For those active around deer ticks, an article from the journal Science. I have known a couple of people who had serious reactions to Lyme disease.

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A hope for Lyme disease? New vaccine targets ticks
mRNA vaccine could prevent other tickborne illnesses, promising animal study suggests

Erol Fikrig had spent 10 years pursuing a vaccine that would take a new approach to protecting people from Lyme disease, a growing bane in the United States: He wanted to target not the pathogen, but the tick that transmits it. Then, at a June 2019 meeting in Killarney, Ireland, he heard immunologist Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania describe what was then a little-known technology: messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. In a flash, Fikrig saw a way forward. The Yale School of Medicine infectious disease physician collared Weissman and asked whether the technology might work against the deer tick that transmits Lyme disease in the United States. “I’d like to pursue that,” Fikrig recalls Weissman saying.

MRNA technology is now famous for delivering vaccines against COVID-19, and this week it achieved another distinction with an experimental Lyme preventive announced by the collaboration launched in Ireland. “It’s the first vaccine [intended for humans] against an infectious disease that does not target the pathogen,” Fikrig says. The mRNA vaccine, administered to guinea pigs, turned tick bites red and inflamed. The ticks fed poorly, fell off early, and often failed to transmit the Lyme-causing bacterium. Researchers hope the vaccine will one day work the same way in humans.

It’s “a beautiful study,” says Ruth Montgomery, a cellular immunologist at Yale who was not involved with the work. “Potentially a mechanism like this could be very important in a number of tick-borne diseases.”

Others are impressed by the team’s technological feat. The researchers packed 19 distinct mRNA snippets, each encoding a protein, or antigen, from deer tick saliva, into a single vaccine; COVID-19 mRNA vaccines deliver just one. “The mRNA vaccine saved us from COVID for sure,” says microbiologist Jorge Benach of Stony Brook University, who co-discovered Borrelia burgdorferi, the tick-borne spirochete that causes Lyme disease. “Now [Fikrig] is using stunning technology … with more than one antigen simultaneously. … I think it will be very very useful for future vaccines.”

In the United States, Lyme disease is the most common infection transmitted from animals to people, with up to 476,000 cases each year. B. burgdorferi triggers a flulike illness and trademark skin rash, and can also invade the brain, nerves, heart, and joints, sometimes leading to permanent nerve damage and arthritis. “For some people Lyme disease can cause major problems,” says Adriana Marques, who runs Lyme disease trials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Antibiotics can treat Lyme disease in its early stages, but a growing number of people—at least 1.6 million in 2020, according to one estimate—now suffer chronic consequences. No human vaccine is currently available, although one is in human trials.

That vaccine targets B. burgdorferi itself, but Fikrig thought a vaccine aimed at targeting the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) might stymie the bacteria. Tick saliva secretes agents that help transmit the pathogen, but those proteins are “difficult to make in the lab,” Fikrig says. “The beauty of the mRNA vaccine is … you don’t need to make the protein—the body does that for you.”

In many people, tick bites go unnoticed, allowing ticks to feed uninterrupted. The new vaccine, with its multiple mRNA snippets that order host cells to make important tick salivary proteins, primed the guinea pigs’ immune systems to react to a tick bite. Within 18 hours after the ticks attached, most bites were transformed into red, inflamed, and likely itchy wounds, according to work published today in Science Translational Medicine.

That’s important because B. burgdorferi is rarely transmitted from tick to host before 36 hours into a tick meal that often lasts 4 days or more. And when scientists pulled ticks off soon after the bite site became inflamed—as a human might do—the transmission of B. burgdorferi was blocked.

“Everybody should look at these as very, very promising results,” says epidemiologist Sam Telford of Tufts University.

Still, much of the protection will probably hinge on whether people notice an itchy, red, tick bite and manage to pull the tick off early. When three infected ticks were attached and allowed to feed on guinea pigs until they were sated, 60% of vaccinated animals became infected, almost as many as control animals. And whether vaccinated people will react to the ticks as the guinea pigs do remains an open question. “Responding to the bite is really, really a cool thing,” says Uğur Şahin, CEO of BioNTech, which with Pfizer developed an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. “We have to see if it holds true when translated into the human situation.”

Scientists note that a successful human vaccine, which would need a pharmaceutical company sponsor, could also protect people from other, rarer pathogens also transmitted by the deer tick, such as babesiosis. A vaccine might also induce a reaction to other tick species, such as those that transmit Lyme disease in Europe.

Benach thinks the new vaccine might also have to be loaded with mRNA that targets the pathogen. “I would like to see it supplemented with pathogen [mRNA] because it’s the pathogen that … makes you ill,” he says.

Telford, who has spent years working in communities with high Lyme disease burdens, hopes the vaccine will offer one solution to a growing problem: “People are fed up with tick bites. People are fed up with Lyme disease. They want something done.”

Meredith Wadman
Author

LINK

That's great news. I have several friends that got knocked on their ass by Lyme disease

quote:

mRNA vaccine could prevent other tickborne illnesses

For up to 3 months. Then boosters are required. [/Sarcasm]

My wife "had" lyme disease. We were always told once you had it, it was a lifetime deal. It may rise and fall, but would always be present.

She did a heavy course of treatment that included a PIC line for 30 days, and self delivery of meds daily. Was very involved, and was rough for about 2 months, BUT, no disease remains.

Was life changing, and was very thankful for it.

When we get ticks on us, we automatically do doxy for 10-14 days, but, sometimes, you just don't know the stupid tick is, or ever was on you.

Lyme can be debilitating, would be very nice to make it a thing of the past.

There is already a good lyme vaccine.

"The vaccine, called LYMERix, was licensed in 1998. By 2002 SmithKline Beecham had withdrawn it from the market, and Pasteur Mérieux Connaught decided not to apply for a license for its own Lyme vaccine candidate, despite having already demonstrated its efficacy in a Phase III clinical trial."

Also your vet can give your dog a lyme vaccine which may be LYMERix. Good luck talking him into giving you a shot.

There is no reason for this mRNA crap.

I had LYMERix vaccine shots 20+ years ago.

The mRNA vaccine saved us from COVID for sure,” says microbiologist Jorge Benach

Its funny how they’re following a rigorous trial protocol for this instead of rushing to production. They really should have left the above little bit of false propaganda out of their pitch.

How you gonna get the deer to line up for their shots? Will we need to require vaccination passports for all wild life?

I don't know about you guys, but I DON'T need a vaccine to make a tick bite turn red and itch - my body does that pretty much immediately! In fact, the itch factor of the little bastards kicks in when they first start crawling on me. I then proceed with immediate removal and prompt execution of said critter.

They said I tested positive for Lyme disease around 2000 when I found a dead tick on the back of my leg.

The Specialists wanted a lot of money to treat me so I bought a book on Lyme disease and I was already taking the nutrition supplements they recommended.

There is no way I would ever take mRNA vaccine.

And this year, I have not seen one tick. Maybe the turkeys are eating them.

To me it's always been such a scary thing, growing up in Virginia and Florida ticks are numerous. My mom would come out hair at night and I'd routinely find them in me in the shower.

To think such a simple thing wouldn't have a vaccine at this point is crazy but just goes to show you how wild nature is.

Progress is always good.

This article smells like bullshit. Just another attempt to prostitute credibility to a failing medical experiment. I heard on the radio last week this the Covid jab also can prevent Alzheimers.

We will find out in 2022 when we see how folks with Lyme that received the Covid jab feel.

My boss has Lyme and he took the jabs in May and July. Still has significant joint pain so it apparently did nothing to alleviate his symptoms.

I've had and been treated for Lyme disease 8 times and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever 5 times.

My first time, I had both at the same time and was deathly sick. Each recurring time the effects lessened, although the symptoms were very prominent.

In addition, to the actual Lyme disease or RMSF, the effects of the antibiotics at the last part of taking them is terrible.

Since having so many cases of tick disease, I think has caused my joint pain/arthritis.

While I should view the Lyme vaccine as good news, I remain as skeptical on that as I do the Covid vaccines.

So, they came up with another avenue to promote sticking experimental mRNA into you.

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
This article smells like bullshit. Just another attempt to prostitute credibility to a failing medical experiment. I heard on the radio last week this the Covid jab also can prevent Alzheimers.

We will find out in 2022 when we see how folks with Lyme that received the Covid jab feel.

My boss has Lyme and he took the jabs in May and July. Still has significant joint pain so it apparently did nothing to alleviate his symptoms.

Is this an attempt at humor that I am missing?

That they are talking about "mRNA vaccines" for Lyme and Alzheimer's does not mean they are talking about using a COVID vaccine for Lyme and Alzheimer's.

mRNA is essentially instructions for making proteins. The COVID vaccines include mRNA that is instructions for making some of the surface proteins on COVID viruses. mRNA vaccines for other diseases would use totally different mRNA sequences.

It's like recipes just got invented and you're saying "everyone's been using a spaghetti recipe to make spaghetti. Now people are talking about using recipes to make pizza and hamburgers. Let's see if people who try to make spaghetti end up with pizza and hamburgers, too. I know someone who made spaghetti and didn't get pizza."

At least 35 years too late for me

The book I used was "The Top 10 Lyme Disease Treatments".

https://www.amazon.com/Top-Lym...tional/dp/0976379716

You can find a used copy on Ebay for about $5.

Well, unlike the COVID stuff it seems likely that this will go through more extended trials. I guess we'll see what happens when it does.

quote:

And when scientists pulled ticks off soon after the bite site became inflamed—as a human might do—the transmission of B. burgdorferi was blocked.

OTOH, this sort of stuff (scientists aren't human?) doesn't necessarily induce confidence in scientists' sense of responsibility.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
So, they came up with another avenue to promote sticking experimental mRNA into you.

That's what I was thinking.
The demand will be there from those who have never seen a mRNA vaccine they didn't like.

I know several people who are cured of Lyme disease. Lots of antibiotic treatment as well as a host of other treatments… All of these people had access to a lot of resources, but I know it’s possible. If they can, you should try.

A sibling has Lyme disease got it ten days ago.

If deer are bedding down in your yard
MOW your effing grass.

If long grass is available they will go over there.

The ticks get in the grass from the deer,
Then
When you mow
They crawl up your shoes and socks and on too your legs.

He had to demand a Lyme disease test at the E.R.

He's glad he did.