Recognizing Lyme Disease

In 2005, only three Massachusetts counties- Barnstable County and Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard- have information on lyme disease 20 cases per 100,000. Last year, seven counties exceeded those rates.

Extremely high rates for Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are artificially inflated because they are based on low, full-time populations, while cases are counted among the tens of thousands of tourists, Dr. Waite said.

Growing numbers of Lyme disease cases in the small towns of Brimfield, Holland and Wales brought about 450 people for a free blood test in Brimfield and Wales in April. The test was part of a Harvard School of Public Health study.

Connecticut also is tracking the cases of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis, another deer-tick-borne disease, but this one is having a more severe effect on people 50 and older. Its symptoms include severe headache, fever, malaise, nausea and vomiting.

The disease is not reportable yet in Massachusetts, although health officials have confirmed 10 cases to date, mostly on the Cape and Islands.

Connecticut, where the disease is reportable, has recorded 308 cases since 1995, 30 of them in Windham County.

But for all the statistics and surveillance, there is nothing that can be done to stop the deer ticks from crossing the state line into Webster, Dudley and Southbridge, according to Dr. Waite.

He said the only weapon residents have is prevention and vigilance.

“Look funny, tuck your pants into your socks when venturing outside. And check your children head to toe every single evening from March to October,” Dr. Waite advised.

“Deer ticks don't respect state lines.”

Research put Dr. Waite in movie limelight, briefly

The discovery of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the Southwest in 2005 was the deciding factor in Dr. Douglas C. Waite's decision to specialize in infectious diseases.

He had completed a general internal medicine residency at University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and was working at the Crown Point Indian Health Center on the Navaho Reservation in New Mexico.

A man and woman who had been living together died at the health center of unexplained pulmonary complications.

“I had seen both of the patients and remembered an internist at another hospital who had had a death or two,” he said.

“We spoke on the phone about it and thought something is odd here,” Dr. Waite said. He called the state DPH, which contacted the CDC (Centers for Disease Control).''

The result was the first recognition of hanta virus, a rare but deadly virus carried in the droppings of deer mice.

“That solidified my interest in infectious disease,” said Dr. Waite, who returned to the University of Massachusetts Medical School for a fellowship in infectious diseases.

It also led to a brief, if inaccurate, movie moment. In the movie Outbreak,'' actor Dustin Hoffman is yelling about CDC hantavirus researchers in an obscenity-laced tirade when he mentions Doug Waite.''

“I was employed by the Indian Health Service, not the CDC,” Dr. Waite said with a laugh at the mention of his name in the movie. “I suppose a screenwriter must have just taken a name from a newspaper story on hanta virus.”

Lyme Disease