HHS Launches Sweeping Plan to Combat Lyme Disease as Tick-Borne Illnesses Surge

HHS Launches Sweeping Plan to Combat Lyme Disease as Tick-Borne Illnesses Surge

Back in 2023, I wrote a number of stories on tick-caused disease cases in this country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta issued a warning when three people died of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Cases of babesiosis, a tick-borne disease that can be fatal in rare cases, were rising in the Northeast and the illness is now considered endemic in 3 states.

Also of note that year were reports that more than 100,000 people in this country have become allergic to red meat since 2010 due to a syndrome caused by tick bites. The condition is known as alpha-gal syndrome, for the sugar that the Lone Star ticks produce that appears to be the trigger for this condition.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread by the bite of infected deer ticks, especially in the Northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwestern parts of the country. It often starts with a spreading “bull’s-eye” type rash and can cause fever, headache, tiredness, and muscle or joint pain. If it is not treated early with antibiotics, the infection can move to the joints, heart, and nervous system, causing problems such as arthritis, facial weakness, and irregular heartbeats.

Although no one knows with certainty how many cases of Lyme disease occur in the United States each year, researchers estimate that as many as 476,000 people are diagnosed and treated each year.

Over 89,000 cases of Lyme disease were reported to CDC by state health departments and the District of Columbia in 2023. This number reflects cases reported through routine national surveillance, which is only one way public health officials track diseases. Recent estimates using other methods suggest that approximately 476,000 people may be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year in the United States. This number likely includes patients who are treated based on clinical suspicion but do not actually have Lyme disease.

With the increasing problems associated with tick-borne disease prevention, it is interesting to note that the Department of Health and Human Services is launching what it calls a “sweeping plan” to battle Lyme disease and pumping millions into in “broader tick-borne disease research.”

Led by the Trump Administration, we’re launching one of the most ambitious federal efforts ever undertaken to combat Lyme disease, accelerate research, and improve care for patients and families. pic.twitter.com/F8KWYs7FwU

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) May 29, 2026

The Department of Health and Human Services is launching what it calls a “sweeping plan” to combat Lyme disease, on top of the nearly $50 million the National Institutes of Health spends each year on researching the disease and $122 million in “broader tick-borne disease research.”

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced “one of the most ambitious federal efforts ever to combat Lyme disease” at a press conference in New Hampshire, a state plagued by the disease.

HHS said nearly half a million Americans are diagnosed with the condition every year and “emergency room visits for tick bites reached their highest springtime level in nearly a decade.”

A multimillion-dollar pilot led by HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will collaborate with tick-control researchers, starting with the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases and building on existing collaboration with the Indian Health Service and the Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, to reduce tick populations and disrupt breeding cycles.

The Kennedy HHS approach to the problem includes three new “LymeX challenges” totaling up to $2.5 million in prize funding:

The LymeX Visible Voices Prize awards up to $250,000 for educational tools and public awareness campaigns.

The LymeX Explosive Innovation Sprint offers up to $250,000 for frontline solutions like drug repurposing strategies.

The Top HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness offers a $1 million grand prize for using artificial intelligence to connect patients with faster diagnoses and care.

“These initiatives will accelerate research, drive innovation, and restore trust and make America healthy again,” Kennedy said.

HHS Unveils Sweeping Plan to Combat Lyme Disease and Advance Treatment | HHS

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. today announced a series of major initiatives to strengthen the nation’s response to Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.… pic.twitter.com/DkNVc8k05w

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) May 31, 2026

Kennedy indicated that the program’s goal is to reduce Lyme disease cases by 25% by 2035, compared to 2022 levels.

Hopefully, the lessons learned can be applied to the other tickborne diseases. The cases of alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) continue to escalate.

The findings, presented this week at the American College of Gastroenterology’s 2025 annual scientific meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, show a 100-fold increase in positive test results for alpha-gal antibodies between 2013 and 2024. While these results are preliminary, the study represents one of the largest real-world analyses of AGS to date.

“Alpha-gal syndrome is unlike any other food allergy we treat,” said Vinay Jahagirdar, M.D., the study’s co-author and gastroenterology fellow with VCU Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program and Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health. “Symptoms often appear several hours after a person eats red meat, making it difficult to connect a meal with an allergic reaction. Many patients are misdiagnosed or go years without answers.”

It is also interesting to note that a Lyme disease vaccine recently completed a phase 3 clinical trial.

The vaccine, designed to prevent tick-borne transmission to humans, targets six strains of B. burgdorferi. During infection, the tick attaches to a human and ingests a blood meal, which signals to the bacteria to move from within the tick’s gut to the tick’s salivary glands and then into the human host, Thomas A. Russo, chief of Infectious Disease at the Jacobs School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo, told Discover.

…Russo said the new vaccine is clever because it targets the heart of transmission. When blood is ingested from the vaccinated human host, the antibodies against the bacteria will kill the bacteria before they move from the tick’s gut to its salivary glands.

“It’s a clever use of the biology in terms of vaccine design,” Russo told Discover.

I believe this Kennedy-led HHS initiative is a refreshing shift toward aggressive, solutions-oriented action rather that the special-interest approach (often driven by media frenzy) that appears to be the hallmark of previous administrations.

By pairing serious funding with innovative challenges, public-private collaboration, and measurable targets, the department is signaling that the growing threat of tick-borne diseases will no longer be treated as a niche concern.

If this effort delivers even a fraction of its promised results, it could mark a turning point not only for Lyme disease, but for a broader category of neglected illnesses that have plagued Americans for far too long, yet have received very limited media attention (except at Legal Insurrection).

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