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Committee OKs tick bill; Legislature votes next week

DANIEL GILREIN COURTESY PHOTO | An adult deer tick, which are known to  carry pathogens causing Lyme disease, babesiosis or anaplasmosis. Adult ticks are active in spring and late fall, according to Daniel Gilrein, entomologist at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County.
DANIEL GILREIN COURTESY PHOTO | An adult deer tick, which are known to carry pathogens causing Lyme disease, babesiosis or anaplasmosis.

A proposed law introduced recently to aggressively address tick-borne illnesses was unanimously approved by the Suffolk County Legislature’s Public Works and Transportation Committee on Tuesday, and will go to the full legislature for a vote next Tuesday at its meeting in Riverhead.

The proposed law would require the Suffolk County Vector Control to submit an annual plan that indicates steps being taken to reduce the incidence of tick-borne illnesses — including work to be done, active measures being taken and an analysis to determine the effectiveness of the program.

Vector Control has focused mainly on mosquito-borne illnesses such as West Nile Virus. However language in the bill itself states that “an individual is 300 times more likely to contract Lyme’s disease than mosquito-borne West Nile Virus.”

County Legislator Al Krupski, a co-sponsor of the bill, called Lyme disease an epidemic on the east end of Long Island. And at a deer forum held last week in Southold, leaders highlighted the fact that tickborne illnesses are an issue on the North Fork.

“Most of us have been impacted in some way by tick-borne disease,” he said in a recent release. “Suffolk County needs to play an active role to control this growing health problem.”