Ticks carry more diseases than you might think

For most people, any thought of tick-borne infections starts and stops with Lyme disease, an illness that afflicts about 40,000 Americans each year. But ticks are much more infectious—and much more pernicious—than that. The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists 22 diseases carried by multiple species of ticks across the country.

Never heard of alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat that can be triggered by a tick bite? Up to 3% of all Americans may carry alpha-gal antibodies, indicating they’ve been infected (at least asymptomatically). Then there’s anaplasmosis. Spread by the black-legged tick, it can lead to fever, headache, muscle pain, chills, and, in an unlucky few, encephalitis, or brain inflammation, requiring hospitalization. There’s also babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Powassan virus disease, and many more. After reporting on tick-borne diseases this week, here are my takeaways:

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