Thursday, October 1, 2026
With ticks and tick-borne diseases now a national plague in the United States, SciLine, an educational program based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recently organized an online “Media Briefing: Summer 2026 Tick Update.”
Three specialists gave presentations and then took questions from journalists from across the country. They were Dr. Pilar Fernandez, of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University; Dr. Adela Chavez, of the Department of Entomology at the University of Wisconsin Madison; and Dr. Alvaro Toledo, of the Department of Entomology at Rutgers University. The transcript and the video of the webinar are at sciline.org/public-health/ticks-2026.
Fernandez, on how “climate and environmental changes affect tick populations and their geographic range,” said, “All the insects, arthropods, they don’t regulate their temperature, so they’re more susceptible to temperature. … We’ve seen a trend on what is happening at the forefront of the expansion. Definitely there is a geographic expansion. We can see effects to areas that were too cold and now with rising temperatures.”
Fernandez continued, “I think most of the people associate tick-borne diseases, especially ixodes scapularis, which is the main vector for Lyme disease … with forests, which is true. I think there’s a lot of people that maybe don’t realize they might be exposed to other tick species in other areas … For example, the lone star tick … You can find them … more in grasslands — and they can create alpha-gal syndrome, the so-called meat allergy.”
Asked how quickly disease transmission can occur after a tick bite, Fernandez said, “That is dependent on the pathogen that the ticks are transmitting. In the case of Lyme disease … research has shown that it has to pass 24 hours … That is why the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommends that people remove the ticks in the first day.”
“In regards to tick control management,” Chavez said, “right now … most of the management that is done with ticks is either based on modifications of the environment, like cutting grass … But that only helps so much. The other type of control is the use of special chemicals, acaricides that are targeting especially ticks. But the problem with acaricides, one it’s toxic. So people [who] have ticks in their backyards need to call specialized people to come and apply those chemicals. It’s not like you can go to Walmart and get the chemical and apply it yourself. The other problem is that it doesn’t cover all the vegetation, so you might not get all the ticks.”
Toledo, on whether certain people are “at greater risk for severe disease outcomes,” said, “There are risk factors associated with severe disease.” One is age. “There are people, particularly elderly, that are at higher risk of developing severe illnesses,” he said. “This is very well known for … human babesiosis … Older people can develop very severe manifestations. And other factors that are involved in the severity of disease are, for example, immune status. People that are immunocompromised, for whatever reason — maybe they’re cancer patients and they’re receiving treatment, or they’re using some drugs to lower the immune response.”
As for properly treating a tick bite, “the first thing you need to do is to remove the tick,” Toledo said. “The idea is to … pull [it] up vertically, so you don’t leave the tick behind or the mouth parts behind, disinfect the area and watch for symptoms. In case you develop headache, fever … go to your doctor.”
Toledo urged the use of “repellents every time you go out to prevent tick bites and do tick checks every time you come back home.”
Chavez recommended wearing light-colored clothes to make it easier to spot a tick, and treating clothes with the repellent permethrin — though it is not to be applied to the skin. She also noted the vaccine now being developed by Pfizer, which will be available “once they know it’s safe.”
Karl Grossman has been an investigative reporter in a variety of media for more than 50 years. He is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York at Old Westbury.
