Health
How Trump’s Medical Research Cuts Would Hit Colleges and Hospitals in Every State
A proposal by the Trump administration to reduce the size of grants for institutions conducting medical research would have far-reaching effects, and not just for elite universities and the coastal states where many are located.
Also at risk could be grants from the National Institutes of Health to numerous hospitals that conduct clinical research on major diseases, and to state universities across the country. North Carolina, Missouri and Pennsylvania could face disproportionate losses, because of the concentration of medical research in those states.
N.I.H. funding in 2024
Per capita Based on spending in the 2024 fiscal year.
|
Total
In the 2024 fiscal year, the N.I.H. spent at least $32 billion on nearly 60,000 grants, including medical research in areas like cancer, genetics and infectious disease. Of that, $23 billion went to “direct” research costs, such as microscopes and researchers’ salaries, according to an Upshot analysis of N.I.H. grant data.
The other $9 billion went to the institutions’ overhead, or “indirect costs,” which can include laboratory upkeep, utility bills, administrative staff and access to hazardous materials disposal, all of which research institutions say is essential to making research possible.
The N.I.H. proposal, which has been put on hold by a federal court, aims to reduce funding for those indirect costs to a set 15 percent rate that the administration says would save about $4 billion a year. The Upshot analysis estimates that a 15 percent rate would have reduced funding for the grants that received N.I.H. support in 2024 by at least $5 billion. The White House said the savings would be reinvested in more research, but the rate cuts would open up sizable budget holes in most projects at research institutions.
It is not clear whether those organizations can fill the gaps with other funding sources or by shifting how they apply for grants. Instead, many officials at universities and hospitals have said that they may have to pull back on medical or scientific research.
“It’s not an overstatement to say that a slash this drastic in total research funding slows research,” said Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, which has sued along with other education and hospital associations to block the policy. And slower scientific progress, she said, would affect anyone who depends on the development of new treatments, medical interventions and diagnostic tools.
We estimate that virtually all universities and hospitals would see fewer funds on similar projects in the future. The 10 institutions that receive the most money from N.I.H. stand to lose more than $100 million per year on average.
To understand how the change would work, let’s look at one grant for about $600,000 sent last year to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study whether exercise can improve memory for people with epilepsy.
The N.I.H. sent the university this funding in the 2024 fiscal year, as part of a multiyear grant. A majority of the money went to direct costs associated with the study. And an additional 45 percent went to indirect costs supporting the research, like building maintenance and administrative staff. Under the new rules, the university would receive a 15 percent rate on such grants, bringing the total down. That would have been a funding loss of nearly $130,000 on this project alone.
The calculation above, which we have repeated for every grant paid last year, is a bit simplified. In reality, the researchers would lose even more money than we’ve shown, because of the way indirect funding is calculated (see our methodology at the bottom of this article).
Our analysis also makes some other conservative assumptions given the policy’s uncertainty. We assume, for instance, that the new 15 percent rate is a flat rate that all grantees would receive, and not a maximum rate (a distinction left unclear in the N.I.H. guidance). We also assume that the change applies not just to institutions of higher education, but also to all kinds of grantees, including hospitals.
In a statement, the White House indicated it would reserve any savings for additional research grants. “Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated N.I.H. spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman.
The N.I.H. announcement, however, coincides with the Trump administration’s moves to cut spending across the government, and with the N.I.H.’s withholding of funding for grants — their direct and indirect costs alike — in apparent conflict with separate court orders.
The N.I.H. guidance document includes a number of conflicting statements and statistics the Upshot could not reconcile. The N.I.H. also declined to answer questions about the policy and about its public-facing data tracking grant spending.
The N.I.H. since 1950 has provided these overhead funds in a formulaic way, and since 1965, the government has used a rate individually calculated for each institution. Federal officials review cost summaries, floor plans and other information to determine that rate. That number can be higher for institutions in more expensive parts of the country, or for those that use more energy-intensive equipment. The proposal from the Trump administration would set aside those differences in standardizing the rate at 15 percent for every grantee.
The lists below estimate what would have happened to the 10 universities and hospitals that received the most N.I.H. grant money in the 2024 fiscal year, if the formula change had been in effect then.
University of California, San Francisco San Francisco
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore
Washington University
St. Louis University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Mich.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa.
Columbia University Health Sciences
New York
Yale University
New Haven, Conn. Stanford University
Stanford, Calif.
University of Washington
Seattle
Source: National Institutes of Health Based on spending in the 2024 fiscal year.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Boston
Boston Children’s Hospital Boston
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Boston
Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center
Cincinnati
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Boston
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Los Angeles
Source: National Institutes of Health
Based on spending in the 2024 fiscal year, which extends from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.Largest N.I.H. grant recipients among colleges, universities and medical schools
Name
Total ’24 Funding
Estimated reduction
$793 mil.
$121 mil.
$788 mil.
$136 mil.
$717 mil.
$108 mil.
$708 mil.
$119 mil.
$652 mil.
$129 mil.
$632 mil.
$115 mil.
$611 mil.
$111 mil.
$602 mil.
$131 mil.
$584 mil.
$107 mil.
$542 mil.
$86 mil.
Largest N.I.H. grant recipients among hospitals
Name
Total ’24 Funding
Estimated reduction
$641 mil.
$98 mil.
$468 mil.
$71 mil.
$364 mil.
$77 mil.
$218 mil.
$54 mil.
$180 mil.
$39 mil.
$162 mil.
$32 mil.
$161 mil.
$35 mil.
$153 mil.
$28 mil.
$117 mil.
$23 mil.
$100 mil.
$23 mil.
If courts allow the change to move forward, some of its consequences are hard to predict.
Advocates for the policy change note that these organizations receive numerous other federal subsidies. Most universities and research hospitals are nonprofits that pay no federal taxes, for example. The N.I.H. announcement also noted that these same institutions often accept grants from charitable foundations that offer much lower overhead rates than the federal government, a signal that universities and hospitals willingly pursue research opportunities with less supplemental funding.
Because the indirect payments are based on broad formulas and not specific line items, critics say institutions may be diverting these federal dollars into unaccountable funds to pay for programs that taxpayers can’t see, such as the kinds of diversity, equity and inclusion programs targeted by the Trump administration.
“That’s how you get things like the ability of administrators to use larger overhead pools of money to build out D.E.I. bureaucracies, or to fund Ph.D. programs in the humanities,” said Jay Greene, a senior research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. Mr. Greene was the coauthor of a 2022 article urging the N.I.H. to cut or eliminate indirect grant funding. But he did not have specific examples to cite of research funds being spent in this way.
Researchers say the indirect funds have a branding problem, but are a necessary component of research.
“The term ‘indirect costs’ or the alternative term ‘overhead’ sounds dangerously close to ‘slush fund’ to some people,” said Jeremy Berg, who was the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the N.I.H. from 2003 to 2011. “There are real costs somebody has to pay for, and heating and cooling university laboratory buildings is a real cost.”
Some grant recipients already receive low overhead payments, but a large majority of them currently receive more than 15 percent, meaning they will need to make budgetary changes to absorb the loss. Among the 2024 grants that we analyzed, institutions that received more than $1 million in N.I.H. support got an average of 40 cents of indirect funding for every dollar of direct funding.
As a share of direct funding
Source: National Institutes of Health
Calculated for 613 institutions that received at least $1 million in funding in fiscal year 2024. Federally negotiated rates are higher than these.
Distribution of overhead funding at N.I.H.-funded institutions in 2024
Universities and hospitals may adjust their overall budgets to keep supporting medical research by cutting back on other things they do. Some might be able to raise money from donors to fill the shortfalls, though most universities are already raising as much philanthropic money as they can.
But many research institutions have said they would adjust by simply doing less medical research, because they would not be able to afford to do as much with less government help.
Universities and hospitals might also shift the kinds of research they do, avoiding areas that require more lab space, regulatory compliance or high-tech equipment, and focusing on types of research that will require them to provide less overhead funding themselves. That may mean disproportionate reductions in complex areas of research like genetics.
Those effects may be spread unevenly across the research landscape, as some organizations find a way to adjust, while others abandon medical research altogether.
We’ve compiled a list of institutions that received at least $1 million in N.I.H. funding in the 2024 fiscal year, along with our estimates of how much less they would have gotten under the new policy. Most of these institutions are universities or hospitals, but there are also some private companies and nonprofit research groups. Our numbers tend to be underestimates of the cuts.
New York
New York New York
New York
New York
Bronx, N.Y.
Rochester, N.Y. Ithaca, N.Y.
Amherst, N.Y.
New York
New York
Stony Brook, N.Y. New York
Buffalo, N.Y.
Manhasset, N.Y.
Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.
Syracuse, N.Y. New York
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Orangeburg, N.Y.
New York
Albany, N.Y. Binghamton, N.Y.
New York
New York
Albany, N.Y.
New York New York
Syracuse, N.Y.
New York
Troy, N.Y.
New York City, N.Y. New York
New York
Albany, N.Y.
Valhalla, N.Y.
Mineola, N.Y. Rochester, N.Y.
White Plains, N.Y.
Menands, N.Y.
Flushing, N.Y.
New York Upton, N.Y.
New York
Bronx, N.Y.
New York
New York New York
Queens, N.Y.
Potsdam, N.Y.
New York
Buffalo, N.Y. Utica, N.Y.
New York
Niskayuna, N.Y.
New York
New York Jamaica, N.Y.
New York
New York
New York
Old Westbury, N.Y. Clifton Park, N.Y.
Garrison, N.Y.
Other
About our analysis
To estimate changes in funding, we relied on data from RePORT, the N.I.H.’s online registry of grants and projects. We limited our analysis to grants listed within the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico. We also limited it to grants where the amount of indirect funding was known and where the combined indirect and direct funding was within five percent of the listed total funding. These filters resulted in removing many grants to private organizations such as domestic for-profits. We calculated how much indirect funding each grant would have received under the new guidance by multiplying the listed direct funding amount by 15 percent. We then compared that number to the listed indirect funding amount for each great to estimate the impact of the policy.
There are two reasons our calculations are most likely conservative estimates of true reductions in funding. First, only a portion of the direct funding for each grant is considered to be “eligible” for the purposes of calculating indirect funding. For example, laboratory equipment and graduate student tuition reimbursements are deducted from the direct costs before applying the negotiated overhead rate, whereas our calculations assumed 100 percent of the listed direct costs would be eligible. We performed a more accurate version of our calculations for the 10 universities and 10 hospitals receiving the most N.I.H. funds by inferring their eligible direct costs from their reported negotiated rates. When we did this, we saw an additional increase in losses of about 20 percent.
Second, we applied a 15 percent rate to all grants in the database, including those with an initial indirect rate below 15 percent. An analysis by James Murphy helped inform this approach. According to our analysis, then, some grants would actually receive more money under the new guidance. If the new rate operated more like a cap — and grants with rates currently below 15 percent did not change — the overall reductions in funding would be larger, as the reductions would no longer be offset by some small number of funding increases.
Institution
No. of grants
Total ’24 Funding ▼
Estimated change
1,024
$611 mil.
-$111 mil.
596
$480 mil.
-$63 mil.
714
$453 mil.
-$93 mil.
540
$293 mil.
-$55 mil.
331
$197 mil.
-$54 mil.
311
$184 mil.
-$35 mil.
384
$180 mil.
-$32 mil.
221
$102 mil.
-$21 mil.
204
$83 mil.
-$13 mil.
195
$76 mil.
-$13 mil.
129
$69 mil.
-$17 mil.
176
$64 mil.
-$13 mil.
124
$50 mil.
-$9 mil.
77
$48 mil.
-$9 mil.
61
$39 mil.
-$9 mil.
78
$34 mil.
-$12 mil.
72
$25 mil.
-$5 mil.
49
$24 mil.
-$3 mil.
29
$23 mil.
-$2 mil.
17
$17 mil.
-$3 mil.
20
$14 mil.
-$3 mil.
30
$13 mil.
-$3 mil.
38
$13 mil.
-$2 mil.
28
$12 mil.
-$2 mil.
7
$11 mil.
-$3 mil.
38
$11 mil.
-$2 mil.
13
$11 mil.
-$1 mil.
20
$10 mil.
-$1 mil.
33
$10 mil.
-$2 mil.
25
$10 mil.
-$3 mil.
25
$9 mil.
-$1 mil.
2
$8 mil.
-$1 mil.
2
$8 mil.
+$371k
9
$7 mil.
-$2 mil.
7
$6 mil.
-$1 mil.
17
$6 mil.
-$1 mil.
9
$6 mil.
-$1 mil.
20
$6 mil.
-$759k
10
$5 mil.
-$1 mil.
10
$5 mil.
-$961k
14
$5 mil.
-$540k
9
$5 mil.
-$535k
1
$5 mil.
-$1 mil.
3
$4 mil.
-$1 mil.
10
$3 mil.
-$158k
1
$3 mil.
+$213k
1
$3 mil.
+$144k
9
$3 mil.
-$607k
15
$3 mil.
-$647k
9
$2 mil.
-$270k
13
$2 mil.
-$313k
5
$2 mil.
-$745k
4
$2 mil.
-$738k
4
$2 mil.
-$259k
3
$2 mil.
-$459k
8
$2 mil.
-$142k
6
$1 mil.
-$333k
5
$1 mil.
-$415k
1
$1 mil.
+$113k
3
$1 mil.
-$35k
4
$1 mil.
-$336k
3
$1 mil.
-$199k
3
$1 mil.
-$315k
2
$1 mil.
-$27k
56
$16 mil.
-$1 mil.
Total
5,887
$3.3 bil.
-$618 mil.
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Health
Single infusion of controversial drug changed severe depression symptoms within hours, study finds
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People experiencing severe depression with suicidal symptoms may not have to wait weeks for traditional antidepressants to take effect.
A recent review suggests that a single intravenous ketamine infusion can provide rapid relief for some patients.
Originally developed as an anesthetic, ketamine is a medicine that can reduce pain and, in some cases, help treat depression, but it can also be misused as a recreational drug, experts warn.
SINGLE DOSE OF POWERFUL PSYCHEDELIC CUTS DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS IN CLINICAL STUDY
Researchers from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine reviewed 26 clinical trials that included more than 1,100 patients. Approximately 626 received ketamine and 540 served as controls who did not take the drug.
Most of the trials included patients with major depressive disorder, but 11.5% included those with bipolar depression and 7.7% included people with both unipolar and bipolar depressive diagnoses.
A recent review suggests that a single intravenous ketamine infusion can provide rapid relief for some patients with treatment-resistant depression. (iStock)
Compared to a placebo, a single treatment significantly reduced depression in just four hours and dramatically lowered suicidal thoughts within 24 hours, the study found.
Patients reported fewer depressive symptoms after a week and reduced suicidal thoughts for up to a month after one ketamine infusion. Those who received repeated ketamine infusions showed a similar reduction of suicidal and depressive symptoms at the end of the treatment.
WHAT IS KETAMINE THERAPY? MORMON REALITY STARS TOUT CONTROVERSIAL TREATMENT
The most common adverse effects of ketamine – including headaches, numbness, dissociation (“out of body” experiences), nausea, dizziness and visual disturbances – were temporary and resolved within hours of the infusion.
Rarer, more serious side events included hospitalization, suicide attempts and suicide, but most were unrelated to ketamine, the review stated.
The analysis was published in May in JAMA Psychiatry.
Treatment-resistant depression
Major depressive disorder is a formal psychiatric diagnosis affecting approximately 280 million people globally, according to recent research.
Effective treatment involves a combination of therapy and medication, frequently antidepressants. However, for a few patients, symptoms do not respond to multiple therapies, a condition known as treatment-resistant depression, doctors say.
“When all existing treatment options fail, patients with severe depression could consider ketamine infusions.”
These patients are at a higher risk of very serious, sometimes tragic consequences, including suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and death.
“When all existing treatment options fail, patients with severe depression could consider ketamine infusions,” lead author Taeho Greg Rhee, PhD, of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, told Fox News Digital. “This is still a safer option when compared to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).”
Compared to a placebo, a single treatment significantly reduced depression in just four hours and dramatically lowered suicidal thoughts within 24 hours, the study found. (iStock)
Traditional antidepressants stabilize mood by slowly elevating serotonin levels in the brain, but it can take weeks for the full effect to be achieved.
Ketamine, in contrast, works rapidly by blocking glutamate, a neurotransmitter that can impact emotions negatively when levels are too high in the brain, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Implications for care
The authors say their findings have two important potential clinical applications.
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First, ketamine’s rapid effects can be a life-saving treatment in the emergency room for patients presenting with suicidal ideation.
Experts caution that the medication should only be administered in closely monitored settings, such as clinics, to ensure safe treatment. (iStock)
Second, the effects of a single ketamine infusion are relatively short-lived – as almost all patients relapsed with depressive symptoms after a single infusion – so those with treatment-resistant depression will need repeated sessions.
“While intravenous ketamine is not yet FDA-approved for treating depression, it may still be used with off-label indications for those with severe depression and/or with a high risk of suicidal behaviors,” said Rhee.
Experts urge caution despite promise
Dr. Lama Bazzi, a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, has had several patients receive ketamine infusions.
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“For a small subset of patients in a major depressive episode or struggling with suicidal thoughts, intravenous ketamine can be genuinely lifesaving,” Bazzi, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “The relief they experience is almost immediate, offering them distance from the intensity of their emotions.”
However, she cautions that the medication should only be administered in closely monitored settings, such as clinics, to ensure safe treatment.
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Ketamine is not a panacea, Rhee agreed, warning of the potential risk of abuse and addiction.
“It should only be used medically,” he advised.
Ketamine’s rapid effects can be a life-saving treatment in the emergency room for patients presenting with suicidal ideation, some experts claim. (Getty Images)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, noted in previous comments to Fox News Digital that ketamine is increasingly being used to treat severe depression, but emphasized that it should be administered under careful medical supervision because of its potential risks.
Study limitations
Although the studies compared ketamine with a placebo, some patients may have realized they were receiving the drug. This could have influenced how they reported their symptoms and how effective they perceived the treatment to be, according to the researchers.
“It should only be used medically.”
Another limitation is the small sample size of the studies, which could make the effects seem disproportionately magnified.
Also, as this was a review of many different studies, it is challenging to apply the findings to the general population, the researchers noted.
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“While long-term outcomes have not been studied, I believe that when patients are severely depressed or suicidal, ketamine is sometimes the only choice that almost always works,” Bazzi added.
Anyone interested in exploring alternative depression treatments should first consult a doctor.
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Tick bite-related ER visits are at their highest seasonal levels since 2017 across most U.S. regions, raising concerns about increased Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.
That’s according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Tick Bite Tracker, which monitors weekly emergency department visits associated with tick bites across the country.
For every 100,000 ER visits, approximately 71 were related to tick bites in April 2026, compared to a historical seasonal average of roughly 30 per 100,000.
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Some of the highest rates of tick-based ER visits were among children younger than 10 years and adults between 70 and 79 years.
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“Over the past three decades, the geographic range of the blacklegged tick has expanded significantly, and with it, the risk of Lyme disease and other Ixodes-transmitted infections,” Dr. Steven Goldberg, a family medicine physician who practices urgent care and family medicine at UofLHealth in Louisville, Kentucky, told Fox News Digital.
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“The Ohio River Valley region is one of the most striking examples — Lyme disease cases in Ohio have increased roughly 10-fold over the past decade, likely driven by the convergence of Northeastern and Upper Midwestern tick populations meeting in that corridor.”
States like Virginia and West Virginia, as well as areas south of the traditional endemic zone, are reporting increasing tick abundance and disease cases, the doctor noted.
“Over the past three decades, the geographic range of the blacklegged tick has expanded significantly.”
“The lone star tick is also expanding its range northward beyond its traditional stronghold in the Southeast, which means diseases like ehrlichiosis and alpha-gal syndrome are appearing in regions where clinicians may not yet be thinking about them,” he warned.
Some climate studies predict that the blacklegged tick’s suitable habitat could expand by over 200% by the end of the century, Goldberg noted, including into Canada and across the central and southern U.S.
What’s driving the spike?
“Warmer, wetter conditions allow ticks to survive in habitats that previously would have been too cold,” said Dr. Suraj Saggar, chief of infectious disease at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey. “Milder winters also extend the lifespan of both ticks and the animals they feed on, accelerating tick reproduction and shortening their life cycles.”
Areas that historically experienced longer, colder winters or significant snow cover are now more hospitable to ticks, the doctor noted.
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“As temperatures rise and precipitation patterns change, ticks are able to spread northward and thrive in new ecosystems,” he said.
Another contributing factor is increased land development and human expansion into wooded and grassy areas, as well as reforestation of formerly agricultural land.
“As temperatures rise and precipitation patterns change, ticks are able to spread northward and thrive in new ecosystems,” an expert said. (iStock)
“The recovery and expansion of white-tailed deer populations — critical hosts for adult blacklegged ticks — has been a major driver,” Goldberg added. “Deer density is positively associated with Lyme disease incidence. Small mammal communities, particularly white-footed mice that serve as key reservoir hosts for Borrelia burgdorferi, also play a central role.”
Tick-borne diseases
Tick bites are known to transmit numerous illnesses, the most widespread of which is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection.
“Lyme disease cases alone have increased roughly two- to threefold over the past 20 years,” Saggar said. Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, per CDC surveillance data.
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Also common are anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis, two different types of bacterial infections, according to the doctor. Tick bites can also cause babesiosis, a malaria-like parasitic disease that infects and destroys red blood cells.
“Another growing concern is alpha-gal syndrome, a condition in which a (lone star) tick bite triggers a serious allergic reaction to red meat,” Saggar said. “In rare cases, people have died from anaphylactic reactions linked to alpha-gal syndrome following a tick bite.”
Some common symptoms of tick-borne illness include fever, chills, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches and joint pain. (iStock)
Ticks can also transmit viruses, including the Powassan virus, which can cause severe neurologic injury.
“Powassan virus disease is arguably the most concerning emerging tick-borne infection,” said Goldberg, who is also chief medical officer at HealthTrack. “It’s transmitted by the same blacklegged tick that carries Lyme disease, but unlike Lyme, it can be transmitted within minutes of tick attachment.”
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Powassan can cause severe encephalitis with a roughly 10% to 15% fatality rate, and more than half of survivors have lasting neurological deficits, Goldberg noted.
In the Rocky Mountain states, the Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Colorado tick fever.
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“In the Southeast and South-Central U.S., the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) drives a different set of concerns: ehrlichiosis, tularemia, and two emerging viral threats — Heartland virus and Bourbon virus,” said Goldberg.
Symptoms to watch for
Some common symptoms of tick-borne illness include fever, chills, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches and joint pain, according to Saggar.
Another sign is the classic “bull’s-eye” rash associated with Lyme disease, known medically as “erythema migrans.”
“If you think you have been bitten by a tick, you should seek medical attention if you develop symptoms after a known tick bite or after spending time in tick-prone areas, especially during the spring, summer and fall.” (iStock)
“Because testing can sometimes be falsely negative early in the disease process, doctors may treat patients based on symptoms and exposure history rather than waiting for laboratory confirmation,” Saggar noted.
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“If you think you have been bitten by a tick, you should seek medical attention if you develop symptoms after a known tick bite or after spending time in tick-prone areas, especially during the spring, summer and fall.”
Preventing tick bites
As there are no vaccines currently available for any tick-borne disease in the U.S., prevention is the most effective strategy.
Goldberg shared the following recommended prevention strategies.
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- Use EPA-approved repellents, including DEET, picaridin, IR3535 or oil of lemon eucalyptus on exposed skin. Treat clothing and gear with permethrin (a synthetic insecticide and repellent) or purchase pre-treated clothing.
- Wear light-colored clothing (to spot ticks more easily), long sleeves and long pants tucked into socks when in wooded or grassy areas.
- After spending time outdoors, check your entire body, paying special attention to the scalp, behind the ears, armpits, groin and behind the knees, the doctor advised. It’s also recommended to shower within two hours of coming indoors.
- Tumble-dry clothing on high heat for at least 10 minutes to kill any ticks on clothing.
- Remove ticks promptly and properly. Using fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible, and pull upward with steady, even pressure. Clean the bite area afterward.
Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, per CDC data.
“The longer a tick is attached, the higher the risk of disease transmission — for Lyme disease, transmission generally requires at least 36 hours of attachment,” Goldberg said. “The Powassan virus can be transmitted much more quickly.”
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