The Alarming Truth About Lyme Disease

One moves to the suburbs to afford one’s family a better, healthier life. So thought science journalist (and DISCOVER editor) Pamela Weintraub when she, her husband, and their two sons left New York City for the woods of Chappaqua in Westchester County, New York. Instead, what would ensue was a blight—upon their home, their lives, their sanity. The culprit: Lyme disease, a too-often misdiagnosed, mistreated, and misunderstood illness. Cure Unknown details one family’s courageous efforts to be diagnosed and treated in the face of heated controversy over the nature of their disease. Weintraub deftly weaves top-notch research and reporting on this malevolent infection, caused by the bite of a common deer tick, with the personal narrative of a family’s encounters with ignorance and bias while fighting a tenacious, disabling illness. The result is a compelling read that is also important journalism. With an estimated 200,000 new cases each year, the Lyme disease epidemic deserves our attention, and Cure Unknown is poised to become the definitive guide to understanding this illness.