One of the low-key benefits of Seattle is that the western slopes of the Cascade mountains are largely tick-free. One of the few places in the US that is like that. The east coast is crawling with ticks and always has been.
I have flanking neighbors who nuke their lawns every month with permethrin. They leave little business signs on the front lawn as spam. I have 14 apple trees and haven't grown an apple in years. It's fine, they are free to do anything and everything they like with their lawns. I just think it would be really neat to grow an apple again. You know, I'm not even a biologist and its probably a fluke I dont appreciate.
> they are free to do anything and everything they like with their lawns
In this case, what they're doing is clearly going beyond their lawn and negatively impacting you.
It's weird to suggest that "spraying poison on your neighbors" is deemed acceptable, as long as you're standing on your own property when you do it. If they were standing on their lawn throwing rocks at your apple trees, or shooting a gun at your apples, we wouldn't say they're free to do whatever they like. Heck, we don't even let people play loud music if it disturbs their neighbors.
We really need to update our mental models of harm and violence to account for modern possibilities. We should treat harm from pollution exactly as seriously as we treat harm from projectiles. Dying from cancer from your neighbors incidental pollution is just as bad as dying from a bullet from your neighbors errant gunshot.
In the earlier post about apple trees, I'm assuming what they mean is that the neighbors have decimated the local pollinators so their trees are not fruiting. It is still frustrating, even if they are not having direct exposure to the poison.
I'm actually back in the same California neighborhood I grew up in, which has adjoining open space. In the 50 years of cumulative time my parents or I have been there, we've never needed exterminators. At most, a can of ant spray from the supermarket was sufficient to treat around a door or window in a problematic season. I'm talking about such events once every 5-10 years. Meanwhile, exterminator vans are seen in the neighborhood quite frequently. I think some folks just see a bug, absolutely freak out, and want to nuke it all from orbit.
I think it's nearly a mental illness, how people want to detach from the natural world. As if their self-image is not that of a complex animal but of some sort of sterile abstraction.
I'm not from somewhere where any of this is relevant so I was really curious why the comment you are replying to was downvoted into gray in 7 minutes (is Lyme disease a contentious issue??) and was ready to post a reply asking why but refreshed before I posted it.
I saw your comment and did a web search and the first hit was a US Centre for Disease Control page that says "A vaccine for Lyme disease is not currently available, the only vaccine previously marketed in the United States was discontinued by the manufacturer"
I'm more confused than ever. Can people stop vagueposting assuming everyone knows everything and just start saying what they mean?
There was a vaccine developed for Lyme disease in the early 2000's. It was canned because the market wasn't believed to be favorable. Lyme disease is an awful illness that often progresses to chronic and incurable.
Tick populations have exploded recently with our new warmer climates, and now a new vaccine is slated to enter the market in the next few years.
Unfortunately however the vaccine will not protect against lone star tick bites, which can make you allergic to red meat.
The context on this site is often assumed to be American. I consider myself to be multicultural and I'm definitely guilty of that in some of my posts.
There's a lot of misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines in the USA in addition to the valid questions which are equally serious. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is currently run by an individual who has superstitions about them, and is actively dismantling the professional efforts which further vaccination. Even if there was a vaccine available on the medical market in the US, because that is what we have in this country, a market for medical care, it's not clear that it would be accessible to everybody or the people who need it. The reason for this is because Americans do not have universal healthcare, and in fact, the President has recently enacted a law that cuts public healthcare for many millions of Americans, which would provide such a vaccine.
I'm aware of the post-COVID vaccine hesitancy (this is definitely not limited to the US) but the vaccine the CDC is talking about was discontinued "citing insufficient consumer demand" in 2002, over 2 decades ago.
So is GP just vaguely quipping about the cancellation of development of new vaccines? "Oh wait" makes it sound like we already had a vaccine for Lyme disease that is just not being used.
edit: and now this comment I'm replying to has gone gray. I'd love to see some commentary instead of just downvotes
