Ticked Off
In this column from our archives , Ellen Liberman explores the amorphous blight of Lyme disease in Rhode Island .
Travis Godwin pulls his pickup to a stop on Watson Street , leans out the window and lets out a snort of laughter .
“ Who ’ s in that ?” he gestures to the man in the tick suit . The 2014 Jamestown Memorial Day parade is about to step off . And , amid the assorted fire trucks and military marchers , spit-and-polished in their dress uniforms , is Bruce Dickinson as Ixodes scapularis , otherwise known as a deer tick .
Waving black , soft-sculpted legs with a barbed mouth bobbing menacingly atop his head , Dickinson is the tick task force ’ s eye candy to draw attention to colorful information placards trailing a rider mower . Blake Dickinson , Bruce ’ s brother , at that time a Jamestown town councilman and task force member , explains that they ’ ll be handing out refrigerator magnets about the dangers of ticks and Lyme disease .
Godwin nods , his smile gone .
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“ I pulled one on me this morning ,” he says . “ Thank you .”
Parading before your neighbors dressed as a giant tick would seem a thankless job , but in Jamestown , you ’ re a public health hero . Real deer ticks can be the size of a poppy seed ; an encounter is not amusing . The black-legged tick carries Lyme and other nasty diseases , such as babesiosis .
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) identified Lyme disease in 2012 as the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in America . On Jamestown — human population about 5,400 , deer population northwards of 300 on less than ten square miles — if you haven ’ t had Lyme disease , you know lots of folks who have . An informal survey among the families living in two island neighborhoods found that about 50 percent of the households reported at least one case .
In 2013 , the Town Council appointed a new tick task force , which
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