Public health officials said that Kennedy’s belief in conspiracy theories about Lyme disease detracts from awareness campaigns about the ticks that cause it.
“People need help understanding and it really pays to know what kind of tick you’re bitten by before you jump down the rabbit hole of researching Lyme disease,” said Thomas Mather, a leading tick expert.
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As part of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” plan, the US Department of Health and Human Services will relaunch testing and treatment efforts “grounded in the real-world experiences of patients,” Kennedy said.
Specifically, HHS announced the renewal of the LymeX Innovation Accelerator, a partnership with the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation that began during President Trump’s first term. The $10 million initiative will advance artificial intelligence tools that support “earlier and more accurate detection across stages of infection,” HHS officials said in a press release.
“For decades, Americans suffering from Lyme disease have been denied the accurate diagnostics and meaningful care they deserve,” Kennedy said in the release.
Mather said he agrees that there should be more awareness about Lyme disease and the specific tick that carries the bacteria: the blacklegged or deer tick.
“I won’t disagree with the fact that more effort needs to be taken to uncover what’s going on,” said Mather, a professor of public health entomology at the University of Rhode Island who is nicknamed “The Tick Guy.”
Mather noted that while deer ticks cause Lyme disease, other species of tick can lead to other health problems like Alpha-gal syndrome and Powassan virus.
Kennedy said that after one of his sons became infected with Lyme disease, he suffered facial paralysis for almost a year.
In January 2024, Kennedy said on his podcast that it was “highly likely” that Lyme disease was developed in a military lab on Long Island, N.Y.
That’s completely wrong, said Mather, who has studied the history of scientific discoveries related to the bacteria that causes Lyme disease in humans.
A scientist named Willy Burgdorfer discovered the bacteria in ticks on Long Island in 1981, Mather said. The discovery led scientists to search for and identify the same bacteria in mice from as far back as the 1800s, long before when Kennedy claims Lyme disease was released by the military as a bioweapon, Mather said.
“It’s a conspiracy theory,” Mather said. “The issue is research has shown that Lyme disease was in ticks long before we knew what caused Lyme disease in people.”
Lyme disease is spread to people through the bite of deer ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Each year, nearly half a million people in the US may be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease, according to the CDC.
The CDC says typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system, the agency says.
In June, visits to emergency rooms for tick bites reached their highest levels in at least five years in New England and other nearby states, according to data from the CDControl. That month, 233 out of 100,000 ER visits in the Northeast were for tick bites, nearly double the national average of 118, the Globe reported.
Populations of deer, which carry ticks, have spiked on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, leading officials there to expand hunting season in order to reduce the risk of humans being infected.
Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.