Lyme Disease Support Group

Lyme disease experts head for Toronto; Region sweeps our forests

By Kim Zarzour

Oct 21, 2011 - 5:00 PM

GOOD TO KNOW:

A York Region support group is being formed for those concerned about Lyme disease.

The first meeting is scheduled for

Nov. 2, 9:30 to 11 a.m.

Sunset Grill,

1500 Elgin Mills Rd. E. in Richmond Hill.

For more information, e-mail jvaccaro-chang@rogers.com

For info on Lyme and how to avoid it, visit http://www.york.ca/Services/Public+Health+and+Safety/ lymedisease.htm or http://www.ontario.ca/lyme or www. canlyme.com

One might wonder how anything so tiny could cause controversy so huge.

The deer tick may be barely visible to the naked eye — about the size of a sesame seed — but the bug can carry with it Lyme disease and a boatload of misery and controversy.

This month, that host of ills is front and centre as York Region politicians and municipalities lend their voice to concerns over the disease, health officials scour local forests for signs of it, and medical experts from around the world converge in Toronto to discuss how it can be beat.

Lyme disease is an illness caused by the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria spread through the bite of an infected black-legged tick. Symptoms can include a bull’s-eye rash, fatigue, fever, headache, muscle and joint pain and swollen lymph nodes.

Quick treatment with antibiotics is critical for recovery, but some say that debates over testing and diagnosis have left many Canadians misdiagnosed, chronically ill and paying for treatment outside the country to try to recover their lost health.

Jessica Taliana became active in the fight for better ways to deal with the disease after both her children became infected.

The Woodbridge resident told a York Region Council of Health and Community Services meeting this week that Lyme is spreading seven times faster than AIDS and West Nile put together.

“You have a province full of angry, upset people who feel helpless, hopeless and abandoned by their own health care.”

Not everyone shares those views, though.

Ministry of Health records show relative stable numbers in Ontario, about 100 cases per year over the past four years.

Spokesman Andrew Morrison said infected ticks are much more common in the United States, compared to the relatively limited areas in southern and eastern Ontario locations where it can be found, along the north shores of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, plus the St. Lawrence River.

But Jim Wilson, with the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, suggests the numbers are much higher, but hidden because of Canada’s reliance on faulty testing.

Dr. Daniel Cameron, past president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, says the incidence of Lyme is growing in Canada, [b]especially in Ontario, spreading via migrating songbirds which carry on average 1.5 deer ticks on every bird crossing the U.S. border.

The U.S.-based society holds its annual conference in Toronto next week, the first time in Canada.[/b]

“Lyme is a political disease,” said Rosanna Magnotta, whose husband Gabe passed away after suffering from Lyme for years.

Mr. Magnotta, owner of Magnotta Winery in Vaughan, went undiagnosed under Canada’s two-stage blood test until the infection was too entrenched in his body to be overcome, she says.

A sold-out fundraiser in Mr. Magnotta’s memory held in Richmond Hill Sept. 30 raised nearly $6,000 for the cause.

At the same time, a petition by MPP Bob Bailey, calling for better testing, training of doctors and public awareness, is garnering support, endorsed this week by Newmarket and Richmond Hill councils.

( To read and sign the petition visit www.bobbaileympp.com )

Vaughan, Markham, Aurora and East Gwillimbury have also lent their support to the petition, as have several federal politicians including Frank Klees and Julian Fantino, according to Richmond Hill’s Josephine Vaccaro-Chang, one of the fundraiser organizers.

It is not certain exactly how prevalent Lyme is in York Region. This month, the region is scheduled to begin tick sampling in two York Region forests.

A flannel cloth will be dragged through vegetation and leaf litter and black-legged ticks will be submitted to the federal lab for Lyme disease testing.

York’s medical officer of health, Dr. Karim Kurji, says some of the concerns among Lyme activists may be valid. Not all doctors are well-educated on Lyme and the tests may not be picking up all the strains, he says.

Between 2005 and 2011, 14 cases were reported in the region, none contracted here, he said. However those numbers reflect only those cases reported to public health, he said, and don’t include those diagnosed with different tests outside of the country.

But Dr. Kurji would not comment on Canada’s testing protocol.

“That is not the area where we are the experts,” he said, adding the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta and Canadian Public Health Laboratory Network support current testing.

“It is quite a controversial field,” he said.

The region is doing its best to raise awareness, he said, and he understands the concerns of those who were not diagnosed in time.

“They did not receive antibiotics they needed and suffered badly or their families suffered badly. We are sympathetic to that.”

http://www.yorkregion.com/community/community/article/ 1230282

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