As all of us on the East End are unfortunately aware Lyme and several other tick borne illnesses have become the scourge of our beautiful towns. No where is this worse then on Shelter Island where my doctor explained that if in the rest of the world even the rest of Long Island you could in assume 1 in 12 bites lead to disease on Shelter Island that number goes down to 1 in 4. This was said in the same sentence where he explained that the huge swollen lymph nodes behind my 5 yr. old's ears could either be leukemia or Lyme, and we wouldn't know until the blood tests came back in 2 weeks.
I left his office clutching a prescription for a preemptive course of antibiotics wondering if I should start checking into bone marrow compatibilty and immediately went and signed the petition for the four-poster down at George's. Yea!! the town approved, the state or the county agreed to pay and Marco Birch coughed up the last bit of money the town was lacking to install our feeding stations. And then last week a group of concerned islanders showed up, claimed the whole tick scare was a hoax and threatened to sue the town and anyone who allowed the town to put the stations on their property for spreading Permethrin and potentially disturbing our water supply.
Now I don't like the idea of chemicals either. I spent two years working for the Clean Water Action Project in Baltimore in my youth, but it seems to me that coating the necks of deer with the same stuff we currently treat our dogs, (Frontline) and spray all over our lawns from Spring to Fall (just look around at how many yards have those little yellow signs) can be no worse for our environment and possibly better because the scientist predict cutting down the tick population by 95% in a few years and then no one will feel the necessity to call on those sprayers.
These diseases cause horrible health problems and are incredibly debilitating and if contracted and untreated by young children can cause severe and permanent damage. I don't know what Permethrin can do to us but I do know that the blood tests turned out positive for my four year old and she had to have a 10 week course of incredibly strong antibiotics and the doctor's recommendation was that if she couldn't be kept indoors during tick season (7 months) then we should keep her covered from head to toe and spray insect repellent (permethrin?) all over her clothes taking special care to coat the areas around the wrists and ankles where the ticks could sneak in.
Feed the deer and rub a bit of permethrin around their necks or coat my yard once a month with the stuff and dress my kids in full length bathing suits like the early 1900's and douse them with chemicals everyday before sending them out to get a bit of fresh air. I know what I'd choose.
www.myhamptons.us - kara
