Our tick nightmare

我们的跳蚤噩梦

Today, Explained

2026-07-24

25 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Ticks are exponentially expanding their territory, using us for their next blood meal. We must fight back. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. The common wood tick, which can transmit Borrelia and TBE viruses to humans and animals. Photo by Patrick Pleul/dpa/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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  • Every summer we accept that we're gonna get bit by mosquitoes.

  • We bleed, we scratch, we kill, we complain.

  • But in the end, we laugh it off and we head towards winter.

  • But ticks are a much more serious concern.

  • Let me just remind you how many tick-borne diseases there are.

  • Lyme, you know, shout out to Connecticut.

  • Then there's alpha-gal syndrome, which can make you allergic to red meat for the rest of your life.

  • Also...

  • Dairy, but there's so much more.

  • Should we go alphabetical?

  • And I apologize in advance for my pronunciations here.

  • Anaplasmosis, babesiosis, bourbon virus, heartland tick fever, ehrlichiosis,

  • heart tick relapsing fever, heartland virus, pulwassin virus, rickettsia, parkeri, rickettsiosis,

  • rocky mountain spotted fever, soft tick relapsing fever, starry, tularemia, 364-D rickettsiosis.

  • Symptoms of all these range from nausea, vomiting,

  • and bleeding to seizures, organ failure, facial paralysis, and of course, our old friend, death.

  • For those of you who are like, NBD, that's just a Northeast thing.

  • Well, not anymore.

  • Our national tick nightmare on today's Explained from Vox.

  • Support for this show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Cloud.