An EZ Invitation

This is an invitation to all my rugged individualist friends: Hey, good buddy, let’s go hunting out in the wild. Bring the camp gear. Bring the guns. Let’s get some game for the freezer and maybe a trophy for the wall. Let’s have a great, old-fashioned good time!

But we want to be safe and practice the things we’ve learned about being rugged individuals, including weapon safety, proper hydration, careful orienteering, and dressing for the weather. There are other things to consider. As we go into the untamed wildlife habitat to stealthily stalk creatures, keep this in mind: Lyme disease is everywhere in the wild where we would be hunting. It can make you really sick, with skin and nerve problems, or even a fatal heart ailment! You get it from a tick bite, and those little bastards, the size of a poppy seed with a painless bite, are opportunists. But don’t get worked up about it, it’s pretty easy to protect ourselves from Lyme disease.

To be safe, just make sure to slather on a good DEET-based insect repellent while we are on our trip. You can also get hunting gear and clothing that is impregnated with DEET to give a little extra protection.

Yes, using an insect repellent is a pain, and, yes, there are some reported side effects (even a couple of deaths!) from using insect repellents. Some people have medical conditions and can’t use them at all! But if you don’t have those issues, what the heck. In the vast majority of reported cases of adverse reactions, the discomfort or illnesses are mild. Nearly 90% of reported adverse reactions to DEET don’t even require hospitalization. In any case, such negative effects are nearly always much less severe than Lyme disease.

Even with DEET and proper coverage with special cloth, there is still a chance you may get a tick bite resulting in Lyme disease. Sorry. Nothing’s perfect. There is no 100% sure way to prevent the spread of the illness. Careful use of insect repellent won’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it does greatly reduce your risk and nearly everyone who can safely use DEET agrees the risk-benefit calculation favors careful use of the repellent. Using the repellent and distancing yourself from the brush where you may be exposed to ticks followed by a careful inspection of your skin, when applied together, greatly reduce any risk. After all, we are here for hunting and fun, right? Don’t want a preventable illness to spoil that!

Wait. What’s that you say? You won’t use the repellent? You feel like you are being manipulated by my warning? My warning is some evil political ploy to ‘control’ you and your behavior?

Well, you certainly have your rights. If you don’t want to use insect repellent no one is going to force you to do that. After all, it is your body and your decision to make, and we can all respect that. If you get sick, you will be the one suffering and incurring huge medical bills. And you won’t likely be spreading Lyme disease to your friends, family, and strangers you meet. No. It’s not as if it were a respiratory virus or something where there would be a personal responsibility to protect others from your infection. Nope. Not like that at all.

 

For more information, see:

 

Lyme Disease Treatment Guidelines. Lyme Disease Association. https://lymediseaseassociation.org/about-lyme/medical/treatment-guidelines/?gclid=CjwKCAjwgISIBhBfEiwALE19SYtP3TDQwgRa5jbpbnChAJIpgGjreBhFm0B0Pxq81ZuOVMUp7UfFAhoCn8YQAvD_BwE. (2017, February 3).

 

Schwartz AM, Hinckley AF, Mead PS, Hook SA, Kugeler KJ. Surveillance for Lyme Disease — United States, 2008–2015. MMWR Surveill Summ 2017;66(No. SS-22):1–12. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6622a1

 

Can One Die of Lyme Disease? New Health Advisor. https://www.newhealthadvisor.org/Can-You-Die-from-Lyme-Disease.html. (2019, September 1). 

Debating is EZ. Winning the debate, maybe not so much

My comments in a Facebook discussion regarding actions suggested by public health officials to slow the spread of COVID-19. John, referenced below, is not a never-masker, but many of our mutual friends are. In the FB discussion, they were maintaining that it was their God-given right to not wear a mask, to not stay at home, and to not limit the size of gatherings they sponsor or attend. John commented that COVID-19 was much different than HIV because it was less deadly and that each person should be able to choose how much risk they were willing to accept. My point has been all along: It’s not how much risk each person is individually willing to accept, it’s how much their actions increase the degree of risk of others who have no say in the matter.

“Thank you, John, for helping me so clearly understand my points in this respectful discussion.

HIV didn't scare me. (Not that I'm especially scared of COVID, either, but that's mostly because of my hope in Christ.) Why didn't HIV scare me? Once we understood the mechanics of transmission, I realized that I had a significant degree of control over my level of risk. I chose to avoid risky behavior and that made me a very unlikely victim of HIV. Very unlikely, but still some small risk from the possibility of blood transfusion, etc. Life is not ever without risk, yet I believe we have the responsibility to control risk where we can practically do so.

I don't have the same degree of control over my risk with COVID. I can do all I can do, yet I can't be sure that an infected and unmasked person won't spread droplets in my vicinity, or sneeze on that food package that the 'no contact' deliveryman will leave at my doorstep later. And I don’t have the choice to not breathe or get groceries—I’m not ready to live naked in the wilderness and subsist on locusts and wild honey.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus taught us that a Christian should rise above the mere avoidance of doing evil to reach the ideal of not even thinking of evil (as in Matthew 5:27-28) AND in Matthew 25:40, he taught that we are to ensure that we do good and not harm even unto the least of our brothers and sisters. In Luke, he teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. As I read the scriptures and try to apply them to my daily walk (which I am much less than perfect in doing), I can not understand how I could knowingly fail to take steps to even *possibly* protect others--even the least of these. In this, I'm not even being asked to go so far as to cross over the road to aid and comfort the wounded. I'm just being asked to not harm or further hurt him.

The risk of death from COVID is lower than that of HIV and it appears to be lower now than earlier this year. Thank God for that. These statistics are cold comfort to the loved ones of the 240,000 COVID victims in the U.S. How many of those deaths may have been prevented by simply taking responsibility to be, at least a little bit, our brother's keepers? We will not know in this lifetime.”