In 1992 I lived at home and kept my nose in the books while attending the University of Arizona. At that time one of my circles of friends and acquaintances outside of botany was a number or astronomy and mathematics geeks of sorts, and law student or two. I think it was among them that I found Skeptic Magazine. The first issue in 1992 being a Tribute to Issac Asimov, which caught our attention. The issues kept coming. When I moved to California I sometimes braved LA traffic to make my way north to Cal Tech in Pasadena to attend the Skeptic Society lecture series when something piqued my interests. It’s odd that until now I have never mentioned any articles or stories from the pages of Skeptic on trailism (or maybe I have and don’t remember), but recently this stood out as something I could share here: The Other Lab Leak Hypothesis: Is Lyme Disease Caused by an Escaped Bioweapon?
I have heard this, and being usually skeptical myself I held off much thought and steered clear of the internet so I mostly reserved judgement and decided to find out more eventually. I mean, I know “the government” has done some shady an ill-willed things, but Lyme? I wasn’t so quick to buy it. I was pleased to see the Skeptic article because I live with the realities of Lyme everyday I venture outside in the Northeast. Many of my fellow trail users, builders, and maintainers have had Lyme. I was first introduced to Lyme disease when I was child. In the late 70’s a family friend outside of Washington DC had what seemed like a freak illness taking over his life. We didn’t know what it was called, and the doctors at the time weren’t quite sure what to make of it. And not much later our family friend’s illness had a name we could point to. Not much longer after that it was all over the news and common knowledge. It’s amazing I never had Lyme as a kid, as I lived in “the woods” as a child. Permethrin works, it remains to be seen what will come of it’s side effects, if any.