Kerry thinks he's developed a better test to diagnose the illness.

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Lyme disease

Kerry thinks he's developed a better test to diagnose the illness.

http://jacksonville.com/lifestyles/health_and_fitness/2009-05-19/story/unf_profe\

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By Story updated at 5:16 PM on Tuesday, May. 19, 2009

" Tick-borne Disease Research Area - Please Do Not Enter, " the sign says on the

front door of Kerry 's University of North Florida office.

If that's not enough of a deterrence, there are always the photographs of

Florida's three most common tick species blown up to larger-than-life

proportions.

But it's worth poking inside the seemingly menacing door if only to meet

and listen to his story.

" It's like a great mystery, " said.

The villain of his story is Lyme disease, a poorly understood illness that's

spread by tick bites to tens of thousands of Americans each year. After a decade

of paltry funding and suffering countless tick bites himself, the 40-year-old

epidemiology professor has reached a scientific breakthrough that stands to

revolutionize the way doctors diagnose and treat Lyme.

In addition, his toil has revealed an unsettling message for the people of

Florida and other parts of the South: Lyme-carrying ticks are spreading the

illness here at vastly higher rates than what public health statistics and

experts have suggested.

Disease's spread

Lyme disease follows a perplexing arc that begins with a bull's eye-shaped rash

and vague, flu-like symptoms. Without treatment, Lyme digs in deep, progressing

to potentially disabling effects, like severe arthritis, fatigue, numbness in

the hands or feet and neurological problems.

The vast majority of the more than 265,000 cases of Lyme disease reported since

1993 have come from the Northeast and upper Midwest.

That's a conservative number. Scientists think there are seven to 12 cases for

each one that is reported. And even that dire-sounding estimate may be too low.

Only about 40 percent of positive cases are getting detected by traditional

diagnostic tools, which test the body's reaction to the Lyme bacteria,

said.

thinks that his test, which involves looking for Lyme's DNA in the

victim's blood, is a more accurate way of detecting the disease.

For many, an inaccurate test is a life-changer.

Caught early, the Lyme bacteria usually can be wiped out with antibiotics. But

many cases go undetected for years because people, though sick, often don't know

they've been bitten by a tick or don't develop the tell-tale rash.

Not safe in the South

People like Dane Boggs. For a decade, Boggs, a home builder, felt tired all the

time and his joints hurt. But his symptoms were mild, so he figured they were

merely the side effects of getting older.

Things got worse, though, after he was bitten by a tick on a job site in

Atlantic Beach five years ago. He now thinks that his previous decade of

troubles were caused by a tick bite that went unnoticed.

The double whammy of bites nearly crippled him, he said.

" My immune system was kind of fighting it off for 10 years, but when I got bit

[the second time], that's when I got super-sick, " Boggs said. " I just wanted to

go to bed all the time. It was like an 18-wheeler ran over my body. "

The Ponte Vedra Beach man retired early to devote all his time to fighting the

illness. He took powerful antibiotics for two years with little improvement. So

he turned to an alternative therapy that uses electrical frequencies to zap

microscopic invaders like Lyme disease.

Today, the 55-year-old is healthy, though he cautions his results from the

alternative treatment probably aren't the norm. After his battle, Boggs

co-founded a research and support organization called the Northeast Florida Lyme

Association.

" Nobody even believes Lyme disease is in Florida. But it does exist, and a lot

of people are sick, " said Boggs, who has found a sympathetic ear and a NEFLA

board member in Kerry .

Finding new strains

's research has revealed that Lyme disease is much more common in Florida

than previously known.

State disease-surveillance efforts confirmed 88 cases last year, 11 of which are

believed to have originated in the state. But has found the Lyme bacteria

in virtually every corner of the state, including hordes on the First Coast.

The perception that the South doesn't have a Lyme problem has biological roots.

In the Northeast, mice are the primary reservoir of the Lyme bacteria, known

among scientists as Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. But in the South, lizards

are ticks' prime target. And since studies in California showed that reptiles

were poor reservoirs, many scientists concluded that the South was relatively

safe.

But 's studies of lizards in South Carolina and Florida revealed that 54

percent were positive for Lyme disease. That research petered out because of a

lack of funding - a frequent complaint of 's - but it led him to perfect

what he believes to be the most sensitive testing method yet for the disease.

Lyme disease is hard to detect in lizards because their blood is highly

concentrated with their own DNA, overwhelming the genetic tidbits of any other

organisms that might be in their systems. By applying the same amplifying

methods he developed for lizard samples, started getting positive readings

in human samples that had previously tested negative.

put his theory to the test on 150 blood and skin samples collected from

patients suspected of having Lyme disease.

Forty-four percent came back positive, including 20 of the 49 samples from

Florida.

What's more, for the first time anywhere in the United States, he found two

additional strains of Lyme disease in humans: Borrelia andersonii and another

that has not yet been named.

At least five strains of Lyme are known to infect animals and ticks, but

researchers had never seen more than one in humans, said. Most diagnostic

tests were only developed to detect one Lyme strain. So if more are infecting

humans, thinks, that may explain why they have such a high error rate.

A paper detailing his findings is in review with the Journal of Clinical

Microbiology.

Varela-Stokes, a parasitologist at Mississippi State University, said she

is intrigued by 's research. She called the understanding of Lyme in the

South a " tricky situation " because scientists have been unable to grow the Lyme

bacteria in laboratory cultures from sick patients.

Although ran into the same problem, he thinks he's had a breakthrough.

" I think the paper is a really big deal, " he said. " One of two things is going

to happen: They're going to say, 'This is that weirdo who did all that lizard

stuff.' Or they're going to say, 'Why didn't we do that?' "

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