I want to ask you about Lyme disease.

Sure.

Lyme disease is a scary one, right?

And I mean, so many of my friends in the East Coast have it.

It's really terrifying that that that part of the country in particular, seems to be, like, really badly infected with these These ticks that carry this disease, what can people do to prevent that?

And what what can we There's no vaccine for Lyme disease.

And I know there was at one point, but people were having an issue with ah, mean ah.

Ah, good friend of mine.

Her dad actually got Lyme disease from the vaccine her before they discontinued it.

Um, what can someone do to sort of, ah, protect themselves?

Yeah, Well, Lyme disease in of itself is a fascinating story.

I've actually been involved with it since its early discovery in the 19 eighties and Minnesota, Wisconsin was a big focus, the upper Midwest.

And this is a story that I think you'll find interesting is, is that even though it was discovered primarily in the eastern part of United States named after Lyme, Connecticut, it's a disease that actually probably originated in the upper Midwest.

And I tell you that because it turns out that there is a focus.

In northern Wisconsin, in east central Minnesota, where there's Lyme disease, there's another disease called Anna Plas Moses.

There's another disease, maybe Zia et cetera, that all seemed to have a similar kind of tick human, dear kind of component.

And back in the er CCC days of the 19 thirties, the white tailed deer population had been virtually totally depopulated from the Northeast.

And so they actually trapped here in northern Wisconsin and took him out and deposited in New York and Connecticut and so forth.

And most of those deer are actually dear that, you know, today they're great, great great great great grandfather came from Wisconsin.

Wow.

And guess what when you move dearie and move ticks?

Fact.

I was involved with the study that the Wisconsin Division of Health did in a colleague of mine, a late Jeff Davis where up in northern Wisconsin, that's dear, would come into the check station.

They would actually measure the number of ticks that were attached to the nape of the neck, okay, and they had a lot of thing drawn and they asked hunters who were driving back to Madison and Milwaukee if they would be willing to check in at the station down there for just a second.

And then they're gonna count the ticks again.

And it turned out that as the vehicles come rolling down from Highway 51 from northern Wisconsin, get on the Interstate 90 94 go to Milwaukee Madison.

The techs just kept falling off.

By the time they get to Madison and Milwaukee, the ticks for almost all gone Well, guess loan.

Behold where all of Lyme disease.

So four start to show up right along the interstate quarter because the ticks for coming off and then they were getting into the local deer in that population.

And so it's exactly, you said, the texture moving.

They're moving.

Okay, they've moved, and they're now infected.

So I think that that this Lyme disease issue is a key one.

Lyme disease is really important disease.

It's really no question about it.

The challenge we have is that there's a lot of people that assume that they have chronic Lyme infection, and you know, the data on that is just really reeling out there the support that these people are chronically infected, but they do have an immune response likely that occurs where it sets up this trigger.

And so they're sick.

They actually have something, but it's not treating it again for the bacteria infection.

It's the fact that this body, your bone body's immune systems we've talked about several times.

Today it starts attacking you site.

I think it's a similar picture.

We see the chronic fatigue syndrome, same kind of thing.

Thes people really are sick.

They really do have problems, but it's not something you can treat.

So when people I have a challenge, because when people take I v antibiotics that extended periods of time for Lyme disease, you know the data show four different studies not have been done where people have had what we call a double blind control, possible controlled trial where half got the drug have got ivy but no drug.

And it turned out all four of these studies and Lyme disease.

The people who got the just the placebo did just the same as the people who got the drug, and I worry that we're using antibiotics a lot there and this is where I just mentioned really about Cluster.

Um, Difficile.

We accept a patient, but it sort of the died from the i V treatment for what was chronic Lyme disease and wouldn't have been helpful.

And so we need a lot more research in the Syria of here at what are these people getting?

What is it that we can shut off so that they don't have this chronic Lyme disease picture knowing that it's not actually just you had a treated more treatments that could help him with the antibiotics anymore.

And so I think that that's an area that we just need a lot more working.

And the numbers are growing as you know.

Yeah, so we don't We don't know what's happening.

Well, there's We have enough data to say your immune system is really cranked up, but her immune system is playing something.

Yeah, it's like rheumatoid arthritis.

A lot of things were, you know, we, you know, thank God for immune system is what fights off all the bad things we have.

But sometimes that immune system gets turned down too much, and then it takes on us, okay?

And that goes back to the Corona virus.

That's why a lot of these people are dying right now.

Is this over vigorous immune response?

And Lyme disease is kind of that in same inciting event where we have evidence now that you could be infected with the bacteria.

But if we treat you, it's not like it's like every other back.

Sure, you can really get rid of it, but you still have this chronic illness that's occurring.

And what I think it's hard is is that we see people who have this who are desperate to have somebody understand what they have, and they end up going to people who take real advantage of clinicians who charge him an arm and a leg for things that are not going to help him.

And what we need is a lot more research on what is actually going on.

And what kind of drugs can we usedto reverses immune system disorder?

I have ah, friend of mine who's a UFC fighter, Jim Miller, and he's He's got Lyme disease, and it's pretty bad when he takes a stack of pills.

I don't know what he takes every day.

Yeah, what do you think someone is taking And what what what benefit would they get from that?

I couldn't help it.

I mean, I'm not without knowing what's there, but again, more often than not if he's been adequately treated, Um, it's not that the bacteria still growing in him like it might be for a lot of it's an autoimmune.

It's autoimmune.

Which Israel?

I mean, that's the other thing is, I think these people just want to be legitimized and said, You know, I'm really sick, right?

And I'm not.

It's not something I'm mentally ill about, whatever.

But then we've got a few out.

What is it you have?

And so we really don't know.

We don't know yet.

We don't know.

Wow, but it's been around for so long, I know, but this is where we need a little research about this in terms of what is it that's making these people like this and this is really important, And is there anything they can do to eradicate the text?

You know that this is another thing you'll find interesting.

Um, in Minnesota, prior to the arrival of the first white man, the Native Americans burnt much far state all the time.

the prairies for much of the territory, and even in northern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota.

We had the classic, you know, pine forest fire, wood, white throat.

And with that, it would open up so much of the forest that you'd have a very different kind of mammal's population, Dear et cetera, et cetera.

And with the suppression of fire, what's happened is we now have instead of having these old growth for us, we have all this younger, you know, non pine or any kind of like The oak trees of the upper Midwest are all disappearing because oak trees need sunlight and fires.

What kept there were very resistant to fire, and so the old oak forests and so forth would would survive because of fire.

Whereas today, with no fire, you know, the elms and the maples and everything else comes in and the Buckhorn and all that kind of stuff and takes over.

So so what's happening is in our state of Minnesota is we have a really good example of this is we're losing our moose, and the big primary reason is brain worm.

It's rain, more rain room.

It's a type of parasite that's common a white tailed deer but causes no problems in moves.

It actually causes the brain infection that kills him.

And guess why it's happening.

Because the deer range has moved farther and farther north in Minnesota, the has moved farther in north 1,000,000 Minnesota because of lack of fire because the force is changing.

So now where they're only used to be moves, we're seeing deer and moose.

And where that intersection is, we're starting to see Moose developed this brain worm infection because it's from the deer.

So the tick population has changed, too.

And it's largely due to the fire lack of fire in many places in the Northeast.

Never used to be like it was We had fire all the time.

That would clear out these areas, and it was just part of natural everything.

So So one of the challenge we have with ticks is there here, we're not gonna change how we live.

Suburbs and trees and all that good controlled burns eliminate a lot of them.

They do, because what they do is they just eliminate the ticks.

But what they do is they eliminates.

For example, the white field mice are in all these different species that are important to the ticks, and then they bring in different species that will will be there.

So I mean, this is a big debate in Minnesota right now.

I mean, we're losing all these musta brain work.

Ironically, the moose her population is expanding dramatically.

I'll royal.

Why?

Because there's no deer out there and so they're not getting brain worm out there.

So people have said, you know, we're gonna lose our moves Well, so it's the deer.

So So fire actually has helped the moose in areas of northern Minnesota where there's been a lot of fire, the moose populations growing because the deer or not there because exactly those mammals, those rodents and so forth are very different in burned out areas.

And they are in in non burnt out areas.

Well, they do controlled burns in some states.

I gotta have a friend who was hunting and Washington State a couple years ago, and he said it was really weird because there's these massive fires in the distance that were actually being control.

They do it on purpose.

Yeah, which is a lot better than having the out of control fires where you have so much fuel.

Yeah, and you, if you haven't had a porous fire in 8500 years in an area, the fuel and there's huge and so actually do that in northern Minnesota.

Two of their doing controlled burns and the prairies.

Of course, we do controlled burns all the time.

But the problem with the East Coast is you're dealing with a lot of these sort of almost residential areas that have all these ticks.

You can't get in there.

You can't there.

We have to find ways.

That's that's where we really have to have vaccines and treatments for these diseases.

Rocky, get rid of the ticks.

So we have to do is figure out.

I mean, wouldn't be incredibly have a cocktail vaccine for male, maybe Zia for Lyme disease for and that's we need.

Is there any kind of an animal that eats ticks?

Birds have birds will eat him, but not enough, not enough.

No, no, no, they're They're doing very well, thank you.

Tics do very well.

And that's another issue, you know, for some of the larger mammals is you know, tick predation can get so heavy, particularly in in certain times of the year.

That really, literally takes a lot of blood on.

These are generals, even though they're so big.

Yeah, a lot went down a rabbit hole the other day online, and I saw this one dear that was covered in these Frisbee sized hatches of text.

That's exactly all swollen also, and they're full of blood and it happens day after day so that it is a hit on him.

It's a real hit on him to pull up a picture of that freak People out there watching online.

Just They need to see this.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing.

It's one of those things that when you talk about ticks and you talk about Lyme disease, most people, their eyes glaze over.

They don't even care.

It's not affecting me until someone in your family has it.

Um, does a guy that I know who was a former UFC fighter markets Davis, who he put He had his wife got Lyme disease, and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying Thio trying to help burn and do something about in treatments and all these different things for Yeah, it's a it's a real challenge.

It's a challenge.

And this is another area again.

You know, when you think about the money, we lose and just lost time, let alone pain and suffering out.

What an investment to make in this I mean this.

This is the kind of thing.

This is where infectious diseases really need to run the sons.

I mean, well, we do a lot here.

We pulled up a chart of the United States where they showed the areas that air affected by these ticks.

And what what percentage of ticks carry Lyme disease they've tested.

And some places in the North east.

It's in the 60%.

Exactly.

Yeah, it is.

It's huge, and it's growing.

And it's going.

I mean, you mean you and understand how wildlife has changed.

I mean, look, att To think that we have all these wild coyote populations in New York City?