More than 2,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported each year in Connecticut. Tick-borne diseases have become more prevalent in recent years — that’s because the bugs prefer warmer weather, and temperatures are rising.
However, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said federal funding for tick research in Connecticut is on hold.
“Some $77 million is available for research into tick-borne diseases, but it is presently on hold. Distribution has been blocked. Ninety-four separate research projects are suspended or impeded,” Blumenthal said at the state Capitol.
He blamed the pause on funding and personnel cuts at the National Institute of Health.
“I'm calling on the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., to release this money,” Blumenthal said. “Cutting staff, slashing the federal workforce, is one thing. Holding the research money hostage is unacceptable. Lyme disease is a real and present and growing threat, and all tick-borne diseases need to be countered and fought through measures against ticks.”
Dr. Durland Fish leads the American Lyme Disease Foundation. He studied the disease as a professor at Yale’s School of Public Health, where the CDC and NIH funded most of his work.
“Without that kind of funding, I wouldn't have discovered anything, and now this money is in jeopardy at many, many academic institutions,” Fish said.
“I can't tell you how important this research is,” Fish said. “Lyme disease and other tick borne diseases are going to become a much more serious problem than they are now, mainly because we don't have methods to effectively control the tick population, which is expanding.”
Part of the paused grants support a program that allows residents to send ticks to be tested for disease at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Last year, the station tested more than 4,000 ticks.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, did not reply to a request for comment on this story.
On Friday, attorneys general from 16 states sued to restore NIH funding. Connecticut is not part of the lawsuit.
