Disease Detectives: How the Mystery of Lyme Disease Was Solved
Disease detectives--the scientists who figure out what’s causing an outbreak of disease--are called epidemiologists. Their first task is to collect information: they interview the people who have fallen ill (and those around them who haven’t), track where they’ve been and what they ate or touched, and take samples of anything that might contain the mischief-making microbe. Then they scrutinize all the data for paths or patterns that could suggest the source of the epidemic.
The mid-’70s outbreak of Lyme disease in the northeastern United States posed an unusual number of curious questions. They wouldn’t have been answered without Polly Morray, Allen Steere, Wally Burgdorfer, and other determined individuals who kept at it until the puzzle was solved.
The Lyme Time Line
1975
* In November the Connecticut State Health Department got a call from two mothers, Polly Morray and Judith Mensch, who lived in a small town in Connecticut. Each reported that her child had been diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and each knew of others in the area with similar symptoms. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is a very serious illness, and it’s extremely rare in children. The bizarre news that several in the same region had come down with it was enough to alarm the officials.
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