I grew up in a city on the West Coast, so whenever I heard a story about ticks, I thought “not my problem.” But it turns out I was wrong. It is my problem. In fact, it’s all of our problems now.
Ticks are spreading (thanks to climate change and other factors), and with that comes the spread of the diseases they pass on, too. From Lyme disease to alpha-gal syndrome, emergency rooms have seen the highest visits as a result of tick bites since 2017.
For our recent piece, we spoke with science writer Jonathan Mingle, and he said ticks are not just conquering the geographical map — they are colonizing our psychological map as well.
He said over the course of his reporting, he started to feel phantom ticks crawling all over him, but the paranoia also made him a bit of a tick connoisseur. So we wanted to bring his expertise to our audience, too, not to spread his paranoia but to help listeners understand the growing risks, what you as an individual can do about it, and what our government and public health agencies can do as well.
—Amina Al-Sadi
