Ticked off

An article in The Times was brought to my attention recently and the mere headline managed to raise my heartbeat: ‘We must cull more deer to tackle rise of Lyme disease.’

Deer are to blame, then? Is the author serious? Such an esteemed publication as The Times would not be alarmist, would it?

Study

The article was written after the BMJ (British Medical Journal) reported a study about Lyme disease. A bacterium called borrelia, which some ticks carry, causes Lyme disease. The report suggested the diagnosis of Lyme disease could be as much as three times what was thought. That may sound alarming but the increased estimate is not surprising and not so alarming when