Climate Breakdown Bonus: Lyme Disease Spreading Rapidly Aross Canada

[hatrack]

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Other Canadians have suffered longer, without a clue what was ailing them. Just east of New Brunswick, at a clinic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, rheumatologists over the past four years saw an unusual run of 17 children, ranging in age from 2 to 15, with suspected arthritis – four cases so severe the children had been to the emergency room, and two cases that were treated as septic. In only one case had doctors correctly diagnosed the underlying problem: Lyme disease. On the western side of Canada, in Victoria, British Columbia, Nicole Bottles was first diagnosed six years ago with "exercise-induced asthma" and then myriad illnesses, from lupus to eating disorders, before finally getting treatment for Lyme. Bottles could do cartwheels as a teenager. Now 21 and in a wheelchair due to lingering damage from the disease, she has been blogging and, in recent weeks, speaking out in favor of a national Lyme disease strategy in Canada.

That effort reached a crucial milestone this summer, when legislation to promote Lyme prevention and timely diagnosis and treatment passed the House of Commons by unanimous consent. Few bills that are not part of the administration's legislative plan ever clear the House in Canada's Parliament, but Green Party sponsor Elizabeth May of British Columbia's Saanich-Gulf Islands said the measure has garnered unusually widespread support because lawmakers are learning about Lyme directly from constituents.

"So many members of Parliament have been hearing these stories that are heartbreaking," she said. Patients tell of having to go to the United States for treatment – especially galling in a nation that has long prided itself on how its national health care system compares to the high-priced, private-insurance-dominated system in the United States. Even Canadian doctors who are knowledgeable about Lyme find they can't gain authorization to treat patients because of overreliance on flawed diagnostic tests, May noted. "We need to catch up."

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Scientists long have anticipated that global warming would harm human health, and the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report highlights the risk for poor populations that don't have access to quality health care or other public services. For example, the risk of heat stroke is greatest in areas without access to power for air conditioning, and water-borne illnesses like cholera and intestinal viruses flourish in areas without safe drinking water. But one of the clearest signs of the changing health risks in a warming world has emerged in two of the world's most advanced economies, the United States and Canada, as Lyme disease spreads in North America. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this year added Lyme disease to its list of climate change indicators, a report meant to aid in public understanding of the effects of warming that scientists have been able to document.

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http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/09/canada-lyme-disease-spreads

[zazen]

1. going to the US for treatment?! it's barely treated here unless it's caught immediately

I was lucky to get two month long prescriptions for doxy after being diagnosed seropositive one year post-bite, but that's because my otherwise mainstream doc had had it herself and actually got IV antibiotics for it. Otherwise, it would have been an uphill battle.

You're assumed to be cured after 3 weeks of doxy (per CDC guidelines), even if you continue to test positive and/or are symptomatic. It's bizarre.

[OnlinePoker]

2. It doesn't help that deer, which carry the lyme ticks, can't be culled

I went to my hometown last year and can't believe the number of deer I saw. Never as a kid. Now, they were everywhere. And everytime their natural predators are spotted, they get shot because they are a "danger".