posted
There exists an enormous discrepancy between veterinarian reported Lyme disease in dogs and that of humans between Sonoma County California and New London Connecticut which is near the worst Lyme rates in the US.
Since dogs are good surrogates for their owners, one would expect dog infection rates to roughly match human rates by a factor due to dog behavior, hair and innability to complain.
But that should remain consistent between similar US Counties so they should match reasonable ratios. The dog infection rate of infections is similar between Sonoma and New London while human infection rates ratios are disparate by 150 times.
This suggests human doctors and tests used in Sonoma are inferior to similar doctors and testing in New London CT. Dogs are often tested by C6 ELISA such as the SNAP 4DX Plus which is fairly strain and species independent while humans are typically tested by a single strain ELISA followed by a single strain Western Blot.
I would suspect the Sonoma doctors are ill informed and the CDC 2T test based on one strain is less effective in California due to 2500 miles and Rocky Mountain barrier strain diversity.
Igenex and Stony Brook utilize a 2 strain antigen test to expand strain/species effectiveness vesus the standard FDA test.
The CDC acknowledged in 2013 that the reported rates of Lyme disease nationally were approximately 1/10th of actual rates.
Lyme Connecticut is where Lyme disease was first identified in the US in 1975 and continues to have among highest rates of the disease and tick infection rates.
New London County, Connecticut had 1395 cases of human Lyme disease reported between 2011 and 2014. During the same period, Sonoma County California had only 33 reported cases.
The higher rate of human Lyme disease in on the Est Coast is typically explained by the higher tick infection rates. But this makes that suspect.
But dog infection rates between Sonoma, CA and New London, CA counties have an enormous discrepancy between human infection rates between the 2 counties. This cannot be right.
This is typically a red flag. This is partially explained by the New London population being about 300,000 people versus Sonoma at close to 500,000 or 1.7 times larger.
The approximate ratio between human populations in New London County Ct and dogs is roughly 4 people to one dog. The Sonoma County ratio between the human population and dog population is also about 4 people to one dog. The same.
So one would expect the Lyme infection in dogs in New London County and Sonoma County would have a ratio of about 1.7 based on population since the ratio of dogs is near identical.
There would be another factor due to tick infection rates. But the dog behavior factor versus humans should not affect the ratio. Dog and human behavior is Sonoma and new London should not differ by large a large factor impacting the ratios.
The Companion Animal Parasite Council collects veterinary surveillance on various pet parasites including Lyme disease by US state and county.
The ratio of dog infections in 2015 between New London CT (1167) and Sonoma CA (1269) is 1167/1267= .92. That means New London has had less reported dog cases of Lyme than Sonoma County while New London is considered highly endemic and near Lyme central. Suspicious?
Only 9 cases of Human Lyme disease were reported in Sonoma in 2014.
So there was a 260:1 ratio of New London Lyme disease human cases in 2014 or 260 times that of Sonoma County.
But the dogs are nearly equal. That cannot be right and suggests a major problem in California diagnosis, testing, and reporting versus Connecticut.
If one discounts the 260:1 by the population ratio of 1.7 than the discrepancy falls to 150:1.
It seems outrageous that the CDC would base Lyme disease risk on tick infection rates when dogs are more closely aligned with human activity and the error is 150 times.
This suggests the reported cases of Lyme disease are grossly under-reported if people’s dogs are a reasonable surrogate for their human owners.
Yet another common sense red flag ignored. What a mess.
Posts: 51 | From California | Registered: Aug 2013
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poppy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5355
posted
The black hats have attempted to explain away this discrepancy, twisting themselves into pretzels to do it. But since dogs often get flea and tick prevention measures, which humans don't get, there ought to be fewer cases in dogs. What that means is that the discrepancy is even bigger.
The same people who explain this away as not significant, publish articles about how even people in endemic areas fail to use protective measures.
Posts: 2888 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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