The Tick That Changed The Subject
Laura Finney
9/10/2026
There was a time, not so long ago, when lunch at a country club meant chicken salad sandwiches with a side of juicy gossip and perhaps a glass of wine, if we were feeling particularly sassy.
Last month I was invited to a golf club on Martha’s Vineyard to meet a handful of people who have spent an inordinate amount of time studying a creature about the size of a punctuation mark – and I was excited. No, not just excited like, “this should be interesting.” Excited like I was five years old and it was Christmas morning.
Do you see what that lone star tick did to me? It took away my cheeseburger and replaced it with an intense intellectual curiosity about vector-borne disease. Who am I?
On a stupidly beautiful Wednesday – the kind of day when being indoors seems slightly irresponsible – I put on my best, ‘act like a grown-up’ outfit and in the company of dear friends, went off to Farm Neck club for lunch and a talk. Added bonus that we ran into a certain former president as he went off to play the course. Because apparently this is my life now. Former president to the right, epidemiologists to the left and there I was in the middle itching to learn more about ticks.
The room included the head of the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, as well as several epidemiologists, the head of Tick Free MV and the head of The Tick Center. Essentially the Vineyard’s version of the Avengers, if the Avengers carried tweezers.
If you’d asked me in September of 2024 if I’d like to go to a luncheon about ticks, I would have looked at you like you’d just grown an extra head and slowly backed away. August 2026 Laura was knocking down the other attendees to get in.
In the last year, I’ve done the deep dive on ticks. I’m fascinated by how quickly they went from vague seasonal annoyance to the bringers of Armageddon (in my mind). Two years ago, a tick was just something that I would occasionally have to pick off the dog. Now I want to know where it lives, who it eats, who it dates, how many children it has and what are its plans for global domination. I have so many questions. Which is why I now get genuinely excited when someone offers to answer them.
So, there we were, in a room of roughly twenty-five people, five of whom were the experts. And for the first time in a year, I felt like I’d found the people who spoke my language. There were the usual ‘speeches’ about what each person was doing to help solve tickmageddon (my word, they used actual scientific words) and the clapping and the quiet nibbling on turkey wraps. But then, there was the opportunity to corner the experts – so politely of course that I doubt they realized I was actively blocking their exit – and get down to what I wanted to know.
Which is this …
Given the explosive growth and expansion of the tick populations, the exponential rise in tick-borne illnesses and the lagging nature of any semblance of a national plan to stop all of this – what is this going to look like in a few years?
Before you start worrying that I’ve got a basement stocked with dried beans and several hundred yards of aluminum foil from which to fashion protective headwear, I should first point out that I am not typically a believer in doomsday theories.
It’s just that the ticks are making a compelling case. They’re expanding their range with the territorial ambitions of Attila the Hun and the reproductive enthusiasm of a rabbit. And I’m the woman in the town square ringing her bell and yelling “The Ticks Are Coming” while everyone gives me the side eye.
So yes, my enthusiasm for these experts and what they are achieving on the Vineyard might be a little colored by my experience, but it’s no less deserved.
Martha’s Vineyard is not ground zero for alpha-gal or tick-borne illnesses in general. Thank goodness. That distinction belongs to others and frankly they can keep it. What we are is a living laboratory of what happens when ticks pack their little suitcases and head north.
We have the ticks. We have the people. We have the deer and mice and the climate supporting what appears to be a remarkably robust tick economy. Toss in the seasonal population who happily waddle off into the tall grass in flip-flops and the tick-centric Martha’s Vineyard brochure practically writes itself.
Which is why Martha’s Vineyard is so important. What the researchers are learning here, regarding what the ticks are doing, where they’re going and how we might persuade them to cut it out could help communities that haven’t yet realized they’re next.
In other words, we might not be ground zero, but we might be the preview.
Honestly, two years ago you couldn’t have paid me to go to that luncheon. Now I’m actively blocking the escape route of an epidemiologist with sheer will and half a turkey wrap.
When, exactly, did things get so very weird?
(There is far more going on here on the Vineyard than I have the space or the scientific credentials to adequately explain. And while neither of those limitations has historically stopped me, in this case I’m going to defer to the people who actually know what they’re talking about. I strongly suggest – perhaps even insist – that you take a look at the wonderful work being done on MV. Because while I may be the lunatic ringing the bell, these are the people actually figuring out what to do about the ticks.)
https://www.mvmed.org/tickcenter
https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2026/08/26/hospital-embarks-first-its-kind-alpha-gal-study