Pfeiffer - Lyme: the first epidemic of climate change

This book was a journey led by science and aided by scientists. I thank them, some named in these pages, many not, for sharing and explaining their work. I thank them for their commitment. Science that is supported, challenged, and considered will ultimately unravel the mystery of Lyme and its related diseases.

I thank the physicians, in North America, Europe, and Australia, who gave me their time, made connections for me, and explained their diagnostic and treatment quandaries. Thanks also to the advocacy groups, in towns, states, provinces, and nations, which are trying to redefine this disease and have supported my efforts. A great many people in this large and growing community have helped me understand what the bite of an infected tick meant for them, their children, and their families. They include Julias father, Enrico Bruzzese, and Nikis and Kearas mother, Kaethe Mitchell. They include Lyme patients, and their parents, in many states and several countries. I thank them for their time, their stories told in long missives or conversation, and their willingness to provide ever more details and documents. Sometimes, as they and more than a few scientists and physicians will see, all that effort amounted to a single sentence or a pregnant paragraph. But it helped tell the story.

Closer to home, thanks to my husband, Rob Miraldi, who set many things aside to support me in the intensive research and writing process. He made dinners, did laundry, paid bills, but, most of all, listened with the ear of a journalism professor whose mentorship and guidance has long made me a better reporter. Thank you to my children, Sara and Robert, and their spouses, Quinn and Kelsey. They cheered me on at every stage. And, of course, there is my mother, Helen, still going strong and living across the lane from me. I cherish her company and her indignation, which on this subject is considerable.

Thanks to my friends. Janet Graham Gottlieb helped me figure things out in the telling of this story. Raedel Silverman, Kathleen Norton McNulty, and Carolyn Hansen asked good questions. Thanks to my two Dutch sisters, Marianne and Susanne Peters, for translation help and for putting me up, not once but twice, during my research. Thanks to Bob Silverman and Ronnie Liadis for accommodating my research diversions in Cyprus and elsewhere; to Bob and Lisa Brayman for their kindness and encouragement.

I have been blessed with editors who have supported my investigative reporting for the last twenty-five years. Stuart Shinske edited and encouraged the series of articles, published from 2012 to 2015, that led to this book. He and Poughkeepsie Journal publisher Barry Rothfeld gave me the time and support that investigative reporting demands. Thanks, too, to Mimi McAndrew, who early on charted my path. I would not be a journalist but for Mimi.

Among many others who helped, I thank Jill and Ira Auerbach, Lorraine Johnson, Dorothy Leland, Pat Smith, Barbara Buchman, Holly Ahern, Jane Marke, Kris Newby, Kenneth Liegner, Betty Maloney, Rosalie Greenberg, Phyllis Freeman, Chris Fisk, Lonnie Marcum, Fred Verdult, Diana Uitdenbogerd, Katherina Deutsch, Eoin Healy, Sandra Pearson, Michael Cook, Elliot Cowton, Caroline Fife, Rona Cherry, Dana Parish, Andre Efftink, Joy and Kim Collins, and others too numerous to name. Government agencies and their various staff members helped too: The National Institute of Public Health and Environment in the Netherlands, Public Health England, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US Geological Survey. Thanks to Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

To my assistant, Sara McBride: Bless you. To my editor, Emily Turner, thank you for believing in this project and for your direction. To my agent, Rob Wilson, for all your efforts on my behalf, this time and for my previous book, thank you.

Finally, I am grateful to the Internet. How strange is that? It made the world a smaller place, one in which I could, in a single day, speak with people on three continents, access a couple of dozen scientific papers, and check facts that wouldve taken far longer to look up not too long ago. Through digital communication, I made friends in other countries. I learned that they are like the people I know here in the United States. They are searching for answers. For all they gave meof themselves and their painI hope to show my sincere gratitude by helping to provide some.