Re: “Lyme disease is very real but no epidemic” (Opinion, July 13)
The following quote may be dangerously misleading: “If you do find a tick on your skin, yank that sucker off with a pair of tweezers.”
If one simply yanked the tick off with a pair of tweezers, one would risk injecting the person with the disease from the tick. The tick must be removed extremely carefully, by grasping the mouthparts of the tick, not the body of the tick, and slowly pulling it straight out. If one grasped the body of the tick there is the possibility that the tweezers would simply squeeze in the tick’s poison.
It is preferable to use a special tool made expressly for this purpose. More information can be found at: http://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/ticks/tick-removal/
Wendy Cloutier-Hearns, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue
