Nantucket Cottage Hospital Establishes
The Nantucket Tick Center
All of a sudden, the tick issue seems to have become the new COVID. From the Midwest to the Hamptons to the alarming increase on Martha’s Vineyard, stories about the proliferation of ticks, particularly the lone star tick, have seemed to appear everywhere. The spread of alpha-gal syndrome has also been making headlines with increasing frequency, including in
The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe and The Atlantic, among other publications. In many places, it has become the topic
du jour.
For Nantucket, tick-borne illnesses are not a new concern. Nantucket Cottage Hospital has been managing Lyme disease, babesiosis and other tick-borne illnesses for over 40 years. But of all the current tick-borne illnesses, no tick has captured the attention of the island’s population more than the lone star tick, identifiable by a single white dot on its back, as well as the alpha-gal syndrome it can trigger—an allergy to mammalian meat and other products that can cause serious allergic reactions. With an estimated 420,000 cases across the country, alpha-gal syndrome is becoming a broad-based healthcare issue that currently has no treatment or cure.
While Nantucket has only registered a fraction of the 1,200 positive tests documented on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket Cottage Hospital has determined that it could be only a matter of time before alpha-gal syndrome becomes widespread on Nantucket. In response to the looming threat and the desire to get out ahead of it, Nantucket Cottage Hospital President Amy Lee and Board Chairman Bruce A. Percelay have made the commitment to create a formalized tick treatment capability, which will be called the Nantucket Tick Center. The facility will have a permanent home in the physical therapy center that the hospital will begin construction on beside its new employee housing apartments.
“Nantucket has decades of experience caring for patients with tick-borne illnesses, but the landscape is changing,” Lee said. “The emergence of lone star ticks and alpha-gal syndrome presents a new and potentially significant health threat to our island. We have an opportunity to act now, before that threat grows, by building the clinical expertise, research capacity, prevention programs and treatment resources our community will need. The Nantucket Tick Center is about putting Nantucket at the forefront of that work.'
The Nantucket Tick Center will build on the hospital’s clinical experience while connecting that expertise with research, prevention and community education. The hospital plans to strengthen awareness, prevention, diagnosis and treatment while convening experts in medicine, life sciences and biotechnology to explore new treatments and vaccines.
According to Percelay, “The hospital plans to mobilize a wide range of resources, including the Morse Clinic at Mass General, which focuses on tick-borne illnesses, as well as numerous experts in the field, to create a nationally focused facility designed to manage the risk of tick-borne illness."
The areas that will be addressed will start with education of the island’s population as to the nature of the threat, disseminating strategies for prevention, and broadening capabilities for diagnosis and treatment. The Nantucket Tick Center will also coordinate with Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, the Morse Clinic and other organizations on translational research on tick exposure, treatment and patient outcomes to study matters of co-infection, diagnostics and recovery. In addition, the center is planning to convene a large-scale biotech conference to better understand vaccines and treatments that may be underway or help in stimulating interest in their development.
The center is also exploring putting together an advisory board of clinical, scientific and community leaders. According to Percelay, “Nantucket’s summer population includes a significant number of biotech experts and executives, some of whom have expressed interest in working with the new center to help explore new pharmaceutical treatments.”
“Our goal is to establish the Nantucket Tick Center and steward the philanthropic support needed to bring it to life,” Lee added. “This investment will help create dedicated clinical space and the infrastructure necessary to advance research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment here on Nantucket. The center will also be supported through our broader capital campaign for the new clinical building and housing, both of which are essential to expanding care and helping us retain and recruit the clinical workforce needed to advance this work.”
For NCH, the center represents a natural next step, Lee said. Nantucket already has deep clinical experience, an engaged community, important public health and conservation partners and access to the expertise of Mass General Brigham. By bringing those strengths together, the Nantucket Tick Center can strengthen prevention, expand treatment, advance Nantucket-based research and help protect the island community while contributing to solutions that may reach far beyond Nantucket.
Both Percelay and Lee, while understanding the primary role of the hospital in serving patients on a daily basis, recognize that time is not on the island’s side. Given the rapid rise in the overall tick problem on Nantucket and particularly the aggressive growth of the lone star tick population, the hospital views a dedicated facility as playing an important role among the services it provides on the island.
