Lyme Disease kills, though not often, causes serious damge to heart and nervous system, very like ME, but much accelerated and severe (spirocchetal bacteria, similar to syphilis, which also folk don't take seriously enough, wards used to be full of folk with degenerative and eventually fatal syphilis damage to the CNS, that's what killed Al Capone)
no, we didn't import these ticks, the base disease organism (Borroleosis) and life cycle is from Northern Europe and stretches back to antiquity
problem is, US government weaponized it and the retarded assholes then tested it in "open air" by dispersal of infected ticks, on/around Plum Island (by credible accounts)
of course, ticks can be carried on high winds, floating trash or much more often, birds
Plum Island is only 30 miles form the town of Lyme, where the disease got its name from.
And thus, it spread.
Any who doubt that's possible, remember, the Russians testing of smallpox in the Aral Sea region killed people and triggered local epidemics
another accident with anthrax killed hundreds.
Folk will eagerly believe the "other side did bad things!", but our lot are just as damn stupid, but had more money to spend on their shennanigans.
One of my faves being in the UK, the lunatic dipshits tested VX nerve gas in the open air from helicopter sprays near Porton Down...UK is NOT, say, Utah, with vast, empty areas where you can set off nukes etc far from people.
With increasingly warm average weather, and larger populations, more folk into country pursuits etc, you get more folk exposed to tick bites.
