Round and Round we go ~ circular lyme logic

The circular nature of Montana's stance on lyme has come up in this blog before.  But it is worth repeating until it changes.

In a nut shell, we automatically don't count Lyme cases contracted here as Lyme, because we don't have lyme.   We then say all cases were contracted elsewhere. So until someone gets Lyme here, anyone who gets Lyme here doesn't have Lyme (because they got it here). 

This article is a year old, but I still think it is worth correcting.  But I'm restarting treatment today, so we'll see how fast I get to it!

http://m.missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/lyme-disease-not-endemic-to-montana/article_e2fd6136-068d-11e3-8c8a-0019bb2963f4.html?mobile_touch=true


The CDC's current table of reported cases by state (which is acknowledged as under-reporting lyme by a likely margin of at least ten fold) does not claim that the cases in Montana were contracted elsewhere. The above article, and all Montana-specific tables I've seen state that all cases were contracted elsewhere.

Too much here would be redundant to other posts, but the biggest flaws in logic here are:

• We do have "lyme related" ticks here.  
• It has been proven that deer ticks are not the only species that transmits lyme to humans.
• Dogs are routinely tested and treated for lyme disease, and we cannot know that none of these dogs were infected by species that could infect humans.
• Excluding patients that didn't travel outside the state from being considered for lyme disease obviously excludes the ability to adequately evaluate the individual patient and the distribution of lyme.