1KHO 944: The Intentional Infecting of Ticks | Kris Newby, Bitten

Ginny Yurich (0:00)

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Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000HOURS Outside. We're going to be talking about something we've never talked about on the show before. We're going to be talking about ticks. We're going to be talking about Lyme Disease. It's actually a question that gets brought up often because we're trying to get kids outside.

I had an experience. I don't even know. Okay, the guest today is Kris Newby.

She is the author of this award-winning book called Bitten. The subtitle is The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. Also, she is a senior producer of the Lyme Disease documentary Under Our Skin. There's also Under Our Skin 2 These are fantastic documentaries. I'm going to put the links in the show notes. And it comes up a lot because we're trying to get kids outside. So people are asking about ticks. And I had an experience, Kris, and maybe since you've talked to so many people, they might have a similar experience. Maybe it was like a decade ago in passing. My friend Molly was like, yeah, the government created Lyme Disease. And I don't even know if that's like what you would say.

But I had never in my life, it was like a thought that was so out of the blue. I was like, wait, wait, what?

And then just very recently, people have been posting about these tick boxes. We found a box of ticks in the woods. And then people are recommending your book. And so I was like, you know what? For the first time, I need to finally read about this. And it is shocking. So first of all, welcome, Kris. Thank you so much for being here.

Kris Newby (3:28)

Thanks Ginny for inviting me. I appreciate it.

My whole goal is to keep what happened to my family from happening to anybody else.

Ginny Yurich (3:39)

Yes, absolutely. And so this is something to take seriously. It's not a reason I don't think to not go outdoors, but it is something to be aware of. I do, I want to talk about all of this research that you did. And I mean, it's incredible research. You are an award-winning science writer. So you have your own story of getting very sick after tick bites. And this lasted a long time. There seems to be some similarities to COVID in that for some people, it lasts a long time. They have long COVID. For some people, it didn't. The symptoms are all different depending on who you are. I truly, you're shocked that you're in the 40s and 50s. They were making all of these, but that seems so long ago. Was there even TV then?