tick on a

39:44

blade of grass with that one. But the point

39:46

is knockouts not one word unless

39:48

he used his knockout that's

39:51

what he's saying. I guess because um.

39:55

But it would create an

39:57

additional hundred and eighty million dollar

40:00

is in federal funding for lyme disease

40:02

research, which was sorely needed right now.

40:04

That's awesome. I didn't know he was such an advocate. That's good.

40:06

He really is. He hates lyme disease like

40:09

like a lot. I

40:13

was about to say something, but I wish I could

40:15

take a pill that would bulk up my analogy

40:17

region in my brain. Oh, your analogies

40:20

are great. What were you gonna say, I want to know

40:22

we can beep it up. I was gonna get political.

40:25

I was gonna say, he hates ticks like he

40:27

hates Okay,

40:30

can we leave that and bleep it. I don't know, we'll find

40:32

out right. So, um,

40:34

the whole idea that it's a bioweapon almost

40:37

certainly not the case, right, but it makes

40:39

for good press. I mean, like if you look up

40:42

like lyme disease and bioweapon. There is

40:44

a lot of recent articles right now. It

40:46

just because a member of Congress introduced

40:48

this legislation. What a

40:51

lot of people are all are saying is,

40:54

look, it makes sense like this conspiracy

40:56

theory that people would go to that. But

40:59

on the same at the same time,

41:02

there's another really great explanation for

41:04

it, and it's climate change

41:07

that this whole thing came about in the seventies,

41:09

because we're starting to see

41:12

what was called, um, the first

41:14

epidemic from climate

41:16

change. And there's this really great article

41:19

on a On, which is a great website

41:21

by Marybeth Phifer spells

41:23

it like Michelle Phifer with the p called

41:26

ticks rising, and um,

41:28

she's an investigative reporter, science

41:30

journalist who really went to a lot of

41:33

troubles to explain how climate

41:35

change has created a new world

41:38

for ticks and we are now living

41:40

in it. Yeah, I mean, in

41:43

two thousand fourteen, the e p A actually

41:45

started to use for new indicators

41:48

about what's going on with climate change

41:50

and the impact, and one of them was the

41:52

spread of lime disease. So like the

41:54

e p A officially uses that as

41:56

a factor uh in an indicator

41:58

in determining the impact of climate change now

42:01

right, and so the whole the whole basis of this idea

42:03

is that because of warmer weather, ticks

42:06

are being killed off in far fewer

42:08

numbers from over the winter, so

42:11

they're surviving longer there.

42:13

Um, as it it gets warmer and

42:15

warmer, higher and higher up their

42:17

range is spreading rather rapidly. And

42:20

wherever these ticks go, lime disease

42:23

is game to go with them. So the

42:25

spread of lyme disease is increasing

42:27

as the spread of ticks is increasing

42:29

too, and ticks have gotten totally

42:32

out of hand in some areas. In that same

42:34

aon article, um Marybeth

42:36

Pheiffer was talking about how moose are

42:39

dying in their thousands

42:41

in like Wisconsin and the Dakotas

42:44

because they're being bled to

42:46

death by a hundred thousand

42:49

ticks at once. It's amazing that

42:51

never happened before. And now all of a

42:53

sudden, it's kind of becoming routine

42:55

because the ticks aren't dying off in the winter

42:58

like they're supposed to. And again it's

43:00

because of climate change. And then in the

43:02

Northeast, Chuck, one of

43:04

the reasons why there's been this explosion of ticks

43:06

is because there's been an explosion of deer

43:09

to support the tick population. Sure,

43:11

back in the day, there were things

43:13

like mountain lions, and there were

43:15

predators that would help control the deer

43:17

population. Wolves, wolves.

43:20

They're even suggesting reintroducing wolves

43:22

to help control the deer population. Oh yeah,

43:24

you can bet that's going to happen. Really,

43:27

no, I mean do you think so? Yeah?

43:29

Totally, Like a three thousand people

43:32

a year coming down with lime in the United States,

43:34

they're gonna start reintroducing wolves to

43:37

combat if it has even a half of a

43:39

chance to be interested to see if that happens,

43:42

because humans are gonna want to hunt those wolves.

43:45

Yeah, you know, it just brings it out

43:47

on us for some reason. Huh. Well, I

43:50

mean they hunted the mountain lions, right,

43:54

but I think that's the

43:56

idea of of oh wait a minute,

43:58

really weird and um circuit.

44:01

As bad things happen when we overhunt

44:04

mountain lions and wolves, maybe

44:06

when we reintroduce them, we won't have to,

44:09

you know, or we won't follow that impulse, will

44:11

just let nature take its course. Right.

44:14

Who knows you got anything else? Man?

44:17

I got nothing else. So

44:19

there's a solution around of antibiotics

44:21

and some wolves that will cure what

44:23

ails us. Yeah, advocate

44:25

for yourself still, people in

44:28

the wolves persistent. That's

44:31

good advice for everything. Chuck agreed,

44:34

Um, almost everything. There's certainly

44:36

cases where persistence is not a good idea,

44:39

but you know what I'm saying, right, Okay.

44:42

Uh. If you want to know

44:45

more about lyme disease, go check

44:47

out all of the articles

44:49

there are to read. And again, go check out the a on

44:52

article by Marybeth fight for it's really interesting.

44:54

Um. And since I said it's interesting, that

44:56

means it's time for a listener mail. I'm

45:00

gonna call this neat story about how great

45:02

stuff he should know listeners are from

45:04

Portland, Maine. Hey, guys,

45:06

my wife, daughter and I all stuff you show listeners

45:09

for years. Decided last minute to buy tickets

45:11

to the show while on vacation at

45:13

Old Orchard Beach, Maine, just

45:15

a short drive south of Portland. We

45:18

had nosebleed seats naturally because we waited until

45:20

just an hour before showtime. Uh.

45:22

And that was more than cool by us, and we

45:24

were totally stoked just to be there, whatever

45:26

the seats. When we got to our balcony

45:28

seats, a friendly fellow named Matt approached us,

45:31

said he had three tickets for orchestra seats

45:33

and asked if we'd like them. The tickets were intended

45:36

for friends of his who were

45:38

stuck in labor day weekend traffic couldn't make it to

45:40

the show. Turns out he had been scouting

45:42

the crowd for forty minutes looking

45:44

for a group of three even in listening the help of the ushers

45:47

to find three people together, and we were the

45:49

first group that he saw. Brief walk

45:51

downstairs and there we were three rows

45:53

from the stage for the supremely

45:55

excellent show about podcast

45:58

topic redacted. Thanks

46:01

to Matt and his friends being stuck in traffic.

46:04

We went from not having tickets an hour before showtime

46:06

to having third row ten minutes before

46:08

you guys took stage. We considered

46:10

it a little piece of true magic. So

46:12

while I'm confident this lengthy set up and telling

46:14

you the story is way too long for the air,

46:17

no, not true, Richard Clark, the

46:19

whole family would be for ever grateful if you could give

46:21

Matt and the Connecticut groundskeeper

46:23

a huge thank you from Rich Susan

46:26

and Emily and Upstate New York for sharing those seats

46:28

with us. That is fantastic. I love

46:30

our shows, man, it's great. People are so kind.

46:33

And that is from Richard Clark, not

46:35

Dick Clark, but rich Clark. Oh

46:37

that's even better. Dick Clark's

46:40

taken. That's right. Thank you for

46:42

rich Clark for recognizing that too. Yeah,

46:45

thanks for coming to the show, rich and bringing the family.

46:47

And thank you Matt for being such a cool dude. That

46:49

was very nice of you. I'm utterly

46:51

unsurprised because our fans

46:54

are pretty great people. Yes, okay,

46:57

Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to

46:59

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47:01

us a tweet or insta

47:04

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47:06

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47:08

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47:11

it the old fashioned way and send an email,

47:13

wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and

47:15

send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart

47:17

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47:21

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