I was talking to some people today about the fact that I found an engorged tick on my child — horrifying. And that we had treated them with doxycycline, once we realized that the tick had been on for quite a while. And in the process of having that conversation, it was brought up that there is a lyme or plush, you know, tick vaccine that’s being trialed in Europe and in the U.S. And it’s in the third round of trials, so it’s seemingly successful. And will be launched at some point.
And as we were having this conversation, somebody that I was talking to said, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of this.” There’s this, basically, conspiracy theory that the pharma companies are dropping ticks, like increasing tick populations to try and push this basically. That was the context within which they had heard about the vaccine initially. And it just made me think about how nothing is accepted as a fact anymore. Like something, which should be celebrated, a vaccine to protect against lyme, which is you know, a very prevalent at this point, condition and can have some pretty terrible outcomes, you know, not fatalities necessarily, but chronic pain and, you know, all these things. like stuff you don’t want.
There used to be a time where somebody would be like, “Hey, the measles, there’s a measles vaccine!” and the country would be like, “Oh! That’s wonderful.” Generally speaking, maybe not 100% of people, but the majority, and now, it feels like any good thing, whether it’s a lyme vaccine or something else is met with skepticism.
And the hard part is, it’s so impossible to gauge. Like have things actually shifted so much? Is it the case where a minority are happy about something like this? Or is it still true, the majority are happy there’s just more conversation, more attention being given to people who, have these theories that are kind of outlandish?
And all of that with the caveat that there have been times that the government. that pharma companies have, of course, done terrible things intentionally.