It's tick season, possibly the worst in a decade.More and more Americans are being exposed to these parasites as climate change expands the range where they can survive.That means more people are also exposed to the bevy of health conditions they can cause, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the alpha-gal-triggered red meat allergy, and, most common of all, Lyme disease.For the latter, there may be some additional protection on the horizon.
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Valneva announced this spring that they plan to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine to protect against Lyme disease.A previous vaccine for Lyme became available in the late 1990s but was pulled only three years later due to lawsuits, public fear of side effects, and a lack of interest.It's unclear whether this latest stab at a Lyme disease vaccine will get a warmer reception if it's approved, especially in the post-COVID era of vaccine skepticism.For a sense of how it might go over with rural populations at high risk of Lyme, KFF Health News spoke with a group of hunters.Few people spend more time in the woods exposed to ticks.
At the same time, as a collective, hunters skew conservative, rural, and male, according to a survey from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.And these are identities associated with increased hesitancy about or resistance to vaccines, according to Ashley Kirzinger, associate director for Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.For the latest stories on the science of healthy living, subscribe to NPR's Health newsletter.Left untreated, Lyme can cause a variety of symptoms, from fevers, chills, and headaches to arthritis, shooting pains, and inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 476,000 people in the U.S.may be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, the CDC says; that's at least in part because the rang...