Area Works to Prevent Lyme Disease
Excerpted from My Fox ( Posted: 10/28/2010 )
BY BETH PARKER/myfoxdc
COLUMBIA, Md. – When Harriet Oliver heads out on an early morning walk in her Columbia neighborhood, she knows her dog Daisy won’t be the only fury creature around.
“I’ll see 12, 15, 20 deer,” says Oliver.
A lot of people are crossing paths with deer and where there are deer, there are ticks.
Oliver says she always checks her grandchildren for ticks after they’ve been outside. It’s gotten so bad that one neighbor complained to Shari Zaret, who represents the Kings Contrivance community on the Columbia Association Board of Directors.
The neighbors said in a community of 26 houses there were 22 cases of Lyme disease.
For Zaret, it’s personal.
“I experienced neurological Lyme disease. It affected the spinal cord. I was unable to walk. They didn’t really know what happened to me,” said Zaret.
Five years after her diagnosis, she is helping to push forward a program to help others. Columbia’s setting up deer tick stations. The corn in the station attracts the deer. What looks like paint rollers have a pesticide on it.
“Their skin or fur rubs up against this and the tick-a-cide is then applied to the areas of the deer where they’re most found – around the head, neck, ears,” said Sean Harbaugh of Columbia Association.
For the full article and video: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/area-works-to-prevent-lyme-disease-102810
Lyme Handbook 