Lyme Disease: Rising Cases & Future Vaccines, Explained

With guests Dr. John Aucott and Dr. Richard Marconi.

00:00 Intro
03:00 What is Lyme disease?
05:00 Why it’s difficult to catch Lyme disease early
06:15 500,000 Lyme disease diagnoses per year
07:30 How climate change is increasing cases
09:00 Dr. John Aucott interview
12:15 The problem with Lyme disease testing
14:00 Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS)
17:00 Chronic symptoms of Lyme disease
21:20 How Lyme disease affects the brain
24:30 Treating Lyme disease
26:00 Long-term effects of Lyme disease
28:00 The allure (and risk) of alternative clinics
33:30 The rise and fall of the LYMErix vaccine
36:30 New vaccines on the horizon
42:15 Lyme disease prevention tips
50:00 Outro

 A tiny bite from a tiny tick can trigger a complex disease which speaks to some huge problems with our healthcare system.

In this episode, we explain the biology, controversy, and cultural blind spots around Lyme disease, a condition that reflects much more than just a bacterial infection. It’s also a mirror for our most urgent public health issues: inequality, misinformation, climate change, and the growing mistrust of science.

Together, we explore:

• Why Lyme disease symptoms can linger long after treatment
• What makes Lyme so neurologically disruptive (and so hard to diagnose)
• How climate change, suburban development, and racial disparities intersect with the rise of tick-borne illness
• The dangers of alternative medicine grifters preying on desperate patients
• The truth about the original Lyme vaccine, and what’s coming next...

We speak with two world-class experts:

• Director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center and leading voice on post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS)
• Dr. Richard Marconi: Professor of microbiology and immunology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a pioneering scientist behind next-generation Lyme vaccines

We also share practical prevention tips and discuss how Lyme disease is shaping the future of infectious disease research, diagnostics, and brain health.

This is... Your Brain On Lyme Disease.

‘Your Brain On’ is hosted by neurologists, scientists, and public health advocates Ayesha and Dean Sherzai.

SUPPORTED BY: NEURO World. Help your brain thrive, now and into the future: https://neuro.world/ 

‘Your Brain On... Lyme Disease’ • SEASON 5 • EPISODE 4

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/yo...

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Ktt...

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