Hello,
Jeff - This is an excellent historical documentation of Plum Island's history
even before it became the USDA Plum Island. The history goes back to
operation paperclip and to PROVEN tick research on Plum Island dating back to
the 1950s. Plum Island also worked with lone star ticks. ...I wondered how
lone star ticks from Texas would get to my backyard in NY. The ticks had some
help, i.e. germ scientists...and Plum Island.
Patricia
Doyle
FTR#480
http://www.spitfirelist.com/f480.html
Plum Island, Lyme Disease and the Erich Traub
File
(One 30-minute segment)
(Sources are noted in parentheses.)
(Recorded on 10/3/2004.)
Note:
FTR#'s 260-316, 317, 324, FTR#325 and succeeding programs are streaming on
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for download only, also on Real Audio, on their Archive Page.)
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Summary
of FTR#480-(Note: The massive volume of "For The Record" programs
about 9/11 and related topics is summarized and analyzed in the
periodically-updated description for FTR#391. FTR#'s 454, 455, 456 are
compilations of much of the key documentation culled from Mr. Emory's
investigation into 9/11. Along with FTR#391, they should give
listeners/readers a substantive grasp of this momentous event. It is
recommended that listeners use this description and e-mail it to others.
Also: The book "Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile" is available at
About Paul Manning. In addition, the professional history of the late Paul
Manning, the book's author, is presented in the description About Paul
Manning. This enables listeners to acquaint others with Mr. Manning's
journalistic credentials. Key material from the book is synopsized in an extended
description for FTR#305. Understanding the Bormann organization is essential
to comprehending the concept of "the Underground Reich." Note also
that U.S. Government documents proving Prescott Bush Sr.'s Money-Laundering
on behalf of the Third Reich before and after World War II are available at a
linked website, along with commentary by John Buchanan, who located the
documentation. This material is discussed in FTR#435. The website containing
the documents is www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/ .) In the mid-1970's
Lyme Disease broke out in Connecticut and it has since spread through much of
the United States. This program examines the possibility that Lyme Disease
may have spread as a result of clandestine experimentation on biological
warfare on Plum Island-a Department of Agriculture facility that doubled as
an Army BW research facility. Dedicated to the study of animal diseases, Plum
Island appears to have been the site of experiments with disease-infected
ticks conducted by Nazi scientists brought into the United States under
Project Paperclip. One of the Nazi scientists who appears to have been
involved with Plum Island was Dr. Erich Traub, who was in charge of the Third
Reich's virological and bacteriological warfare program in World War II. Was
Traub involved with experiments that led to the spread of Lyme Disease?
Program
Highlights Include: Examination of Traub's studies in the US prior to World
War II; Traub's pro-Nazi activities inside the US before the war; John
Loftus' discovery of references in the National Archives to Nazi scientists
experimenting with diseased ticks on Plum Island; Lyme Disease activist
Steven Nostrum's discovery of Loftus' findings and his work investigating
Plum Island; Details of Traub's involvement with Plum Island; files about
Tick Research and Erich Traub that have been purged; Scientific American's
dismissal of the Plum Island/Traub/Paperclip/Lyme Disease link; the Nazi
heritage of the Von Holtzbrinck firm-which owns Scientific American; Plum
Island experimentation with the disease-carrying "Lone Star Tick";
the fact that the Lone Star Tick-native to Texas-has somehow spread to New
York, New Jersey and Connecticut!
1. In
order to understand how Erich Traub came to the United States, it is
important to understand Project PAPERCLIP. The program begins with a synoptic
account of that project and how its prosecution led to Traub's entry to the
United States and his involvement with Plum Island: "Nearing the end of
World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union raced to recruit German
scientists for postwar purposes. Under a top-secret program code-named
Project PAPERCLIP, the U.S. military pursued Nazi scientific talent 'like
forbidden fruit,' bringing them to America under employment contracts and
offering them full U.S. citizenship. The recruits were supposed to be nominal
participants in Nazi activities. But the zealous military recruited more than
two thousand scientists, many of whom had dark Nazi party pasts." (Lab
257: the Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ
Laboratory; by Michael Christopher Carroll; Copyright 2004 by Michael
Christopher Carroll; HarperCollins [HC]; p. 7.)
2.
"American scientists viewed these Germans as peers, and quickly forgot
they were on opposite sides of a ghastly global war in which millions
perished. Fearing brutal retaliation from the Soviets for the Nazis' vicious
treatment of them, some scientists cooperated with the Americans to earn
amnesty. Others played the two nations off each other to get the best
financial deal in exchange for their services. Dr. Erich Traub was troubling
on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain after the war, and ordered to research
germ warfare viruses for the Russians. He pulled off a daring escape with his
family to West Berlin in 1949. Applying for Project Paperclip employment,
Traub affirmed he wanted to 'do scientific work in the U.S.A., become an
American citizen, and be protected from Russian reprisals.'" (Idem.)
3. The
program sets forth Traub's work for the Third Reich: "As lab chief of
Insel Riems-a secret Nazi biological warfare laboratory on a crescent-shaped
island nestled in the Baltic Sea-Traub worked directly for Adolf Hitler's
second-in-charge, SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler, on live germ trials. . .
." (Ibid.; pp. 7-8.)
4.
Traub had studied in the United States before the war (at the Rockefeller
Institute) and had been involved in Nazi activities inside the U.S. prior to
1939 (the outbreak of World War II). " . . . Traub also listed his
1930's membership in Amerika-Deutscher Volksbund, a German-American 'club'
also known as Camp Sigfriend. Just thirty miles west of Plum Island in
Yaphank, Long Island, Camp Sigfried was the national headquarters of the
American Nazi movement. . . .Ironically, Traub spent the prewar period of his
scientific career on a fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute in Princeton,
New Jersey, perfecting his skills in viruses and bacteria under the tutelage
of American experts before returning to Nazi Germany on the eve of war. Despite
Traub's troubling war record, the U.S. Navy recruited him for its scientific
designs, and stationed him at the Naval Medical Research Institute in
Bethesda, Maryland." (Ibid.; p. 8.)
5.
Nominally under the jurisdiction of the USDA (Department of Agriculture),
Plum Island was also used for military biological warfare research on animal
diseases. In that regard, it was involved with Fort Dietrick, the Army's top
chemical and biological warfare facility. Note that Traub was at the
foundation of the Plum Island/biological warfare nexus. "Just months
into his PAPERCLIP contract, the germ warriors of Fort Detrick, the Army's
biological warfare headquarters, in Frederick, Maryland, and CIA operatives
invited Traub in for a talk, later reported in a declassified top-secret
summary: Dr. Traub is a noted authority on viruses and diseases in Germany
and Europe. This interrogation revealed much information of value to the
animal disease program from a Biological Warfare point of view. Dr. Traub
discussed work done at a German animal disease station during World War II
and subsequent to the war when the station was under Russian control.'
Traub's detailed explanation of the secret operation on Insel Riems, and his
activities there during the war and for the Soviets, laid the ground work for
Fort Detrick's offshore germ warfare animal diseased lab on Plum Island.
Traub was a founding father. . . ." (Ibid.; pp. 8-9.)
6. It
is interesting to note that the Third Reich's biological warfare program had
the cover name of "Cancer Research Program." (In RFA#16-available
from Spitfire-as well as FTR#'s 16, 73, we look at the National Cancer
Institute's Special Viral Cancer Research Program and the evidence suggesting
that the project was actually a front for the continuation of biological
warfare research. Erich Traub appears to have been involved with the projects
related to the SVCRP.) " . . . Everybody seemed willing to forget about
Erich Traub's dirty past-that he played a crucial role in the Nazis' 'Cancer
Research Program,' the cover name for their biological warfare program, and
that he worked directly under SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. They seemed
willing to overlook that Traub in the 1930's faithfully attended Camp
Sigfried. In fact, the USDA liked him so much, it glossed over his dubious
past and offered him the top scientist job at the new Plum Island
Laboratory-not once, but twice. Just months after the 1952 public hearings on
selecting Plum Island, Doc Shahan dialed Dr. Traub at the naval laboratory to
discuss plans for establishing the germ laboratory and a position on Plum
Island." (Ibid.; p. 10.)
7.
More about how Traub came to be in a significant position at Plum Island.
"Six years later-and only two years after Traub squirmed in his seat at
the Plum Island dedication ceremonies-senior scientist Dr. Jacob Traum
retired. The USDA needed someone of 'outstanding caliber, with a long
established reputation, internationally as well as nationally,' to fill Dr.
Traum's shoes. But somehow it couldn't find a suitable American. 'As a last
resort it is now proposed that a foreigner be employed.' The aggies' choice?
Erich Traub, who was in their view 'the most desirable candidate from any
source.' The 1958 secret USDA memorandum 'Justification for Employment of Dr.
Erich Traub' conveniently omitted his World War II activities; but it did
emphasize that 'his originality, scientific abilities, and general competence
as an investigator' were developed at the Rockefeller Institute in New Jersey
in the 1930's." (Idem.)
8. The
push to employ Traub as the director of Plum Island involved professional
recommendations that omitted his work for the Third Reich: "The letters
supporting Traub to lead Plum Island came in from fellow Plum Island
founders. 'I hope that every effort will be made to get him. He has had long
and productive experience in both prewar and postwar Germany,' said Dr.
William Hagan, dean of the Cornell University veterinary school, carefully
dispensing with his wartime activities. The final word came from his dear
American friend and old Rockefeller Institute boss Dr. Richard Shope, who
described Traub as 'careful, skill, productive and very original' and 'one of
this world's most outstanding virologists.' Shope's sole reference to Traub
at war: 'During the war he was in Germany serving in the German Army.'"
(Idem.)
9.
Traub declined the offer to lead the lab. There is considerable evidence that
he was involved with biological warfare research at Plum Island.
"Declining the USDA's offer, Traub continued his directorship of the
Tubingen laboratory in West Germany, though he visited Plum Island
frequently. In 1960, he was forced to resign as Tubingen's director under a
dark cloud of financial embezzlement. Traub continued sporadic lab research
for another three years, and then left Tubingen for good--a scandalous end to
a checkered career. In the late 1970's, the esteemed virologist Dr. Robert
Shope, on business in Munich, paid his father Richard's old Rockefeller
Institute disciple a visit. The germ warrior had been in early retirement for
about a decade by then. 'I had dinner with Traub one day-out of old time's
sake-and he was a pretty defeated man by then.' On May 18, 1985, the Nazis'
virus warrior Dr. Erich Traub died unexpectedly in his sleep in West Germany.
He was seventy-eight years old." (Ibid.; pp. 10-11.)
10.
"A biological warfare mercenary who worked under three flags-Nazi
Germany, the Soviet Union, and the UnitedStates-Traub was never investigated
for war crimes. He escaped any inquiry into his wartime past. The full extent
of his sordid endeavors went with him to his grave. While America brought a
handful of Nazi war criminals to justice, it safeguarded many others in
exchange for verses to the new state religion-modern science and espionage.
Records detailing a fraction of Eric Traub's activities are now available to
the public, but most are withheld by Army intelligence and the CIA on grounds
of national security. But there's enough of a glimpse to draw quite a
sketch." (Ibid.; p. 11.)
11. An
important chapter in the story of how the inquiry into the possible link
between Plum Island, Erich Traub's work on behalf of the US and the spread of
Lyme Disease concerns the work of former Justice Department prosecutor John
Loftus. In his book The Belarus Secret, Loftus referred to work done on Plum
Island in the early 1950's in which Nazi scientists were experimenting on
diseased ticks. Might that have referred to Traub?! " . . . Attorney
John Loftus was hired in 1979 by the Office of Special Investigations, a unit
set up by the Justice Department to expose Nazi war crimes and unearth Nazis
hiding in the United States. Given top-secret clearance to review files that
had been sealed for thirty-five years, Loftus found a treasure trove of information
on America's postwar Nazi recruiting. In 1982, publicly challenging the
government's complacency with the wrongdoing, he told 60 minutes that top
Nazi officers had been protected and harbored in America by the CIA and the
State Department. 'They got the Emmy Award,' Loftus wrote. 'My family got the
death threats.'" (Ibid.; p. 13.)
12.
"Old spies reached out to him after the publication of his book, The
Belarus Secret, encouraged that he-unlike other authors-submitted his
manuscript to the government, agreeing to censor portions to protect national
security. The spooks gave him copies of secret documents and told him stories
of clandestine operations. From these leads, Loftus ferreted out the dubious
Nazi past of Austrian president and U.N. secretary general Kurt Waldheim.
Loftus revealed that during World War II, Waldheim had been an officer in a
German Army unit that committed atrocities in Yugoslavia. A disgraced Kurt
Waldheim faded from the international scene soon thereafter." (Idem.)
13.
"In the preface of The Belarus Secret, Loftus laid out a striking piece
of information gleaned from his spy network: 'Even more disturbing are the
records of the Nazi germ warfare scientists who came to America. They
experimented with poison ticks dropped from planes to spread rare diseases. I
have received some information suggesting that the U.S. tested some of these
poison ticks on the Plum Island artillery range off the coast of Connecticut
during the early 1950's. . . .Most of the germ warfare records have been
shredded, but there is a top secret U.S. document confirming that
'clandestine attacks on crops and animals' took place at this time."
(Idem.)
14.
More pieces of evidence on the tantalizing trail of evidence pointing to a
possible Plum Island/Traub/Lyme disease link: "Erich Traub had been
working for the American biological warfare program from his 1949 Soviet
escape until 1953. We know he consulted with Fort Dietrick scientists and CIA
operatives; that he worked for the USDA for a brief stint; and that he spoke
regularly with Plum Island director Doc Shahan in 1952. Traub can be
physically placed on Plum Island at least three times-on dedication day in
1956 and two visits, once in 1957 and again in the spring of 1958. Shahan,
who enforced an ultrastrict policy against outside visitors, each time
received special clearance from the State Department to allow Traub on Plum
Island soil." (Ibid.; p. 14.)
15. If
in fact Traub was involved with research on Plum Island, this development
would have been consistent with programs being conducted at that time
involving experimentation on unwitting American citizens with biological and
chemical warfare research agents: "Research unearthed three USDA files
from the vault of the National Archives-two were labeled TICK RESEARCH and a
third E.TRAUB. All three folders were empty. The caked-on dust confirms the
file boxes hadn't been open since the moment before they were taped shut in
the 1950's. Preposterous as it sounds, clandestine outdoor germ warfare trials
were almost routine during this period. In 1952, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
called for a 'vigorous, well-planned, large-scale [biological warfare] test
to the secretary of defense later that year stated, 'Steps should be take to
make certain of adequate facilities are available, including those at Fort
Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground, Fort Terry (Plum Island) and an island field
testing area.' Was Plum Island the island field testing area? Indeed, when
the Army first scouted Plum Island for its Cold War designs, they charted
wind speeds and direction and found that, much to their liking, the
prevailing winds blew out to sea." (Idem.)
16.
"One of the participating 'interested agencies' was the USDA, which
admittedly set up large plots of land throughout the Midwest for airborne
anticrop germ spray tests. Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division ran
'vulnerability tests' in which operatives walked around Washington, D.C., and
San Francisco with suitcases holding Serratia marcescens-a bacteria
recommended to Fort Detrick by Traub's nominal supervisor, Nazi germ czar and
Nuremberg defendant Dr. Kurt Blome. Tiny perforations allowed the germs'
release so they could trace the flow of the germs through airports and bus
terminals. Shortly thereafter, eleven elderly men and women checked into
hospitals with never-before-seen Serratia marcescens infections. One patient
died. Decades later when the germ tests were disclosed, the Army denied
responsibility. . . . In the summer of 1966, Special Operations men walked into
three New York City subway stations and tossed lightbulbs filled Bacillus
subtilis, a benign bacteria, onto the tracks. The subway trains pushed the
germs through the entire system and theoretically killed over a million
passengers." (Idem.)
17.
"Tests were also run with live, virulent, anti-animal germ agents. Two
hog-cholera bombs were exploded at an altitude of 1,500 feet over pigpens set
up at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. And turkey feathers laced with
Newcastle disease virus were dropped on animals grazing on a University of
Wisconsin farm." (Ibid.; p. 15.)
18.
"The Army never fully withdrew its germ warfare efforts against food
animals. Two years after the Army gave Plum Island to the USDA-and three
years after it told President Eisenhower it had ended all biological warfare
against food animals-the Joint Chiefs advised that 'research on anti-animal
agent-munition combinations should' continue, as well as 'field testing of
anti-food agent munition combinations. . . .' In November 1957, military
intelligence examined the elimination of the food supply of the Sino-Soviet
Bloc, right down to the calories required for victory: 'In order to have a
crippling effect on the economy of the USSR, the food and animal crop
resources of the USSR would have to be damaged within a single growing season
to the extent necessary to reduce the present average daily caloric intake
from 2,800 calories to 1,400 calories; i.e., the starvation level. Reduction
of food resources to this level, if maintained for twelve months, would
produce 20 percent fatalities, and would decrease manual labor performance by
95 percent and clerical and light labor performance by 80 percent.' At least
six outdoor stockyard tests occurred in 1964-65. Simulants were sprayed into
stockyards in Fort Worth, Kansas City, St. Paul, Sioux Falls, and Omaha in
tests determining how much foot-and-mouth disease virus would be required to
destroy the food supply." (Idem.)
19.
"Had the Army commandeered Plum Island for an outdoor trial? Maybe the
USDA lent a hand with the trial, as it had done out west by furnishing the
large test fields. After all, the Plum Island agreement between the Army and
the USDA allowed the Army to borrow the island from the USDA when necessary
and in the national interest." (Idem.)
20. A
former employee at Plum Island in the 1950's has personal recollection of a
"Nazi scientist" releasing ticks outdoors on Plum Island.
"Traub might have monitored the tests. A source who worked on Plum
Island in the 1950's recalls that animal handlers and a scientist released
ticks outdoors on the island. 'They called him the Nazi scientist, when they
came in, in 1951-they were inoculating these ticks,' and a picture he once
saw 'shows the animal handler pointing to the area on Plum where they
released the ticks.' Dr. Traub's World War II handiwork consisted of aerial
virus sprays developed on Insel Riems and tested over occupied Russia, and of
field work for Heinrich Himmler in Turkey. Indeed, his colleagues conducted
bug trials by dropping live beetles from planes. An outdoor tick trial would
have been de rigueur for Erich Traub." (Ibid.; pp. 15-16.)
21.
Next, the program sets forth the case of Steve Nostrum-an early Lyme Disease
victim whose reading of Loftus' book spurred him to begin inquiring about the
Plum Island/Traub connection. "Somebody gave Steve Nostrum a copy of
John Loftus's The Belarus Secret at one of his support group meetings. Steve
had long suspected that Plum Island played a role in the evolution of Lyme disease,
given the nature of its business and its proximity to Old Lyme, Connecticut.
But he never publicly voiced the hunch, fearing a loss of credibility; hard
facts and statistics earned him a reputation as a leader in the Lyme disease
field. Now in his hands, he had a book written by a Justice Department
attorney who not only had appeared on 60 Minutes but also had brought down
the secretary general of the United Nations. Nostrum disclosed the possible
Plum-Lyme connection on his own television show. He invited local news
reporter and Plum Island ombudsman Karl Grossman to help him explore the
possibilities in light of the island's biological mishaps. Asked why he wrote
about Loftus's book in his weekly newspaper column, Grossman says, 'To let
the theory rise or fall. To let the public consider it. And it seemed to me
that the author was a Nazi hunter and a reputable attorney-this was not
trivial information provided [and it was provided] by some reliable
person.'" (Idem.)
22.
"In October 1995, Nostrum, fresh off nursing duty (having earned an RN
degree to help Lyme disease patients), rushed to a rare public meeting held
by the USDA. In a white nurse's coat, stethoscope still around his neck,
Nostrum rose. Trembling, his blond beard now streaked with gray, he clutched
his copy of The Belarus Secret as he read the damning passage out loud for
the USDA and the public to hear. 'I don't know whether this is true,' he
said, looking at the dais. 'If it is true, there must be an investigation-if
it's not true, then John Loftus needs to be prosecuted.' People in the
audience clapped, and some were astonished. A few gawked, thinking he was
nuts. How did the official USDA officials react? 'If stares could kill, I
would have been dead,' remembers Nostrum." (Idem.)
23. "Hiding
behind the same aloof veil of secrecy they had employed for decades, the USDA
brazenly cut him off. 'There are those who think that little green men are
hiding out there,' the officials responded to Nostrum. 'But trust us when we
say there are no space aliens and no five-legged cows.' A few laughs erupted
in the crowd. 'It did nothing but detract from what I was saying,' says
Nostrum. 'But I said it, and I had the documentation to support it.'"
(Idem.)
24.
The author speculates about the deer and birds that visited Plum Island, and
the possibility that some of the infected ticks may well have traveled to the
mainland from the island on those vectors. (Carroll explains that
white-tailed deer regularly swim the two miles to the island to forage and
migrating birds stop on Plum Island on their way North and South during their
annual migrations.) " . . . If Dr. Traub continued his outdoor germ
experiments with the Army and experimented with ticks outdoors, the ticks
would have made contact with mice, deer, and more than 140 species of wild
birds known to frequent and nest on Plum Island. The birds spread their toxic
cargo to resting and nesting perches atop the great elms and oaks of Old Lyme
and elsewhere, just like they spread the West Nile virus throughout the
United States." (Ibid.; p. 21.)
25.
After noting that allegations of the discovery of Bb (the bacterium that
causes Lyme Disease) in the late 1940's coincides with Traub's arrival on the
island, the broadcast sets forth the denials by a USDA spokesperson that
there was any BW/Traub/Plum Island link to the spread of the Lyme infection.
Note that Scientific American dismissed the possibility of a "Nazi
scientist" link to Plum Island. In FTR#240-part of the long FTR series
about "German Corporate Control over American Media"--it was noted
that the Von Holtzbrinck firm controls that magazine. Like its larger
competitor Bertelsmann, the Von Holtzbrinck firm is rooted firmly in the
Third Reich. In FTR#226, we examined the Nazi heritage of Von Holtzbrinck and
the possibility that they may employed the notorious SS officer and Goebbels
protégé Werner Naumann. The possibility that the Von Holtzbrinck/Scientific
American link may have had something to do with the magazine's casual
dismissal of the Traub/Plum/Lyme link is not one to be too readily dismissed.
"Researchers trying to prove that Lyme disease existed before 1975 claim
to have isolated Bb [the bacterium that causes the infection] in ticks
collected on nearby Shelter Island and Long Island in the late 1940's. That
timing coincides with both Erich Traub's arrival in the United States on
Project PAPERCLIP and the Army's selection of Plum Island as its offshore
biological warfare laboratory. The USDA's spokesperson, Sandy Miller Hays, is
unconvinced about the possibility of a link between Lyme disease and Plum
Island: . . . A PR expert, Hays had Scientific American eating out of her
hand in June 2000, when they reported her as saying, ' 'We still get asked
about the Nazi scientists,' . . . [with] the slightest trace of weariness
creeping into her voice.' In their feature story on Plum Island, the
prestigious magazine dubbed the intrigue surrounding the island as a
'fanciful fictional tapestry.'" (Ibid.; pp. 21-22.)
26.
The program concludes with examination of Plum Island's work with the
"Lone Star Tick"-native to Texas. The focal point of
experimentation on Plum Island in the 1970's, the Lone Star tick-like Lyme
Disease--is now spread throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. How
did that happen? " . . . The lab chief [Dr. Charles Mebus] failed to
mention that Plum Island also worked on 'hard ticks,' a crucial distinction.
A long overlooked document, obtained from the files of an investigation by
the office of former Long Island Congressman Thomas Downey, sheds new light
on the second, more damning connection to Lyme disease. A USDA 1978 internal
research document titled 'African Swine Fever' notes that in 1975 and 1976,
contemporaneous with the strange outbreak in Old Lyme, Connecticut, 'the
adult and nymphal stages of Abylomma americanum and Abylomma cajunense were
found to be incapable of harboring and transmitting African swine fever
virus.' In laymen's terms, Plum Island was experimenting with the Lone Star
tick and the Cayenne tick-feeding them on viruses and testing them on
pigs-during the ground zero year of Lyme disease. They did not transmit
African swine fever to pigs, said the document, but they might have
transmitted Bb to researchers or to the island's vectors. The Lone Star tick,
named after the white star on the back of the female, is a hard tick; along
with its cousin, the deer tick, it is a culprit in the spread of Lyme
disease. Interestingly, at that time, the Lone Star tick's habitat was
confined to Texas. Today, however, it is endemic throughout New York,
Connecticut, and New Jersey. And no one can really explain how it migrated
all the way from Texas. . . ." (Ibid.; pp. 24-25.)
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