Lyme Disease Is On The Rise—And Climate Change Is To Blame
The disease already affects thousands of Canadian women. The climate crisis could mean an even greater number of infections.
Chatelaine – by Zeahaa Rehman April 25th, 2023
“Maggie McColl first heard the joke about Lyme disease at a public talk about the illness in 2008. “The good news is, you’re not going to die,” she chuckles. “And the bad news is, you’re not going to die.”
McColl, based in Nanaimo, B.C., first experienced symptoms of what she now knows is Lyme disease a few years before attending the talk, in 2006. At the time, she was chair of Malaspina College’s geology department, teaching for about 15 years both in the classroom and through field trips into the bush. She had also conducted fieldwork in B.C. and the Yukon as an exploration geologist for 15 years before that. By spring 2007, her symptoms—which included headaches, a stiff neck, peripheral nerve pain in her arms, hands, legs and feet, skin lesions and rashes, deteriorating vision and worsening cognitive function—became so debilitating that she couldn’t work at all.”
