Ticks can carry serious, sometimes deadly diseases, so it's important to keep current on tick-related health issues to protect animals and humans from their bites. This past year the Missouri Department of Conservation and A.T. Still University, Kirksville, Missouri, have partnered to determine locations of tick species and the pathogens they may harbor. “We’ve never actually done research on ticks before,” says Dr. Matthew Combes. He is the Ecological Health Unit Science Supervisor at Missouri’s Department of Conservation. As a result, he notes there is a lack of information about where various tick species occur in the state and what potential disease-causing pathogens they may be carrying. “Also, there’s another thing that we just don’t know,” Dr. Combes adds. “We know that animals are the reservoir for bacteria and that ticks attach to animals and spread it amongst those populations. Then if one of those ticks happens to bite a human, it can spread it to the human. But we don’t really know the effect that tick-borne illnesses have on the populations of animals in the state because that research hasn’t been done.” Until now. To get answers, Dr. Combes and his team created a research platform that is asking Missourians to collect ticks they have pulled from livestock, pets and themselves and send them to the project’s lab.

By: Dennis McLaughlin, McLaughlin Writers LLC – Sources: Interview with Dr. Matthew Combes, May 25, 2022; Saravanan Thangamani, professor of microbiology and immunology, SUNY Upstate Medical University; IGeneX, a California-based developer of Lyme disease detection tests; Thomas Mather, a public health entomologist at the University of Rhode Island; Tick Bait: The Secret History of Lyme Disease, Chuck Carroll, October 22, 2019, Good Times Newspaper, Santa Cruz, California; Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Warfare, Kim Newby, May, 2019, Harper Collins; Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Germ Laboratory, Michael Christopher Carroll, 2004.

Trouble-Making Ticks Expand Their Population, Range, Longevity

If there is anything good you can say about ticks, it might be this: Ticks are not as agile as many people think. But that’s about it. Ticks usually hunt for meals close to the ground, reported the New York Times (May 27, 2022), so while they can climb into trees, it's unusual for them to do so. “If you spot a tick on your scalp, neck or ears,” said the paper, “it most likely crawled there from a lower part of your body, such as your feet or legs. Ticks cannot jump or fly.”

Good to know. If you find a tick in your scalp after a hike under a canopy of low-hanging branches, it probably got there by crawling from a blade of grass onto your ankle and making its way on up to higher spots. So maybe you don’t have to wear a hat while hiking. Anyway, one performance shortcoming by these pests, notwithstanding, this year’s tick season is likely to be severe, according to Saravanan Thangamani, professor of microbiology and immunology at SUNY Upstate Medical University. In early spring he said his lab had already seen an increase of 43% in the number of ticks submitted for testing compared to last March 2021. IGeneX, a California-based developer of tests to detect Lyme disease, said the most prevalent tick-borne disease is Lyme disease with over 470,000 cases last year. It doesn’t expect a drop in cases this tick season.

Warming temperatures could increase the reproduction rates of ticks, say scientists at the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. But it is not only warmer weather for longer periods that accounts for more ticks. The case can be made that modern technology is extending the life cycle and habitat of these hardy arthropods, as well. Jet aircraft, automobiles, seamless highway routes allow people to travel with their pets long distances; and some of those pets can be hosting ticks. Ticks also hone their survival instincts with the help of HVAC systems, humidifiers and other advanced climate control devices that let homeowners unsuspectingly create conditions ideal for fleas and ticks to breed and feed. Eco-friendly building materials and architectural designs also help replicate natural surroundings and blur seasonal distinctions between various regions of the country. In the last two decades, ticks have migrated to every part of the country.

Ticks are not just a problem for those in suburban or wooded areas. They’re “becoming urbanized,” said Thomas Mather, a public health entomologist at the University of Rhode Island. Ticks are moving into cities, including, even in some parks in New York City, in part because their animal hosts, like deer, are proliferating in cities too, Dr. Mather said.

Economic Impact of Ticks

Little bites from little bugs run up big bills. Currently, CDC has identified 18 tick-borne pathogens in the U.S., and counts 27 known tick pathogens worldwide. CDC also warns that the occurrence of tick-borne illnesses in humans is increasing. Even more disturbing is that individual ticks can harbor more than one disease-causing agent, and patients can be infected with more than one pathogen at the same time – which complicates the difficulty of diagnosing and treating diseases. And runs up the medical tab quickly.

While the medical and economic impact of tick-borne diseases in humans is substantial, it is significant in livestock and other animals. Tick-borne diseases are estimated to affect 80% of cattle worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). By its reckoning, ticks are the most important vectors of human pathogens leading to increased public health burdens worldwide. Tick-borne pathogens include viruses and bacteria – such as the causative agents of Lyme disease, spotted fever rickettsiosis and human anaplasmosis and malaria-like protozoan parasites causing babesiosis.

Tick-borne diseases are emerging as tick vectors expand their geographical boundaries, especially in the northern hemisphere. Two examples of this phenomenon are Ixodes scapularis and Amblyomma americanum, which have expanded their ranges in the USA in recent decades and are responsible for the continuous emergence of Lyme disease and human ehrlichiosis.

In the U.S., ticks are responsible for over 95 % of vector-borne disease cases. Lyme disease is by far the most prevalent tick-borne disease in the northern hemisphere. Several studies conclude approximately 300, 000 cases of Lyme disease are diagnosed annually in the U.S. Based on these estimates, Lyme disease may be among the most common infectious diseases in the U.S. Additionally, around 10, 000 cases of other tick-borne diseases are reported annually.

What’s It Cost?

The economic impact of tick-borne diseases is significant and increases every year. In the U.S., the average treatment cost per patient diagnosed with Lyme disease was $11, 838 in 2019. A conservative approximation – based on 42, 743 cases reported to the CDC in 2017 – would result in an annual cost estimate of over $500 million. These costs could be much higher for patients with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. However, if IGeneX (see above) is right, and its estimate of 470,000 Lyme disease cases this year is accurate, and if per patient treatment expenses remain in the $12K range, then ticks’ tab for human medical diagnosis and treatment skyrockets to $5.6 billion.

By comparison, the economic impact of tick-borne diseases on livestock is staggering, especially in developing countries. Tick-borne diseases affect 80 % of the world’s cattle population, with an estimated annual cost impact of between $13.9 billion and $18.7 billion. Once considered “benign,” theileriosis is a disease that has beleaguered cattle in Mediterranean regions for some time, and only sporadically in the U.S. But this situation could change rapidly with the recent introduction of the Asian longhorned tick into the U.S.

This Asian tick is an efficient vector of Theileria orientalis, which was detected on East Coast cattle farms a few years ago. Originating from East and Central Asia and first sighted in the U.S. in 2017, the Asian longhorned tick is unique for its ability to reproduce without mating. Currently it is found in 16 states along the southwest and northeast regions of the country: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Update: Tracking Tick-Borne Disease in Missouri

Matt Combes, PhD, Ecological Health Unit Science Supervisor, Missouri Department of Conservation, recently provided Kansas City’s Agricultural Business Council answers to questions about this first-ever tick-tracking research in Missouri.

What prompted the development of a program to trace origin, migration of ticks? Missouri Department of Conservation has noticed an increase in questions and comments about tickborne illnesses from the public. We want folks to enjoy healthy activities on the land we and other agencies manage in the public trust, but concern about tickborne illness stops some folks from participating. So in 2019 we invited folks from Department of Health and Senior Services, county Departments of Public Health, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and university professors to have a discussion about tick research in Missouri. The top information gap identified by the group was simply an accurate map of the distribution of human biting ticks in Missouri. The second gap was the distribution of pathogens that cause human illnesses in tick populations statewide.

What are the dangers of tick-borne diseases? Are they increasing? Ticks vector diseases that affect humans, pets, livestock, and wildlife. Some diseases cause lifelong debilitation in some humans if the disease isn’t detected and treated early. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has extensive resources on its website about tickborne illness (https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/index.html). Ehrlichiosis is a major tickborne illness in Missouri, and national trend data presented on the CDC website indicates that verified reports in 2019 were about 10 times higher than in 2000 (Statistics | Ehrlichiosis | CDC).

What patterns of migration, habitat and species invasion are emerging in various regions of the country? I don’t know much about trends across the country. In Missouri there is a lack of historic data on distributions and abundance patterns of tick species. Anecdotes seem to support that the Lonestar tick moved into Missouri from southeastern states starting in the 1980s, and has become the most abundant human biting tick on the landscape. Gulf Coast tick was transported to NE Oklahoma on cattle about 15 years ago, and has since spread across the southern half of Missouri. The newest tick threat is the non-native Asian longhorned tick. It was confirmed in North America in 2017, and in Missouri in 2021. This tick is parthenogenic (doesn’t need males to reproduce) and can infest livestock in huge numbers. It is known to cause anemia in cattle that can reduce milk production, and transmits bovine theileriosis and babesiosis to cattle in other countries. (More information at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/maps/animal-health/asian-longhorned-tick.)

Is there conventional wisdom and/or proven data about how ticks are migrating? I am not aware of proven data for how ticks migrate. However, the human biting ticks need to feed on host blood (could be many mammal, bird, or reptile species) three times over three years to complete their lifecycle, so increased hosts on the landscape may contribute to their spread. Increased temperatures and higher rainfall in recent decades may also play a role, but I’ve never read a paper that demonstrates anything conclusive about that. Ticks dry out and die if humidity gets too low, so it is reasonable to assume that more ticks survive if humidity is high or vegetation stays wet longer due to more rainfall events.

What is the seriousness of tick-borne disease, and what are the implications for human, pet, livestock and public health? Some diseases cause lifelong debilitation in some humans if the disease isn’t detected and treated early. Newer viral diseases like Heartland virus and Bourbon virus can require hospitalization because symptoms can be severe, but antibiotics are not effective against viruses. I’m not very familiar with pet and livestock issues, but I believe domestic animals are also at risk of tickborne illnesses that can reduce their productivity or even result in death.

What is the structure, operations of the program? History, launch, acceptance, funding, etc? The project is running for 2021 and 2022. The project is a citizen science project where anyone can mail ticks collected in Missouri to our partner lab at A.T. Still University in Kirksville Missouri. Deb Hudman there identifies the ticks to species, and updates a map of results weekly (www.atsu.edu/ticks). Our goal is to test 10 individual adult ticks of the four main human biting species per county for bacteria in the genera Borrelia, Ehrlichia, Francisella, and Rickettsia via polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results of those tests are also posted on the ATSU website as they become available. We are not testing for viral pathogens or alpha-gal (causes red meat allergy).

What are the successes so far? Participation, findings? This has been a very successful citizen science project. In 2021, around 2500 folks submitted more than 12,000 ticks. We are on track to have similar participation in 2022. Another aspect of the success of the project is the large number of radio, television, newspaper, and magazine interviews it has generated as well as invitations to present about ticks at various meetings. We’ve reached a lot of folks and increased their awareness of tickborne illness risk through these outreach opportunities. We have received lone star, American dog, gulf coast, blacklegged, brown dog, rabbit, bat, and winter ticks. We have detected Borrelia lonestari, Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Francisella tularensis, Rickettsia amblyommatis, Rickettsia parkeri,Rickettsia montanensis, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in the ticks tested so far. Ehrlichia sp. is by far the most detected bacteria followed by Rickettsia sp.

How can Council members participate? While we have had great participation from the public on this project, distribution of participation is not even across the state. We have received the most ticks from urban counties, but lack samples from rural counties especially in NW and SE Missouri. We expect Lone Star and American dog ticks to occur in every county of Missouri and would like to test 10 of each species from every county. There is map on the ATSU website that shows from where ticks have been submitted (Missouri ticks and tick-borne pathogen surveillance (atsu.edu)). Tick-sample packaging and mailing instructions are provided on the website.

No Ticks No Country Club Plaza

Maybe there are some other things good you can say about ticks (see opening paragraph of Digging Deeper). If it weren’t for ticks, there would have been no cattle stockyards in Kansas City. Nor a Kansas City at all, for that matter, says John Dillingham, son of Jay B. Dillingham, former president of the Kansas City Stockyards and the Chambers of Commerce for Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. And without ticks, there would have been no Country Club Plaza, either, developer J.C. Nichols once told Jay B.

In the mid-1800s, Texas cattle were driven into Missouri much to the annoyance of local farmers who tried blocking the Texas Longhorns that carried ticks which introduced a host of diseases to ‘Show Me’ livestock. Vigilante groups and cattle rustlers caused problems for drovers, often by means of violence. In 1859, cattle drives were outlawed in many Missouri jurisdictions. That forced Texas drovers to beat paths farther to the west leading into Kansas.

While herd health was a primary concern for Missouri ranchers, economics was top-of-mind for Texas cattlemen. In 1866, cattle in Texas fetched $4 a head while the going rate per head in north and eastern state markets was $40. Civil War obstructions – battles, infrastructure destruction – gave Texans little or no access to more lucrative markets on the eastern and western seaboards. That situation opened up opportunities for developers, entrepreneurs and investors. Stockyards were built in places like Abilene, Kansas. The famous Chisholm Trail cut a swath of territory from West Texas to Kansas enabling drovers to hustle some 2,500 head of cattle on a drive – as did the Texas Trails and railroads like the Union Pacific Railway and the Kansas Railroad.

But even as trails were blazed and railroad track laid, John Dillingham notes, other challenges faced Texas producers and plains states processors. Indigenous tribes and their buffalo and American drovers with their cattle had to share the grazing bounty along the trails. As one might expect, ‘sharing’ might be a polite term that doesn’t describe accurately the conflicts that ensued.

Meanwhile, back in Kansas City, stockyard capacity was expanding, in turn creating jobs, promoting development of neighborhoods, attracting immigrant workers and creating unique communities and cultures. And in no small way, ticks – those parasitic arachnids of the mite superorder Parasitiformes – can take credit for the founding of Kansas City and the development of Country Club Plaza.

How? Because in 1906, the Bureau of Animal Industries’ primary strategy for combating deadly diseases caused by ticks – in particular babesiosis – was to establish permanent tick quarantine zones. BAI is the predecessor of the USDA. One of its initial tactics in battling ticks was to deploy land adjacent to the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. Since Missouri already had taken measures to keep Texas cattle out of the state, the Mighty Mo became the proverbial line-drawn-the-sand. Huge quarantine yards were created in the area around and nearby the West Bottoms. As these facilities expanded, so did the local commercial districts and neighborhoods.

Shrouded History Of Lyme Disease

Coincidence or Conspiracy

As a medical condition Lyme disease is draped in a cloak of mystery. Its symptoms are difficult to diagnose, often not revealing themselves for months after initial exposure. Reliable tests for early stage infections are still under development, since antibodies must be developed first. Once the disease is diagnosed, it can often take years to effectively treat. The difficulties in spotting the disease and treating it, however, are nothing compared to an intriguing explanation of its origins.

The first known case in the U.S. occurred in Wisconsin in 1970, but it was thought to be an isolated incidence and not linked to what eventually would be called Lyme disease. Lyme disease as it is known today was officially recognized in 1975 after unusually large numbers of children were being diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Researchers discovered that most of the affected children lived and played near wooded areas where ticks dwelled. They also found that children's first symptoms typically started in the summer months, the height of tick season.

In 1977 the disease started to be taken seriously when two women residents of Old Lyme reported inexplicable arthritis symptoms. In the early 1980s the actual agent of Lyme disease was identified as a twisted bacteria known as a spirochete. Around that time, public health authorities realized that cases were not isolated and regular surveillance was undertaken for a distinctive rash-erythema chronicum migrans (ECM).

Why Old Lyme?

An upscale community in an affluent state with top notch healthcare systems, Old Lyme was an unlikely place for a mysterious disease outbreak. But maybe not, theorizes Kate Newby, an engineer and science writer for the Stanford School of Medicine. Her 2019 book – Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons – won a 2019 Silver Nautilus Book Award in Journalism & Investigative Reporting and the 2020 International Book Award for narrative nonfiction. Newby also served as senior producer of the Lyme disease documentary Under Our Skin, which aimed to shed light on the Lyme epidemic, the plight of Lyme patients and the intense medical-political controversies surrounding nearly every aspect of the disease. Newby’s research, however, was not the first to uncover intrigue behind the outbreak of Lyme disease. In 2004, Michael Christopher Carroll published a New York Times nonfiction bestseller entitled Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Germ Laboratory.

A key source of information for both authors was American scientist Willy Burgdorfer. One of the world’s preeminent experts on Lyme disease, Burgdorfer claimed he was part of a secret program that sought to turn ticks into bioweapons. He backed up that assertion referring to a paper he had published in 1952 describing the intentional infection of ticks. Burgdorfer further detailed his involvement in the program to Newby only months before he died in 2014. In 2013 filmmaker Tim Grey asked him on camera whether the pathogen he had identified in 1982 as the cause of Lyme disease was the same one he had identified in 1952. Burgdorfer said, “Yes.”

Documents (official and investigative) record outdoor experiments with diseased ticks in the 1950s. And test animals mingled with wild deer, test birds with wild birds. By the 1990s, the eastern end of Long Island, N.Y., had by far the greatest concentration of Lyme disease. But how does Old Lyme figure into the emergence of Lyme Disease? One needs only to look across Long Island Sound from Old Lyme, Connecticut, to Plumb Island, New York. It housed a germ warfare lab to which the US government brought former Nazi germ warfare scientists in the 1940s to work on the same malevolent projects they did under Heinrich Himmler. On Plum Island the germ warfare team frequently conducted its experiments out of doors. It was on an island, so what could go wrong?

Well, for one, deer would swim from the Connecticut mainland to Plum Island to feed, then return to Old Lyme to mingle in its habitat with other animals, insects and wild life. Eventually kids enjoying the outdoors were going to run across a tick or two.