Results of the first randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials testing antibiotics in patients with a stubborn form of Lyme disease-those whose symptoms persist after standard courses of antibiotics-validate that these patients suffer significant pain and other disabling symptoms. The two trials found, however, that a 90-day course of intravenous and oral antibiotics was no better than placebo at improving these chronic symptoms.

Most golfers aren't aware that they face a high risk of attracting Lyme disease from deer ticks living on the edge of the woods in and around golf courses, according to Elyes Zhioua, assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island and the director of the URI Tick Research Lab.

Cat scratch disease may no longer be the appropriate name for the malady caused by the bacterium Bartonella henselae. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have discovered evidence of the organism in ticks, suggesting that the arthropod has the potential to transmit the disease.

A research team working at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has determined the three-dimensional structure of a key protein on the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Called OspC, the protein is derived from two strains of the Lyme disease bacterium. This research may lead to a second-generation vaccine that would be more effective than the current one.