![]() A product called Lymerix was introduced by GlaxoSmithKline in 1998, but some people sued the company, charging that they developed arthritis as a result of taking the drug. No Lyme vaccine is currently on the market. If not treated early with antibiotics, Lyme disease can cause severe arthritis and damage to the heart and nervous system. Nassau County statistics were unavailable. Nearly one in four of those cases were in Suffolk County, where 9,723 cases were reported from 1991 through 2001. ![]() New York has the highest number of cases of Lyme disease in the United States, with 41,847 cases reported between 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new vaccine is designed to protect against all three strains. All three are found in Europe and Asia, but only one strain has been found in North America. The ticks can carry the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, three strains of which cause Lyme disease. Lyme is transmitted by ticks found in wooded and grassy areas throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Benjamin Luft, chairman of the department of medicine at Stony Brook University and one of the scientists working on the new vaccine, is that it is genetically engineered to attack different strains of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. What sets it apart from other vaccines, according to Dr. ''It would be five to seven years before there's a commercially available vaccine.''īut researchers involved in the project have high hopes for their product. ''It's still in the very early stages,'' said Deborah Spak, a Baxter spokeswoman. ![]() It hasn't even been tested on humans yet. But the vaccine, now being developed by Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield, Ill., doesn't have Food and Drug Administration approval or a commercial name. The active ingredient is called outer-surface protein A. But after 10 years of work, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have fashioned a new Lyme disease vaccine that they hope will be on the market by the end of the decade. ![]() IT'S just a coincidence that the research was done in one of the places where it might do the most good. ![]()
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