Webb talks ticks
UVA doctor-turned congressional candidate stumps in Rappahannock County
The U.S. government now counts “at least 20” known tickborne infection pathogens, with another 20 known conditions and 13 illnesses, some deadlier than others, resulting from tick bites.
As tick populations continue to grow and expand, so do cases of Lyme and other tickborne diseases: alpha gal, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, spotted fever rickettsiosis, the list goes on. Tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed every year with serious tickborne illnesses, with an untold number undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
During an interview this past Saturday at Washington’s Town Hall, University of Virginia School of Medicine Dr. Cameron Webb, a Democratic candidate in the 5th congressional district including Rappahannock County, said more tick disease research funding is needed to successfully combat what some are labeling a full-blown crisis.
“What I know is President Trump’s budgets have consistently aimed to cut that funding, and the Republicans in Congress have supported it,” Webb told the Rappahannock News following his remarks to county Democrats. “And so for us as a nation — particularly in our rural spaces where we have diseases like these that are undertreated, that are understudied — we can’t afford to have cuts to those budgets.”
For three budget seasons running, including in fiscal 2020, President Trump has sought deep cuts — rebuffed for the most part by Congress — in scientific research spending, including for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where a strategic research plan was recently developed addressing tickborne illnesses that are growing deadlier by the day.
Last November, former U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, who served on Capitol Hill until 2015, died after fighting a three year battle with the Powassan virus. Published reports said she contracted the disease from a tiny tick bite while hiking in these Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia over Thanksgiving 2016. In her case, brain inflammation — encephalitis — took control.
“Whether it’s President Trump or whether it’s the Republicans in Congress,” Webb said, “their goals of cutting funding for NIH is absolutely counter [to battling ticks]. We need more research, we need more treatment, we need more funding in that space that goes to these academic medical centers.
“We’ve got a world class university right down the road,” he added of UVA, currently in the forefront of research into the alpha gal syndrome caused by lone star tick bites. “We need the resources, we need the funding. And I’m not saying that as a university employee, I'm saying that as somebody who is a resident of this district and knows there is so much we can be doing.”
Lyme and chronic Lyme disease, which has struck Rappahannock County harder than most other Virginia counties, accounts for the bulk (82 percent) of tickborne illness cases in the country. Even then, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lyme “is underreported and the true incidence is likely 10 times higher.”
The strategic research plan recently put in place at NIH “aims to build on — and accelerate — new and existing research initiatives to improve scientific understanding of ticks and the pathogens they may transmit and to develop the necessary tools and strategies to better diagnose, prevent and treat tickborne diseases.”
NIH currently identifies at least 20 different disease-causing bacteria, viruses and parasites known to be transmitted from ticks to people. Depending on the disease, patients can experience symptoms that range from mild infections that resolve on their own to serious illness, extended disability, and death.
“You talk about how long it takes to get care. It’s because we just don’t have the resources to have more providers with [tick disease] expertise,” Webb told this newspaper. “I will point to the 21st Century Cures Act that was passed at the end of the Obama administration. It was bipartisan legislation and the whole idea is trying to find ways to treat and cure a lot of these chronic diseases, chronic Lyme being one of them.
“You know, the idea that we can cure diseases, that’s as within reach as the [old] idea that we can get man on the moon. And that’s something that we should be working to do. Unfortunately, this administration has not consistently been working to continue that work.”
Prior to coming to UVA, where he is Director of Health Policy and Equity in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Webb spent time in both the Obama and Trump White Houses working on health care policy. Should he be nominated by his Democratic Party and win in November, Webb would become the first African American representing the 5th district on Capitol Hill.
Among the field of candidates he is facing in this summer’s Democratic primary is former Rappahannock County Supervisor John Lesinski, who also spoke at Saturday’s caucus of local Democrats, its purpose every two years to reorganize the Rappahannock County Democratic Committee and elect new officers. Ken Edwards became the new secretary. Repeat officers are Mary-Sherman Willis, chair; Ross O'Donoghue, vice chair, and Bruce Sloane, treasurer.
Editor’s note: The writer of this story was diagnosed in 2018 with alpha gal syndrome after being bitten by a lone star tick in Rappahannock County.
Lyme and chronic Lyme disease, which has struck Rappahannock harder than most other Virginia counties, accounts for the bulk (82 percent) of tickborne illness cases in the country.