Nova Scotians watch their backs – and each other’s – during another tick-infested summer

// custom header art window.tgam.meta.photo_desktop = "https://www.theglobeandmail.com/resizer/v2/SLTEBXQVUNEJVAFWGZODRGULQY.JPG?auth=53d37ff94eb46d973c60fc7c3d19210c5b3b8c20c6327b337ad8a6ad2be8ddff&width=2560&quality=80"; window.tgam.meta.photo_mobile = "https://www.theglobeandmail.com/resizer/v2/SLTEBXQVUNEJVAFWGZODRGULQY.JPG?auth=53d37ff94eb46d973c60fc7c3d19210c5b3b8c20c6327b337ad8a6ad2be8ddff&width=1500&quality=80"; window.tgam.meta.video = ""; window.tgam.meta.caption = "Mason Tanner, right, who has been diagnosed with Lyme disease after a tick bite, walks with his mother Stephanie, centre, and sister Emily near their home in Mahone Bay, N.S., in June."; window.tgam.meta.credit = "Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail"; // custom header layout parameters window.tgam.meta.headline_overlay = true; window.tgam.meta.headline_overlay_vertical_position = "centre"; // top, centre, bottom window.tgam.meta.headline_overlay_horizontal_position = "right"; // left, centre, right window.tgam.meta.headline_overlay_gradient = true; window.tgam.meta.two_column = false; window.tgam.meta.swap_column = false; window.tgam.meta.full_width = false; window.tgam.meta.dark_background = false; window.tgam.meta.dark_background_colour = ""; window.tgam.meta.centre_headline = true; window.tgam.meta.large_headline = false; window.tgam.meta.sans_headline = false; window.tgam.meta.label_text_colour = ""; window.tgam.meta.label_box_colour = ""; window.tgam.meta.label_text_colour_overlay = "" ; window.tgam.meta.label_box_colour_overlay = ""; window.tgam.meta.audio_bar = false; // custom header display overrides (optional): window.tgam.meta.display_head = "Not quite out of the woods"; window.tgam.meta.display_deck = "Nova Scotians watch their backs (and each other’s) during yet another tick-infested summer, as researchers work furiously on a promising anti-tick arsenal"; window.tgam.meta.label = ""; window.tgam.meta.byline = "Jennifer Yang Health science reporter" window.tgam.meta.byline2 = ""; window.tgam.meta.creditline = "The Globe and Mail"; The outdoors beckoned on a recent Sunday in Nova Scotia’s Lunenburg County, where the weather was 25 degrees and sunny – a perfect spring day. So naturally, Stephanie Tanner’s six-year-old daughter wanted to go outside and play.Emily spent just 30 minutes in the backyard, romping with the family’s chickens. When she came back inside, she was unknowingly harbouring a dozen parasitic hitchhikers; by the end of the day, her mother would pluck 12 ticks from Emily’s body, finding them everywhere from her groin to her hairline.