7-13-25 - Tick Talk with Dr. Rebekah Epps, Johnathan Larson, & Kurt Avery

Join co-host Scott Cronin and me on the air tonight as we dive into an eye-opening discussion with entomology experts Dr. Rebekah Epps and Johnathan Larson from the University of Kentucky. We will also be joined by Kurt Avery, founder of Sawyer Products, an industry leader specializing in insect repellents.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:01):
Good evening everyone, Jim Straighter here and we have a
special program for you.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Tonight, and it's all about ticks.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
These critters have infected so many of my friends, family members,
and members of the outdoor community in the last several years,
and it's fair to say it is at epidemic proportions.
And in response to your as interests in that, we've
got a great show for you tonight. We've got some
special guests to tell you all about tics and this

(01:32):
show is primarily aimed and focused on awareness and prevention
so that you can continue to enjoy the outdoors. A
lot of things we're going to talk about are a
little bit scary, but we want to help you be
aware that you still get in the outdoors and enjoy
all the pleasures that go with it as long as

(01:54):
you're aware and use the right preventative measures in that regard.
Our special guest doctor Rebecca Epps, she's an Associate Professor
of Agricultural Education and Advocacy at the University of Kentucky.
And Jonathan Larson, who is an extension entomologist at the university.

(02:15):
And we're also going to be talking to Kurt Avery.
He's the founder of sol Your Products, which I imagine
a lot of you listeners are familiar with. That's a
global company and innovator of insect repellence of water filtration systems,
and he's gonna take you down the road park Pete
and Parcel to how to protect yourself. So Scott a

(02:39):
great lineup and this is really on a lot of
people's minds.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
It's going to be fantastic. We'll talk to folks if
they like to eat, this program will impact them, especially
if it regards to meet if folks have livestock or horses,
any pet owners, lots of folks that have different careers,
gym or being impacted by ticks in their workplace. It's

(03:05):
become as common as safety glasses to treat your clothing.
And I think that we're on the movement of PPE
starting to be with insect repellent clothing and with different
types of sprays like Current has invented for us to
all utilize. And we want to make sure that folks

(03:25):
are aware of everything that can happen, no matter if
their livestock producers or men and women just trying to
get outdoors and enjoy landscaping under backyard or chasing a
big buck.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Jim.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Absolutely, So I'm gonna go to break here coming back
from break. We're going to talk to doctor Rebecca Apps
as lead in this break is presented by SMI Marine.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Go see them.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
They'll take care of all your boonting needs. Remember you
never get soaked at SMI.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Doctor Apps.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
The section of rural America, especially in the state of Canucky,
is dealing with a pretty big problem with this tick
infestation and we have got some problems that are leading
into diseases that folks can get. And it's a big
importance to me and you because of our relationship with
agriculture and livestock producers, and want to talk a little

(04:19):
bit about with you on some statistics and data of
what's going on and why folks that raise livestock or
eat products from livestock, deal with pets or horses need
to be aware of what's going on with the tics
and how they're impact in our life in rural Kentucky.

Speaker 6 (04:42):
Yeah. One of the things when I first got really
familiar with I'm not originally from Kentucky, but became very
familiar with Kentucky over the last fifteen years that I've
been here, and people kept telling me about tickborn vector
borne diseases, and I kept hearing this thing called alpha gal,
and I was just like, wait a minute, what is
this and why should I care? And when I first

(05:05):
heard about this, probably two thousand and nine twenty twelve,
it was like, Okay, this only really affects those that
are outdoorsmen, And then I've realized it's a lot more
than just the outdoorsmen. In two thousand and nine, there
were actually only twelve cases of Alpha gal that were
reported here in Kentucky, and by twenty twenty three, there

(05:29):
were over four hundred and fifty thousand cases in the
United States and over fifteen thousand new cases each year.
And there are actually eight different tich species, And I'm
gonna let doctor Larson because he is the expert on
those actual species that are carriers for alpha gal and
which ones are the most prolific here in Kentucky. But yeah,

(05:53):
it's it's phenomenal, especially when you think about how it's
not just the outdoorsman, but for us who are working
with people and preparing students for careers and agriculture and
related fields. When you think about our construction workers and
our landscaping crews, our forestry friends, those my son works

(06:15):
for local surveyor doing land surveying, and it just became
very natural for me to ask him every week, do
you have enough spray? And I meant not only sunscreen
but also deep to make it through the wheak because
of where he was surveying. And that's really important not

(06:37):
just for our farmers that are there every day and
our traditional when we think about doors and those that hunt,
those that take trips around agritourism and outdoor tourism, but
people that are working in parks and wildlife management, linemen
that are doing utility line work, and those are I mean,

(06:58):
we're all sitting here thinking, I know one of my
students in each one of those categories who could have
easily gotten alpha gal because of it, and just being
a big part of that is how different the alphagal
symptoms are for every individual. Sometimes it can show up
as a rash, and sometimes it can show up as

(07:20):
digestive issues or gastrointestinal issues, and it takes a lot
of time and just general stick to itness when trying
to figure out, Hey, something is wrong with me, but
I don't know what it is, because unless you can identify, hey,
I was bitten by this tick in this specific time
and within two to six hours later I started suffering

(07:43):
these diseases or these symptoms, It's hard for you to
really identify it. And that's one of the problems with
a lot of our vector born diseases is things that
we see as symptoms don't always show up. I know,
you know, if I've been outside at a picnic on
a local farm two to six hours later and I

(08:04):
get gi distressed, I'm typically not thinking, well that I
get bit by tich, but I'm thinking, Okay, who brought
the potato salad? And how long is that out there?
When I hate it? Kind of thing. So it's very, very,
very hard, And that's why just letting people know what
this is and how big of a problem it is,
and that it can affect lots and lots of different

(08:24):
type peoples, not just those who are in outdoor careers,
it's very correct important.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
And Jim, I know that it's a passion of ours
to share with people first and most importantly that we
want to help with their health. We want to find
ways in which we can educate people and have preventative measures,
and the way that we can do that is by
utilizing the doctor Epps at the University of Kentucky and

(08:51):
the Cooperative Extension Service to make sure that folks are
getting information that they need on not only prevention, but
also if they are and that misfortunate statistical number of
being impacted with their health or their livestock is impacted,
it's going to be important that folks know where to go.
But Jim, what's your concerns right now in the state

(09:12):
of Kentucky when it comes to ticks and how we
get people educated.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, my number one fear is that people will stop
getting outdoors because there's no more healthy environment to be
in generally speaking, and obviously as a lifelong hunter and fishermen,
it's extremely important to me. So we want to make
sure people are aware of tics and the hazards that

(09:40):
they pose, and then hopefully through tonight's program, we can
help people identify the symptoms. We can help them identify
what to do if they have been bitten by a tick.
I guess back of the most important thing we should
impart here is if you are bitten by tick and

(10:01):
you have any symptom whatsoever or even as a preventative,
if you've been bitten by a tick, you may want
to see a doctor because most of these diseases are
fairly easy to cure if you jump on them right away.
I think that's one of the things that I want
to point out. But conversely, it's the prevention of the

(10:25):
ticks biting you that we're going to focus on a
lot in the second hour with Kurt Avery.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, and you know, doctor EPs and I have had
a long time relationship with working through educational processes, and
we're teaming up later on in July to work with
a group of people to help make them informed on
how to make good decisions and how to make sure
that young people know how to enter onto the farm

(10:52):
or into the woods. But Doc, what was surprising about
this when we started to put our heads together about
tick awareness is how the national representatives for pork and
beef and a lot of other sectors of meat that
we consume have really not looked too forward and ahead

(11:13):
as far as the economic impact and between tourism and
what we buy at a grocery store. We're looking at
millions into billions of dollars that this can have an impact.
Because my take on it is if you take a
family and one person in that family can't consume a
certain product like beef or pork. There's probably a better

(11:36):
than average chance that chicken or fish may be on
the menu, and it could have a substantial impact to
our livestock producers because it's just a good old fashioned
supply and demand.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
Yeah. I mean, I grew up in a house that
my mother would cook one meal and you could eat
it or leave it alone. And that's pretty much how
it is in our house too. We cook one and
you can eat it or leave it alone. And back
then it was because of preference, you know, I didn't
like something, or my brothers didn't like something. But now
it's a health thing. Well, you know your brother can't

(12:11):
have steak. We're not going to eat it in front
of him because it will truly endanger his life.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
You know.

Speaker 6 (12:18):
So yeah, uh supplying de man, like you said, if
it's a if it's affecting your child or you or
someone in your household, you are not gonna want to
be a part of that, you know, uh, consumer group.
And even that's going to affect the bottom line. And
I know that we're at an all time low of

(12:40):
cattle in the United States, which is causing you know,
low supply, which is a calling for an increase in pricing,
but at the same time we may become lower as
as this vector born disease continues.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Jim.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
One of the major things that we've got to consider
with all of this too, is that whenever we start
looking at tick borne illness, it's not just going to
impact one sector of people. It's not going to just
impact people that go to the woods. This has become
a problem where people are being impacted in and around

(13:18):
their backyard, the parks and which they visit. And like
you said, our main goal is to make sure that
people don't throw their hands up in the air and
throw up the stop sign on getting out and enjoying
the outdoors.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Well, you're the on the stop sign of getting outdoors.
You know. We both experienced some of our our h
U A Worker friends who were not told anything about
ticks or vector borne diseases, and we've seen them at
the end of the day and they're covered in them,
and it's like, WHOA do you not know these little

(13:54):
things exist? And if so, are you not getting deep?
You know? Can we help you with this? And I
don't know if that is a Well there's probably multiple
reasons because of that, but language barrier being one of them,
but also them not knowing, not having information available to
them in their native languages. And then sometimes your farmers

(14:17):
who are using H two A workers may not even
realize that they don't know what they don't know, and
that's going to affect more than just our cattle and
our port prices, but definitely even our vegetable and fruit markets.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
And Rebecca, for folks, we have a large general audience
that listens to the show, and I think it's important
to point out when we're talking about alpha YAO if
they're not familiar with it, it is a really nasty
disease where you become, for lack of a word, allergic
to red meat. And that includes all those food items

(14:54):
that you mentioned, and you know, I'm like, shoot me.
You know, you're you're craving for red meat is a
natural thing, and it's something that just being disrupted by
that in the horrible symptoms that it produces in people.
You mentioned some of them, rash fever. There's just all

(15:16):
kinds of things that go with that. And then then
you turn the corner and start to talk about LN disease,
which it's really nasty, and but I guess in either
case it's out there, we need to raise awareness and
then talk about preventative measures to help protect us.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Correct, that's correct.

Speaker 6 (15:36):
And some of the symptoms that people don't realize hives
and an itchy rash and okay, swelling, and of course
I would probably be apt to look for something like
a tick or you know, a bite, or even you know,
if I've been in the woods, maybe even poison oak

(15:57):
or poison ivy. But at the same time, it can
also cause just horrible abdominal cramps. I just like the
term GI distress, which kind of includes an audi vomiting
arhea that no one likes to talk about, but we
all have experience and shortness of breath, your blood pressure drops,

(16:18):
you get joint pain. I mean. So these are symptoms
that can cross several different problem areas all the way
from you know, your respiratory system to your GI system
as well as your dermal system. So it's and that's
part of the reason is it's so individualized because I

(16:41):
may not have a rash, but you might, whereas I
have GI distress. And and for whatever reason, Scott goes
directly into you know, his respiratory system with his shortness
of breath, so we don't really know exactly. We can't
say that there's one individual thing that pinpoint. So a
lot of people suffer for several several years before they

(17:05):
they really get to see an allergist who takes the
time to listen and understand and realize something is wrong
and we don't know what it is. And the only
way that you can actually diagnose alpha galt is through
a blood test, and if you don't let them know,
and because it is found, you know, these uh ticks

(17:26):
are found in such common areas you don't think about
it unless you say, oh, I've been hunting this weekend,
or I was fishing at such and such lake, or this,
that and the other, which leaves them to believe that
you're outdoors. But it's very common and people who would
not consider themselves outdoors men or outdoors women are people
that are coming down with this. So what's amazing problem,

(17:49):
But also.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
Is these these restaurants, Doctor Epps are having to change
their ways. Doctors are having to learn, you know, symptoms
and gem. It's like me and you talked about earlier
this week when Alignment gets out of a truck and
they walk up to do service on a line or
bring power back. A lot of people would think that

(18:12):
the electricity would be the biggest hazard in that individual's life,
but it could be that little bitty tick that's crawling
up the inside of their pant leg that could be
more catastrophic to their life than grabbing the hold of
that electric line and putting harm through their.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Body that way.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
And I think that's what's so powerful about these ticks
is how it is impacting our livestock. It's impacting our pants.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Our pets.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
But people of all different careers Jim Straighter, are having
to take on a totally different risks now whenever they
go out and enter into an environment, and if they
don't have the precautions that are taken.

Speaker 6 (18:53):
That's exactly one thing that blew my mind with people
with hikiing products, because I was talking with someone who
had at Alpha gal and they had to be careful
even like when they have soaps and lotions that they use,
because if it has glycerin in it, and that is
an animal fat, it can even cause more irritations than

(19:15):
some that does not. And I was talking to him
and I don't want to say the names because I'll
get it wrong. But there was a specific medicine that's
very common that he could not take a gel cap
because of the gelatine that was in it, compared to
another brand that did not use gelatin in their quote
unquote jail caps. So yeah, it things like that that

(19:38):
we don't even think about. You know, You're like, hey,
you got to you gotta tile on all on your
purse or something like that. And now it's like, Okay,
not only what type of medicine is this, but what
what how is it being given? That's a problem. So
it affects the areas of our lives.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
All right, Rebecca, we got to go to the news
break here. This break is said by Massie Old Property's
heart Realty.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
We'll have.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Jonathan Larson on again, and Rebecca, we'll be with us
continuing after the break.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Stick with us. We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
And we're joined now by Jonathan Larson, who's an extension
entomologist at the University of Kentucky. His tremendous headful of
knowledge about these nasty critters and the types of diseases
they carry.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Jonathan, thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
For being a board tonight, and I'm gonna let you
take off with this because there's lots of different kinds
of ticks and different things people need to be aware of.

Speaker 7 (20:38):
Absolutely, it seems like we're always turning around and finding
ticks on ourselves here in Kentucky. I've joked before that
we could change the state name to Kentucky just because
it seems like we have so many of these little
bloodsuckers out there. The main ones that we deal with,
I would say, are the lone star ticks. Those are
the ones that people seem to find most commonly on
them or their pets, who've also got black legged deer

(20:59):
ticks in the state. And then American dog tick, which
used to be a bit mightier. It used to be
a little more common than it is now. There's also
some up and comers. There's the Asian longhorn tick. There's
a few other species that we could talk about, but
I don't want to get us too lost in the
the Iraqanid weeds as it were, So those would be
kind of the main players that I mentioned.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, And there are some interesting things about these different species.
It takes like a lone star I wasn't aware that
it wasn't a vector for light disease.

Speaker 7 (21:34):
Yeah, lone star tick is not a vector for that one.
The main vector for that particular pathogen is going to
be on this side of the country at least, is
going to be the black legged deer tick. It's more
famous the further north you get up into Pennsylvania, and
then a little further beyond that that's where lime was
first discovered and first confirmed, and then those ticks are

(21:55):
a little more common up there.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yes, sir, so the lone star or in particular, off
the top of your head, do you know the diseases
that it carries.

Speaker 7 (22:05):
Sure, I mean the main one. It's not a disease,
it's an allergy. It's red meat allergy also probably more
better known as alpha gal. You can also find with
lone star tick a few different problems besides that, but
that's really the main one that everybody's talking about. As
you were hearing about before. It's not a disease, so
it's not a pathogen that they're spreading. It's a sugar

(22:26):
molecule that they're picking up in the environment. We don't
think that they're born with it at this point, but
they could be. It's a very confusing allergic situation frankly,
but Unfortunately, some of them are going to be able
to pass that from their body into yours. And we
do not contain alpha gal, the sugar molecule. We're some
of the few mammals that don't, and because of that,

(22:48):
our body will mount an immune response to it and
then end up creating this allergic reaction. And then if
you consume a product that has alpha gal in it,
your body will mount that same immune response. Besides that one,
you could also talk about starry which is Southern tick
associated rash illness. It looks a lot like BLME disease.

(23:10):
There's also tularemia, aer lichiosis, and bourbon virus. Those are
associated with that species.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Okay, and likechy elsa.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I've had some friends contract that disease and I'm telling
you it's nasty.

Speaker 7 (23:30):
Yeah, none of them are very fun. Unfortunately, it's not
stuff that you really want to get. Er Lichiosis is
a bacteria and it causes a lot of these. What
you will feel is you'll get bitten by the tick
and then maybe within a day or a day and
a half after the tick has been feeding on you
for a while, you may start to experience flu like symptoms.
Most of these will express and most of the pathogens

(23:52):
that we talk about tonight and the diseases they cause,
they cause kind of achiness, muscle achiness, fatigue, beaver, some
of them are going to create rashes, spots on you,
and all of those different things are going to clue
you into something bad that's going on inside your body.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
John. As we learn more about these ticks, we're learning
that as time goes on, that they're having more havoc
in our life. And this is helping when we go
out and we try to advocate on the educational side,
because we've got so many things that we've got to consider.

(24:29):
We've got our livestock producers that are starting to realize
that certain tick species could impact livestock. We're starting to
realize that folks that are outwalking their pets could end
up having some zoonotic disease symptoms. And then people their
diet is having to change or they're having to make

(24:51):
these adaptations with line disease or other health impacts that
come into their life. What's your fear, John, Not that
we want to put people in panic, but you're right here.
I mean, you're in a war zone of ticks. Where
are we going with things, and why is it such
an increase and alarming rate.

Speaker 7 (25:14):
That's a great question. I would say that this is
kind of multifaceted. Unfortunately, all of the hard problems are,
which means it's harder to kind of get at them
and control them with ticks. I would point to a
few things. We have a lot more weedy habitat with
some of our invasive plants that have come in. Think
of all the bush honeysuckle and things that you've maybe
taken out on your property. That gives them some harborridges

(25:35):
and places to hide and nooks and crannies. There's also
a lot more deer and mice than their previously were.
These are some of the primary hosts or ticks, and
so because of that, they have more things that they
can feed on when they're smaller, or things that they
can feed on when they're bigger, and that's going to
give them higher populations and be more successful in the state.
And then we've got problems where things are getting more

(25:56):
sort of amenable to them. The environments are coming more
the temperature that helps them to survive better, and it's
helping them to create bigger populations. And so kind of
all those things combined, as well as more people trying
to kind of move in where the ticks are, where
the animals are. We like to build our properties and
our suburbs and things near them, and so we're being

(26:18):
exposed to ticks more frequently.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
I would argue and John, what's your opinion on when
folks look at their trail cameras and they see deer
and other animals that are absolutely infested with ticks from
your experience and research and field work, where we add
as far as what we know what ticks are doing

(26:40):
to mammals that we care to hunt and raise.

Speaker 7 (26:45):
There's certainly a high tick load, especially on the white
tailed deer. There are lots of things that are trying
to hop on board them and give them a creepy
little hug and start slurping their blood out. So we
certainly feel for the welfare of those animals. Hunters, of course,
they don't want to be hunting, you know, rangy kind
of withered creatures that are almost anemic because they have
such a high tick load on them. So I think

(27:06):
that people are interested in trying to not only help
people and pets and domesticated animals, but there's a hope
that maybe in the future there'll be techniques that we
can use outdoors that will help some of those animals too.
I won't say rubbers or anything like that where the
deers would be treated. We have other deer pathogens of
course that we don't want them communally sharing. But there

(27:26):
will be things, I think in the future that will
help to control ticks on a larger scale with wildlife.
I think up north they're testing out these tubes that
you can deploy that mice will go into and they
can be treated with some anti tick compounds. So maybe
we'll start getting them at the roote, kind of at
that smaller stage where they I think around here a
lot of people call them seed ticks or turkey ticks

(27:47):
when they're tinier. But there'll be I think, things in
the future that will help these animals to suffer less.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
John, we got to go to break here in a moment.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
But this Asian tick is a real big concern, given
what I've gleaned out of some of the literature that
I've read and what's happening in other parts of the country.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Can you talk a little bit about it.

Speaker 7 (28:10):
Certainly this is an invasive species, so It's been accidentally
introduced to the United States multiple times, but it's been
successfully repelled by the USDA and a lot of federal
people who are really good at their jobs at protecting
us from these kind of invasive species. I would say
that there was a slip through at some point. This
has started in New Jersey back in the early twenty tens.

(28:32):
It's been spreading from there ever since. It's been found
in Kentucky several times. Some of those finds have been
on wildlife. There was a bear and I think an
elk that were both involved that they were discovered to
have this tick on. But then beyond that, a lot
of the cases have involved cattle, so the bulls in particular.
I think when I've talked to people that have dealt
with this, they find them on the bulls, and then

(28:54):
they find them on the other cows that are in
the herd. But it's an amazing tick because it reproduces
through parthenogenesis, so it's not reproducing. It's asexual. I guess
I should say it's not mating. They're all female ticks
as far as we know, and then they're kind of
photocopying themselves and making the next generation of ticks.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
And from what I have read, they can be extremely
dense in populations.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Correct.

Speaker 7 (29:20):
Yes, yeah, if you've ever had acids on a plant,
like a pepper plant outside or a houseplant indoors, you
may have noticed that it seems you go from zero
apids to a million apids very quickly. Kind of a
similar situation because those can also reproduce through these asexual means,
and so we can end up with these really high tickloads.
I believe there have been cases in other states in particular,

(29:41):
where animals have ex sanguinated, essentially they've bled to death
into these ticks. So it's a very high tick load.
It's very stressful. Of course, that's going to impact market
when you're trying to take that cow in and sell it,
because it's probably going to have failed to gain weight
and it's going to have some other issues and it's
been suffering that whole time. So it's definitely a tick.
We're on the lookout for trying to help people to monitor.

(30:04):
For doctor Hannah Tippin, our veterinarian entomologist, she's going to
be doing some work I believe with Asian longhorntick in
the future. We're going to have to just because we're
getting confronted with it more.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Okay, I want to continue that discussion after this break, John.
This break is presented by Mostild Properties Heart Realty. Check
out their current listings at MLP h N E R
T Realty dot com. John, we were talking about those
Asian tips and if those things will kill moose and cattle,

(30:35):
will certainly stand to RECABC co on, rabbits, deer and
other critters.

Speaker 7 (30:42):
Yeah, for sure, wildlife are definitely at risk. We think
about the domesticid animals more because I think that we
are around them a little bit more frequently. But absolutely
I don't think that the wildlife would be safe and
they would definitely get a high tickload as well.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
What actually impact pick populations?

Speaker 7 (31:03):
What actually impact so the availability of something to feed on.
Ticks our blood feeding ectoparasites. They have to have something
to get blood from. They're never switching off and drinking
a sip of nectar here or nibbling on a leaf
over here. It's pure blood all the time. And so
as long as they can find hosts and more and
more hosts, that's going to help to increase those populations.

(31:25):
It's going to help them to sustain those higher populations.
Beyond that, they need habitat, They need places to hang
out and hide out. They don't really like the sun.
I've already talked about their proclivity for blood, but they
also don't like the sunlight, so it feels a little
even more vampiric. They're kind of hiding out in all
these different nooks and crannies and they don't want to
be exposed to a high amount of sun or UV radiation.

(31:47):
So usually kind of along the edges of habitats, places
with a little bit longer grass or a little bit
longer strubbery, all those spots are going to be hotspots
for them. So I'd say those are the two things,
are places to live and things to bite.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
Genre you call about it being in ticky, you know,
instead of Kentucky having to battle this crisis as we
close out the first hour.

Speaker 7 (32:12):
That's a great question, you know. I think that that's
something that it's a big conversation that would probably have
to have to happen on a state level and then
kind of trailing downward into county and then even community
level conversations about what are we going to do to
try and combat some of these problems in terms of
are we going to go through in mo areas down
a little more frequently. That doesn't always appeal to folks,
especially as we have people trying to establish you know,

(32:35):
maybe turkey or quail habitat, or people who are trying
to establish pollinator habitats. People ask about aerial spring or
aerial wide spring not really a very helpful thing with
ticks in particular, just too far down kind of in
all those crevices in the environment. So I think that's
going to have to be a lot of conversations about
how to protect yourself, about how to do things on
your own property to establish tick barriers, maybe some three

(32:59):
foot wide gravel at the edge of the property to
kind of create a tick free zone, or spraying more
directly on the lawn and sort of near the edge
of the property. And then what are you going to
do to yourself you're gonna wear repellents with are skin
based or insecticide which would be clothing based. And then
being aware. We do a lot of education in the
Extension Service trying to get people to know there's somebody

(33:21):
ticks out there all the time. If you're even just
outside for fifteen twenty minutes weeding your garden, kind of
taking a stroll through the bushes. You really need to
come inside and do a tick check. So it'd be
important to kind of take your clothes off, use the
mirror to inspect all the different hotspots. I believe there's
a country song about how romantic it is to do
tckchecks with a romantic partner, and so maybe you can

(33:43):
get some help with that if you got it in
your life. But you would check maybe your knees and ankles,
kind of around your waist, you want to look around
the nape of your neck, your ear, your belly button.
I had a client once who had a tick down
on their belly button probably for about ten days feeding
and then came out fully in gorge. So there's all
different kinds of spots that are thinner skin, rich in

(34:04):
blood vessels that they're going to be able to take
a meal from.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
And John there, I guess the most important thing I'd
like to impart here is this is the old ounce
of prevention is worth the pound of cure in a big,
big way, is it not? In none other words, you
got to be prepared to go out in the woods
or out in the fields or even out in your backyard.

(34:29):
We're going to be talking about some products that can
help protect you, and that's the best first line of defense.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Correct.

Speaker 7 (34:37):
Absolutely, Yes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure is very very apt in this situation because
once you have some of these things, particularly alpha gal.
I mean, this is something you're going to be dealing
with for an extended period of time. Other things you
could maybe get some medication for some antibiotics or the
different bacterial diseases, but it's never any fun to go
through all of that. So anything that you can do

(34:59):
to protect your self and to be aware, those are
absolutely the tools that we hope people will keep in
their back pocket or in the back of their truck
that Scott was kind of alluding to before with the PPE.
So if people can just be aware and be cautious,
it would be great.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Thank you, sir and Rebecca. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
I do want to mention before we close out here
that I've had several folks have success of treatment of
alfria gal through acupuncture. I don't know if either of
you familiar with that, but I've had several friends and
relatives that have had some success with that, and we'll

(35:37):
talk about that some more here in the second hour.
All right, folks, coming up, we got Kurt Avery, founder
of Sawyer Products. They are a global company and innovators
of insect repellents and water filtration systems. We're going to
talk about how to protect yourself at length in the
next hour, so stick with us. The break is presented
by SMI Marine. Nobody gets soaked at SMI. All right, folks.

(36:06):
Pursuing to the first hour, when we describe the various
types of ticks and some of the diseases that they
carry and how it's impacting a broad brush of people
across the country, we were following with Kurt Avery. Kurt
is the founder of sol Your Products. A lot of listeners,
I'm sure aware of their products.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
They are available all across the region.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
They're a global company and innovators of insect repellents and
water filtration systems. Kurt, welcome aboard, and thank you so
much for coming aboard with us.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
You're a very busy man with a great, big global organization,
so we're beholding to you sir.

Speaker 5 (36:47):
Well, yeah, you know you're a legend. So it's actually
our honor to be able to be on your show,
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
All right, And you and I had a long discussion
about this, and I know you want to tell people
about ticks and how they operate, and how to prevent
them and how to remove them. You've got to just
a wealth of information at your disposal because you're in
the business.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
So I'm going to turn this over to you.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
And I guess i'd ask you to tell people they
don't need to stop going outdoors.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
Oh no, no, you have to be outdoors. It's too
nice to me inside to get those Put the phone down,
get the game going off, and get outside and enjoy creation.
It's wonderful fresh air. Do you good. So usually I
start with, let's understand what a tick is and how

(37:40):
a tick operates. Kind of take some of the panic
out of our thing. Not all of it, but most
of it. A lot of people don't understand that ticks
have very slow metabolism. They only breathe once every fifteen minutes,
so the very slow moving creatures. If you get we'll
talk about prevention, we'll talk about how to remove them

(38:03):
if you have them. But if they are on you,
it's going to take eight anywhere from eight to twenty
four hours depending what study you listen to, before they
would trade enough fluids with you for you to get sick.
So you have plenty of time to deal with a tick,
to get it off you or prevent it from even
embedding with our promethrone and other types of repellents. So really,

(38:25):
the first thing I do is just let's not panic.
We can deal with these things. We just don't want
to let them in bed, and we don't let them
if they do, we don't want to leave them in
there very long. So you were talking earlier, why are
there so many picks out there now? Well, you know
the climate has something to do with it a little warmer.

(38:46):
But one of the big reasons is we're reclaiming the woods.
We're putting our houses out where they used to be woods,
and we've taken away the mice are the real factor,
not the big animals that you think of it, But
the mice are the ones that keep the population up,
and then they find their way to the bigger animals.
And we've taken away the presators, the foxes and the

(39:08):
hawks and all those have been chased away because we
carve up those woods to put our houses in there.
And you know, foxes need a lot of territory and
hawks do too, and we've chopped it all up. They're gone,
and now the mice proliferate. So typical mouse could have
anywhere from ten to twelve ticks on it or more.
And so one of the things we do is let's

(39:31):
depopulate the ticks a little bit. So you take a
little cotton ball and you treat it with promethrone. We're
obviously the number one brand. You'll find it in a
yellow box or can you spray it on the on
the cotton ball, and you leave that out in the
yard and tuck it away a little bit so you

(39:52):
don't have to look at it. But the mice will
find it and they'll take it back to their nest
and they'll build it in their nest and all the
ticks are going to die when they come in contact
with the promethron on the cotton. So that's you're going
to depopulate the tick population a little bit. So that
should help cut them down our farms. You know, of course,

(40:13):
mice is there all the time. You get a good
cat that might help, but you're not going to beat
the mice. So it's a great place to do that
on the farm keep the ticks down. You may not, well,
we're not going to kill them out mice, but we
will kill the ticks.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
When it comes to the tics and the prevention. There
are very few people in my life that I've ever met,
and you're one of them, and of course Travis is
another that deserve a lot of respect and a lot
of credit when it comes to Promethron and some of

(40:48):
the other products that you have to offer. Tell us
a little bit too, about how that formethron developed in
your relationship with it, and how we prevent our tick
infestation with treating our clothes and even getting into our
skin treatment a little bit with Accardian.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Yeah, the permethum goes back to nineteen eighty three actually
in response to the original lyne disease scare and the
military needs it needed it, so we ended up buying
the company that invented it because it fit perfectly with us,
and they're good friends of ours. We were parallel partners
for a while. So basically our predecessor, our company, invented

(41:33):
the whole concept of the promethro and got it through
the EPA and it's on all your military uniforms. Every
soldier the US and Canada, we supply both of them.
It's on the uniform and they use the dosage that
lasts for twenty six weeks, which is the life of
a battle dress uniform would be the U so and

(41:57):
then they can retreat it and we have the retreatment
for them. So we're doing all the National Guards and
stuff like that. So the military had to have formethne
on the clothing and they tested it and treat the
bdu with promethine. It's absolutely it's as effective of anything
you could have put on your skin. So it was
equal to one hundred percent date on the skin. Permethrone

(42:18):
on the clothing is just as good. So what it
does is, well we talked we'll maybe talk mosquitos later.
It will repel the mosquitoes, it'll repel the flying insects,
is going to repel them. The crawling insects who breathe
through their abdomen, it's going to kill them. So it
really is effective against fifty five different known species of insects,

(42:42):
either flying or crawling. So what that does is and
when you have that on your clothes, of course you're
repelling the mosquitoes and mats and stuff like that. But
winter tick crawls over one inch of that fabric, it's
going to die that day now. Because their metabolism is
so slow, they may crawl up your pant leg for

(43:03):
another three, four or five hours, but that's it.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
They're done.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
They're not going to bed, they're not going to transmit anything.
They just don't die instantly because of their metabolis to
being so slow. So the panic is out. If you've
seen them crawl an inch, But you got the usual things,
you know, put tuck your pants into your socks, and
they also they always climb north, so you will find
them in the bushes. That's probably how they get on

(43:27):
the deer. So you do want to tuck your shirt
into your shorts and your pants as well, and anything.
Long sleeves are good. Light colors are good, so you
could see them and they're there. Obviously in camouflage you
can't do that, but if you if you know, we're
hikers and whatnot and it's hot out and we got
shorts on them, then then you move to the topical

(43:49):
insect repellant, So you put on the pray insect repellent,
and that will repel the tick as well. They won't
kill one, repell them.

Speaker 4 (43:59):
One thing that's amazing is just how much prevention you
get if you treat your footwear and your socks. I
mean it a lot of times when it heats up,
people don't realize, you know that just treating your your
footwear and your socks. If you want to wear shorts
and hike or camp or you know, work around the yard,
it's uh, you know, I don't know the exact number,

(44:19):
but I guess it's somewhere around sixty prevention. Is that
about right?

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Well?

Speaker 5 (44:25):
Yeah, that or more. We always say, like the gardeners,
why wouldn't you treat a shawl or something like that
light thing that might want to wear a while you're gardening,
or like pants, you know, breatheable pants. Yeah, it it
will last for six weeks. One treatment lasts six weeks,
goes right through the washer and dryer. Gentle helps, but

(44:45):
it goes right through it go in and out of
the water if you're you know, walking through creeks, that
make any difference. It kind of bonds to the fabric,
kind of like the ink and your shirt would bond,
except it's it's different, and it fades the same way.
You'll be light and harsh, harsh, washed, harsh dry. So
think of it like you know the blue in your shirt.
It's going to act just like that when that fades.

(45:07):
This is fade. So you get six washes or seven
weeks of UV light. So if you come back and
you're something that you don't wash very often, like oh,
you're hunting gear, you know, your jackets and stuff like that,
you're not washing them, so you just put them in
a dark closet and it's not exposed to light.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
The clock stops.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
So these things can really last long on a tent.
If you go hiking, if you go camping, you know,
a week, you got seven years of it working on
the tent and and all that stuff is good.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
You know.

Speaker 5 (45:43):
One of the we talked about one of the big
big tips that for hunters, and then it relates to
hikers too. When you go out hunting, you and you
get your prey from a squirrel or rabbit, a deer
or whatever, they got a lot of ticks on them.
I mean deers can have hundreds of ticks on them.
I mean they've counted three hundred thousand on a mooshel

(46:04):
one time. And I'm sure you heard earlier how much
the ticks can really affect the health of an animal
bite because they take all the blood out. But now
you've shot it and the body's cooling, what's gonna happen
to all those ticks? They're gonna drop off. The free
mail is over, so when you load that in the
back of your truck, they're just going to fall off

(46:25):
into the bed of the truck. But if you take
and put down a canvas or a blanket that's treated
with permethine, all those ticks are going to fall off.
They're going to land on the permethrone fabric and they're
all gonna die when you get home. They're gonna be
dying before you get on you know, four or five hours,
but they're all gonna die. So you're bringing home dead ticks,
not not a thousand live ticks that you have to

(46:46):
deal with in your house. Now, so the hikers can
do the same thing. You know, they're treating it. But
let's say they want to sit down and have a picnic, Well,
take a bed net, treat the bed net with the
same thing, and you can pack it at weighs nothing.
You won't even know it's in your thing. But you
want to sit down in a rough area, sit on
top of the bed net, and you've created a barrier.
So plenty of ways to get extra protection from the tech.

(47:10):
And again for METHRONI is the is the primary way
because it will kill that tick.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Quick. Neither good tick is a dead tick, right, Kurt.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
We always say I'm on the trophy.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Absolutely all right, I gotta go to a quick break here.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
This break is presented by I'm also Property's Heart Realty
check them out an m O P h A r
T Realty dot Com part.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
When it comes to for methrone use, let's inform the
listeners a little bit. I know sometimes people throw their
hands up with a big stop like, oh, don't spread
that on your skin. It's really bad for you. I
hear more negative comments about formethrone and what I need
to this has been going on for years. Tell us

(48:02):
a little bit about how promethrone works when it comes
to the bonding of the clothing and the fabric, and
why folks don't need to spray it on their skin.

Speaker 5 (48:14):
Yeah, welcome to the world. At EPA. It's kind of
been a misleading warning. You read the back warnings, you think,
oh my gosh, I'm in trouble, But the same warnings
on the back of spray paints and everything else. So
what happens is permethrin does not work on your skin.
Your skin breaks it down into an amino acid, and then
pretty soon, within ten to fifteen minutes, you don't have

(48:36):
it on your skin anymore.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
It's gone.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
It's just dissolved and absorbed and gone. So it's not
like you know, people, you can't spray it on there
and think like you put a deed or a carrit
in spray on. It's not going to be there, so
it's not dangerous to the skin. It just doesn't work
on the skin. But of course they won't let us
tell you that on the labels. I had it there
once but then they made me change it. But no,

(48:59):
it buying to the fabric. Just again. Think of it
as like you know, putting a dye in your shirt,
you know, make your tied eye shirts. You put the
colorant in there, and that bonds to the fibers, so
you have to have fibers. So we can't do airline,
I mean jet pilot suits because it's there's nothing to

(49:20):
bind to. We can't do plastics, but you can put
on any fabric. I mean you can do if you
want to. You can do your chairs on the porch
and keep mosquitoes away, not say ticks, that's more of
a mosquito thing. So it just binds and it's going
to stay there, and it's going to stay there through
the washes until it fades like your shirt would face

(49:43):
or if it's got a lot of sunlight. Also is
what breaks down the molecules. Otherwise they're staying on there,
going in all the water to the gainy difference, it's
just going to stay there. So again that the tip is,
you know, if you have like your hunting clothes and
you don't wear them every day and you put them
in a dark closet, it's going to last for thirty

(50:04):
five days of sunshine.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
And the great thing about that, Jim is Jim, when
we get out in the environments that we're in, this
is preventing us from mosquitoes and tigers and a lot
of other little pests. And it's just a it's a
good overall way to go into a situation to where
you're not just treating your clothing for tics. You're just

(50:29):
everyone hates being pestured by insects and bugs when it
comes to being in the outdoors. It doesn't matter who
we are. No one wants to have a day a
field where the bugs run us out right.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
And it's treating too. I mean it works on the dog.
You don't spray the cat, but the cat can lay
on it once it's dry. So the farmers use permethroone
all the time on animals. The difference between the farm
grade permethron and what we use is we're pharmaceutical grade,
which means it's odorless. Farmers could use the stuff they have,

(51:02):
but you want to take that honey because you're gonna
smell like an animal out there. So you know. There
is a grade promesterone which will work, but it doesn't
have the bonding effect that the ones that we do.
We put a bonding agent in there to go into
the fabric, and we're also orderless because we're pharmaceutical grades.
So there is a difference.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Kurt, I have a question, and it'll seem odd, but
I'm sure you can answer it.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
There's a difference between boots.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
So many outdoors when wear rubber boots in addition to
those of us that wear the leather boots. Well, the
rubber boots take the product, and how does that enter
into it?

Speaker 5 (51:44):
No, it won't. We got to have fabric to bind too,
So if it's plastic, it's slippery, it's not going to
bind to that.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
On that note, if you notice that a lot of
your rubber boots will have a neap material on them,
there is some cloth, not in all brands, but for example,
like I wear Lacrosse boots and there is a fiber
that the promethrone will go to, especially like on the
back where the adjustment is. It's good to treat that

(52:17):
in my opinion, because that's like Kurt was talking about.
It only takes going across an inch worth of treat
of material. And so if you've got that fabric there
to top of your boot, it's a no brainer. It's
absolutely a no brainer.

Speaker 5 (52:33):
And ticks don't have suction cups like some of the
insects dow, so they're gonna have a hard time coming
up a rubber boot anyways. They but remember they're not
always in the grass. They're higher too, and they're coming
off the bushes. They always climb north. They have a
little mechanism. They're always going up, which is why you
know they're trying to find the back of your knees.
They can't do that. They look for the CRIDs, they

(52:55):
look for your armpits. They'll end up on the head.
They're looking for soft, dark material or skin where they
can embed, so they take what they can get. But
they're coming up, and that's why they're in the bushes.
So you're not safe. Just because you know the grass
is lower, there's no grass. They're gonna be in the bushes.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Because of the EPA warning on that substance. We need
to dispel something. I'll give an example of this when
I'm out and I'm scared of ticks. I don't mind
saying that, but I'm not paranoid about them because I
know how to.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Kill them with that substance.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
So I spray my socks, I spray my outdoor clothing
top to bottom, my pants, my undershirt, my shirts, my hat,
you know whatever.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
I can get that product.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Tone, and you can do that continually and there's absolutely
zero threat of anything to you health wise from utilizing
that product.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
Once it dried, your good Your gold is what I'm
getting at.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
Well, you do want to do it where there's where
it's well aerated. I mean, you don't want to be
doing this in the clock and then breathe a whole
bunch of it in because it's not just the promethe
and there are other stuff in there to dispense it.
So yeah, you want to have a well done another area. Now,
you know, people say I'm going someplace and how am
I going to do it when it's twenty degrees outside, Well,

(54:26):
you spray it and then you turn your dryer on
nice and hot, and you turn your dryer off and
you throw the clothes in there and that'll actually they'll
bond and dry inside. The dryer even if it's twenty
degrees outside, actually makes a better application because it melts
it in that.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
That's a great tip. I've never heard that one.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
All right, we got to get to the news break, folks,
that's presented by SMI Marine.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
Go see them that day.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Great care of all your boning names, and remember you'll
never get soaked by my friends at SMI.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Kert.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
I want to continue to conversation about the garden, and
I want to start by letting you explain the differences
between it and Deep, And before we dive in this,
I want to say I've used Deep for years, but
I've pulled away from it because I'm never outdoors on

(55:18):
a general basis where I don't have sunglasses on and
other items. I don't like what it does to my
gun stocks and my barrels of my guns. It's it's
kind of a problem in that regard. So if you
don't mind tell folks the differences between them, they both

(55:39):
will protect you. But I think Carden is definitely coming
on strong here.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
Yeah, we're We're the ones that have basically introduced the
picared into the to the US. It's it's big around
the world. DEED is more of a US type product
than the rest of the world. Deep work. They're both
going to work, but DEED has some negatives to it,
and we have we have a DEEP based time release product,
so we're familiar with DT as well. We used to

(56:07):
sell Beat until we got into the Picarin and business.
D is a synthetic based out of petroleum and it
is a plasticizer. What plasticizer means it's going to melt plastic.
So there goes your gun stock and there goes your
watch crystals and paint on your car and all that

(56:29):
kind of stuff. It's not harmful. People confuse it and
they think it's harmful. The reason they do that is
because if you have a spray beat, which obviously do
the very few lotions out there, it's got a lot
of alcohol in it to disperse it. And the alcohol
is what kind of irritates your skin and rips it up.

(56:51):
You use it seven days in a row and you've
got you know, some pretty sore skin. But not because
of the deed. It's because of the alcohol. Soded is
perfectly effective. The one advantage it has is it works
at all dosages, so even two or three percent deep work,
but ninety percent is gone within the first couple hours,
so people start with a little higher numbers. The new

(57:12):
the new one out there is precared in which we
were the you know, the lead dog there. Right now,
the big ones, big brands that you know of, are
going to be coming out. They're going to follow since
because they have to. It's too good of a product.
So it was came out of the black pepper plant.
So it's not synthetic, and it doesn't it doesn't plastiicize
it's not going to melt anything. And you can wear

(57:33):
it with your fancy hiking clothes. You can. You know,
don't worry about your watch crystals. Don't worry about anything.
The one negative is that it needs a little it's
dose sensitive, so you have to have enough on. If
you put it on too lightly, it's not going to work.
When you put it on correctly, you know, then boom.
It's good for ten twelve hours. But it's also very

(57:54):
gentle because like you said, it's not going to mess
with it with all your sensitive materials, the plastics. So
that's the up and coming. It's gonna come over. You know.
They don't these very little deed In Europe, it's all
the carrod and under a different name. They call it
salted in there, but it's really it's the same thing.
Canada they call it eye cared it for whatever reason.

(58:17):
They got three different names for it, but we call
it p carried it and you'll everywhere.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
One of the one of the great things while you're
talking about the application and coverage is.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
You've got just a.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
Pump spray you've saw and my favorite is the lotion,
especially the small individual packets, because you just never know,
and it's it's great once again. You know, mosquitos, tics,
whatever it's, you never know when you're gonna need it.
It's kind of one of those things that preventative. Yes,
on the tics, but all of us have been you know,

(58:51):
pestered by mosquitos at a fireworks outing or a cookout
or what have you. So it works based off of
a barrier, correct, and that how you're putting off of
a like a vapor barrier.

Speaker 5 (59:04):
Yeah, and it confuses the mosquito. They come and they
get lost, they don't know where they are. It's you know,
their radar is gone. But the other one that people know,
we can't prove it because there's no study to prove it,
but inecdotedly we hear it all the time. It's pcard
and is far more effective against the biting flies than
that's no sums that you you know, ask anybody in
the Adirondacks in New York in June and you can't

(59:26):
even go outside. The old fighting flies are driving nuts.
So we have no seams down here. So we haven't
been able to do a study to prove it because
it's nobody has a lab where you can just test
those things. But anecdotedly we hear it all the time,
it's the one to use against the flies.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
Well, my lab is in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont,
Kurt and I can tell you that it is absolutely
hands down my favorite product to use when it comes
to getting outdoors. And it's it's important that folks understand
too that there's there's always this part of education and awareness,

(01:00:04):
and we want to make sure that folks realize there's
a whole lot of problems that can come about if
they don't go through the preventative measures with treating their
clothing and their skin.

Speaker 5 (01:00:18):
Correct and you know, all the things that we talked
about available on our website. We're Sawyer is an educator,
so I actually speak at medical conferences and stuff like that.
But go to Sawyer dot com and anything we've talked
about will be available there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
All right, fellas, I'm gonna go to a quick break here,
and this break is presented by SMI Marine. They're eleven
four hundred Westport Road, just north of the Gene Snyder.
Go see them take care of all your voting needs.
Remember you never get soaked at SMI.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
Art.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Heaven forbid, someone has a tick on them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
I know you're experted advice about how to remove them
and what symptoms or other situations might lead you to
think you better go see the doctor right away.

Speaker 5 (01:01:11):
Yeah. The way this works is a tick hangs on
by a mouthpiece. It's called the hyposome, and the mouthpiece
has little barbs in it, not big barbs like fishing look,
but little barbs that keep it hanging on, and so
it's embedded into yours thinking very slowly. Obviously you can't feel.
It's not look a mosquito bite. So it's in there,
and now you want to get it out. So remember

(01:01:34):
now we got that many many many hours, either up
to twenty four before they've traded fluids that contains the
bacteria that would make you sick. So you've got a
lot of time to get them out, whether or not
an issue. So there's tech removal devices or a simple
tweezer will do. You don't want to have the tick
leave on its own. That's called voluntary because to loosen

(01:01:55):
those barbs, it's going to spit in everything that it
has and there goes the bacteria with it. So you're
not going to put the cigarette butt on it or
covered up with basoline and encourage it to leave. You're
going to just take tweezers or device slowly go under it. Memory.
You can sneak up on them pretty easily because they
only breathe every fifteen minutes, and you just slowly, slowly,

(01:02:16):
slowly guide them out. You don't want to snap them
out because you don't want to leave the mouth tree's
in there. You just very slowly gently pull them out,
take you know, take a long time to do it,
and then clean up the area with some alcohol or
in a septic whit. Now, if you think you've got
something left in there, then you know, maybe you have to.
You know, you see it if you get flu like
symptoms in a day or two, or the area kind

(01:02:40):
of if you react to if the area goes so,
then you go to the doctor. But most times it
isn't necessary. If you get there, you know, you if
you found it, it hadn't been there for a few days. Yeah,
And you can bring the tick with you if you want.
They can identify what type it is you talked about
in the last hour, whether it's going to carry the
disease or not, and they know the doctors know how

(01:03:02):
to treat it. But the whole thing is just don't panic.
You got plenty of time. Get it out bently.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
Kurt, one of the viewers of the show Listeners. His
question that he sent to me this week was why
do ticks now when he removes them, create so much
more of an itch than what they used to. Do
you have any knowledge on that or what's going on there?

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
I don't. Your previous guests may have, but my guess
is it's your sensitivity to them more than them. They
don't have ant. Well, they have an anti coagulant in there,
you know, so it doesn't freeze up on them kind
of like a mosquito would. It's not as active as
a mosquito. They've got a very big anti coagulant, So yes,
you would have a somewhat of an anti coagulant as

(01:03:52):
so your skin as they're working their way in. They
don't want the skin to close up, so they're gonna
ant and they want the blood to flow free. But
it's more gentle. But if you're sensitive to it, then
that's going to be itchy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
And I can tell you fellas as someone who's beenden
by hundreds and hundreds of ticks, throughout my outdoor career.
I never will forget the first time I had my
first encounter with seed ticks was that land between the
Lakes back in the seventies, early seventies, before we had

(01:04:28):
products like you all had produced, Kurt and I had
hundreds and hundreds on me. A good friend of the show,
Ed Morris, who's been on with us. He and I
were hunting together down there, and ever since that time,
when a tick bites me, I'm on fire. And I'm

(01:04:49):
sure it's from a histemtic reaction that I had because
I had boils all over me after that encounter. So
this is something I yes.

Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
So you developed the sensitivity to it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
So yes, sir, yes, sir. In a in a big,
big way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Uh curve back to the mosquito and that situation. You know,
there's another disease we haven't talked about, and that's West
Nile disease, and unfortunately I was exposed and contracted that
disease and it almost killed me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
I mean it was really really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
And frombidten uh, from being bitten by so many mosquitoes
in my life, I don't hardly feel I was on
a bear hunting trip up in Canada and by I
was doing a television show at the time and my
camera man said, don't.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
You feel all those mosquitoes on your neck? I said, no,
I really don't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I guess that points to the fact that I'm a
card carrying red neck. But uh, what I'm getting at
here is a lot of times you don't know it,
and the cardion is such a great deterrent to that.
I mean, I want to return to what we spoke
too earlier because I want to reiterate. If you use that,

(01:06:13):
you're not going to have these problems, You're not going
to get these diseases.

Speaker 5 (01:06:19):
Yeah, no, exactly, but again, you use them together. So
if you have promethrone on the clothing, and if you're
wearing a hat, you put it on the hat. And
you know, if you've got a backpack. I mean, mosquitoes
are hoppers. They don't fly very far. They'll they'll find
you a mile away, but it's gonna take a while
to get there, or if you've already agitated, they're all

(01:06:41):
in the area anyways. You know, don't walk through the mangroves.
They're going to go right there, but they're gonna hop
they don't they don't fly very well. That's some short
little things. So you give them landing spaces, which is
your clothes, your backpacks, your hat, anything you have with you.
Your tent is perfect if you're hunt If you're tenting,
look at the size of that insect repelling you have

(01:07:03):
compared to yourself. And they're going to land on that tent,
they're going to die. If they land on material that's
treated for methane, they are going to die. But they've
they got a chance to bite you first. But you know,
hopefully you repel them before they landed. So if you
did put permethrone on your clothes, that the old military
study was they did the clothing with promethine and biting

(01:07:25):
was great. Was eleven hundred and eighty per hour. Can
how do you like to be that person that had
to set the standard. So and when they treated the
clothing it was ninety five percent effective. When they used
one hundred percent date on the skin, it was ninety
five percent effective. When this is back in the eighties,
when they put the two together, it was ninety nine

(01:07:45):
point eight percent effective. So they worked together. So you
treat as much fabric as you have around you, and
you know if you're hiking, you know, certainly the backpack,
and then when you come home, you're stick it in
a dark closet and the thing will last for thirty
five days in the sunshine, so get a lot of
use out of it. So both together, they work together.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Absolutely, Kurt, there's another ugly malady out there and sgr
which of course is in the water in a lot
of locales around the world, which incidentally, you are at
the forefront of helping develop products that have developed products

(01:08:32):
to help with that. But tell folks a little bit
about your water products and how they can keep you
safe drinking water out in the wilderness.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
Yeah, well, we're kind of the king of that one.
We were very fortunate to come across the technology. It
comes from kidney dialysis. The same thing you use these
little hoses to clean the blood, you can clean water
with it. So it's a little hose and the U shape.
The water goes into the hose and comes out the end.
But the holes are so small that anything that makes

(01:09:03):
you sick can't get through it. Viruses, but they're not
in the water, so all the bacteria and the parasites
and you know, all those things cannot get through these fibers.
We're the highest level of filtration you can get. There
are other ones out there because everybody's compying us, but
we're the only ones that can assure you that you're
not going to get sick from the water you drink

(01:09:25):
if you go through a SOI your filter and we
can take more.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Cheat to Kurt, that's one thing. It's extremely cheat.

Speaker 5 (01:09:33):
Yeah, we have one on Amazon for thirteen dollars, I
think it is. And these things last forever. I mean,
you can get one hundred thousand gallons out of these,
just keep them clean. And we send a lot up
to Georgia and Kentucky and Tennessee for the lean you know.
Right now in Texas we're sending mostly insect retalents because
that's what they need more than the water. But if

(01:09:54):
you have a boil a learnt, I mean, you know,
you don't need to buy a bottle of water. You
can drink the water coming through your faucet will make
it safe and have it there hurricanes, whatever. So and
we do that around the world because so many people,
you know, one third, you know, half the world dies
of either the mosquito bites or bad water. So we're
kind of right there in the forefront of both of those.

(01:10:16):
So we go into a village and we've put them
on clean water, and we wipe out ninety five percent
of all sickness within two weeks. The remaining is not
from the waters, from other things. We save them twenty
percent of their income. We save hundreds of thousands of
babies' lives every year because they're very susceptible to diarrhea

(01:10:38):
and all that stuff. We do about three four million
people a year, but we're about to crank it up.
We can give somebody ten years of clean water for
as little as twenty cents. O thanks twenty cents, and
you can give somebody clean water for ten twenty years.
So we're doing that now. We're working on countries. We've
done five countries border to border, so everybody in that

(01:11:00):
country is not sick anymore from the water. It's just
a game changer, and what an honor it is for
us to be able to do that. But we have
the only filter that you can really do that. You can't.
You've got to go into a village and saying you're
not going to get sick if you use is filthy.
Other companies that say, well, you know, ten percent of
you're still going to get sick, but the other ninety
you're gonna be better off. But we can't do that.

(01:11:21):
We have to make sure nobody can get sick. So
we got one hundred and forty different charities, you know,
some of the big ones Samaritans, perse I, Red Cross, Usism,
all the big ones, World Vision, stuff like that. And
we we're in eighty countries. We're in some of the
hardest countries you can imagine they need it. We're in Yemen,
in North Korea, I ran, everybody needs water. So one

(01:11:45):
hundred and forty charities in eighty countries and we're just
cranking it up right now. So the next one of
us is Honduras. For a couple of years from now,
nobody in hon Duras will be sick.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Well, that's an amazing journey that you've had at Kurt,
and I think the world, literally the world owes you
an immense thank you and sense of gratitude about what
you've done to protect people. And you all are still
at the cutting edge as we speak.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
I mean, I know that you've got.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
A huge initiative that you're getting ready to do and
we'll hopefully talk to you about that on the program
at another time, but just from Scott and myself, that's help.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Brother.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
Yeah, Well, if anybody wants to join us that we
have a Sawyer Foundation and every dollar donated goes to
an overseas project. We don't there's no overhead. Any overhead
will be covered by Sawyers.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
So and how do they reach you? How did they
reach you?

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):
Well, you can go to Sawyer dot com and forward
will forward you over to the foundation or I just
Sawyer Foundation dot org. I think it is maybe dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:13:00):
Mhm.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Okay, thanks for getting for taking time out of what
I know is a very hectic schedule. We're indebted to you, sir.

Speaker 5 (01:13:10):
Well and I see you. Thanks for helping us get
the word

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Out, yes sir, all right, folks, that's a wrap, folks,
God bless everybody.