The most effective personal protection against tick attachment in field studies is the combination of permethrin-treated outer clothing and a 20 to 30 percent DEET (or 20 percent picaridin) repellent on exposed skin. Each works on a different surface and on a different stage of the tick's approach.
DEET does not poison ticks; it makes a host harder to find. The compound interferes with chemosensory neurons that respond to…
Tick tubes were developed by Sam Telford and Andrew Spielman's group at Harvard in the late 1980s. The original Massachusetts trials of…
Wet ticks are surprisingly hard to kill in laundry - even hot wash cycles leave a fraction alive. Tumble drying clothes on high heat for…
A 2001 NEJM trial by Robert Nadelman and colleagues showed that a single 200 mg oral dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of removing an…
An unattached tick can crawl on a person for hours before biting. CDC's two-hour shower rule is based on field studies showing that…
Folk remedies for backing out an attached tick - lit matches, nail polish, petroleum jelly, essential oils - all do the same wrong thing:…