April brings new life. I love watching trees slowly awaken from their winter dormancy—the early color of redbuds followed by the increasing intensity of green hue painting roadside forests. But, everything seems to have happened much earlier this year. It’s not even mid-April and my forsythia bushes are already well past their peak. And, many creatures never really settled in for their usual slumber in the frozen earth. Climate scientists have already noted that this “year without winter” was the warmest on record for many parts of the U.S.
My one-year-old German Shepherd “Rudy” may be one of the best indirect indicators of changing climatic conditions. He was sprayed twice by skunks—where I grew up we called them “polecats”—in early February. Skunks typically stay nestled in their dens during the winter months.
In an unusually warm January day, I was sitting in a rocking chair on my back porch enjoying a hot cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. Rudy nestled contently at my side as I rubbed his head and neck. This peaceful moment of bliss was interrupted as I felt a disgusting lump beneath the thick winter mane on the back of Rudy’s neck. I set down my coffee mug, folded my newspaper, and stood up to inspect what I already knew I would find. After a bit of searching, there it was, a tick—a plump, fully engorged tick. It was easy to pluck off because it had already satisfied its blood-sucking intent and was ready to voluntarily detach and drop free on its own.
What was a tick doing on my dog’s neck in the middle of January? It was supposed to be dormant during the frigid winter months. However, with sustained warm January days, this tick modified its seasonal behavior and sought out a warm-blooded host.
So, what’s the big deal? Most of us appreciate the warmer winter weather. Who cares if ticks, or any other creatures for that matter, emerge early?
I care! Infectious disease specialists care! We all should care!
Disease vectors borne of warmer, wetter climates have the potential to affect us all. Forget the copperhead. Ounce-for-ounce the Lyme-carrying deer tick has become the most fearsome creature in York County. The pinhead size deer tick is much smaller than that plump, juicy tick I pulled from Rudy’s neck, but its impact can be lethal. According to the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), “Lyme disease is caused by an infection with a type of bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is principally transmitted by the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis).”
York County physician Dr. Richard Daly is an expert on Lyme disease—he’s the go-to doc in our area. He tells me that Lyme disease is near epidemic in our region. Dr. Daly volunteers each year with a medical team that travels to Ethiopia under sponsorship of the Living Word Community Church. Dr. Daly is well aware of health impacts related to climate change. “Global climate change is and will be affecting all of us. In the US, we’ve experienced an increase in Lyme disease, allergies, and asthma. Worldwide—as the earth warms—we are seeing increasing distribution of malaria and yellow fever, both spread by specific mosquitoes. As the climate changes, we need to prepare for the changes that will occur.”
Lyme disease is not just a York County problem; it is a concern throughout the middle Atlantic region and beyond. It has already spread into New Hampshire and Maine. Even though Lyme disease has been absent from eastern Canada, a recent report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal predicts that Lyme disease will become commonplace there in coming decades.
A recent report commissioned by the medical journal Lancet in collaboration with the University College London, UK proclaimed “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Among the numerous threats outlined in this report are mosquitoes. The report states, “Mosquitoes responsible for malaria will grow, by accessing warm high altitudes, in places once free of the disease.” Warming temperatures will also allow mosquitoes to spread northward bringing malaria, dengue fever, and other currently tropical diseases with them. We are not immune in North America—dengue fever has now reached from Central America into the northern states of Mexico.
In Italy, the tiny seaside village of Castiglione di Cervia on the northeast coast of the Adriatic Sea has claimed the dubious distinction of hosting the first outbreak of a tropical disease in modern Europe. In 2007, a large number of its 2,000 villages fell ill with high fevers, exhaustion, and excruciating pain. The culprit was chikungunya, a relative of dengue fever normally found in the Indian Ocean. Tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus ) were spreading it. They arrived in southern Italy about a decade earlier from Albania and expanded northward with warming temperatures. Dr. Roberto Bertollini, Director of the World Health Organization’s Health and Environment Program states, “Climate change creates the conditions that make it easier for this mosquito to survive and it opens the door to diseases that didn’t exist here previously. This is a real issue. It is not something a crazy environmentalist is warning about.”
The World Health Organization states, “Climate change poses a major, and largely unfamiliar, challenge.” Recognizing these challenges, The American Medical Association (AMA), American Nurses Association (ANA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and American Public Health Association (APHA), have all issued statements about the human health dangers posed by climate change.
Yes, warmer winters can be nice…but do we want this kind of nice. It is time for all of us to accept what scientists and health care professionals are telling us. We need to address the issue of climate change through well informed, effective public policy. We need to send legislators to Harrisburg and to Washington, DC who make well-informed decisions based on facts, not ones based on entrenched ideologies. Our life depends on it.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pleasant weather.
