Word: lyme
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...bigger than a freckle, the tiny deer tick has sown panic from Montauk to Minneapolis as a carrier of Lyme disease -- an illness that has struck more than 71,000 Americans and left hundreds permanently disabled. Now the minuscule pest is causing even greater alarm. Scientists say deer ticks harbor yet another pathogen, which, unlike the one responsible for Lyme disease, can-in rare cases-actually kill a person in a matter of days...
...Relief may be at hand for the needle-phobic: researchers have created a nasal spray that vaccinates mice against Lyme disease. Sprays protecting humans against such diseases as diarrhea and pneumonia are next...
That same year, however, saw the first of the diseases to come--with the outbreak of Lyme disease. Legionnaire's disease emerged in 1978, toxic-shock syndrome in 1978, AIDS in 1983, and chronic-fatigue syndrome in 1985, to name a few. Malaria re-emerged. Today, dengue and yellow are spreading. Instead of improving, the virulence of disease seems only to have entered a new stage...
Disease seem always to spring from disruption in the accustomed order. Lyme disease, for example, was caused by the overpopulation of deer which followed a change in the habitat...
Sometimes environmental changes help microbes move from animals to humans. Lyme disease, a bacterial infection, was largely confined to deer and wild mice until people began converting farmland into wooded suburbs -- which provided equally good habitats for the animals and the bacteria-infested ticks they carry and also brought them into contact with large numbers of people. The mice that transmit the hantavirus often take refuge in farmers' fields, barns and even homes. Air-conditioning ducts create a perfect breeding ground for Legionnaires' disease bacteria. Irrigation ditches and piles of discarded tires are ideal nesting spots for the Aedes aegypti...