Lyme disease pushes northward and may increase infections this year

Poison the mice and cull the deer (i.e., big mice with antlers) — problem solved.

Climatewire reports:

Lyme disease may surge this year in the northeastern United States and is already spreading into Canada from a confluence of factors including acorns, mice and the climate.

The illness is transmitted from mice and deer to humans via bites from the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis, usually in forested areas. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in the United States.

A deer tick perched on a blade of grass, waiting for a warm-blooded animal to come by.
Ninety-four percent of cases have been concentrated along the Eastern Seaboard and in Wisconsin and Minnesota. There were more than 20,000 confirmed cases in the United States in 2010, according to the most recent data available.

But now the disease is spreading in unprecedented ways, and public health officials from the United States and Canada are investigating methods to anticipate where it will spring up next…