To the Editor: 

After visiting the Island in June, I wrote to 24 select board and department of health members, voicing my concerns about the lack of signage for the lone star tick. This tick has been on the Island since 2011. While there were only two alpha-gal cases in 2020, cases jumped to 523 in 2024, then 724 in 2025. The New York Times, NPR, the New Yorker, the Gazette, and The MV Times have all written extensively on this tick. Restaurants added AG on their menus by food items that people with alpha-gal syndrome could tolerate.

The Island boards of health, Tick Free MV, M.V. Hospital, Patrick Roden Reynolds, and countless others have worked tirelessly to control and research the lone star tick. Where I think the community has fallen short is educating visitors coming to the Island. It’s mid-July and posters have finally begun to be put up.

Alexa Arieta, the health agent for Oak Bluffs, wrote that the parks department put up signs, with more to be posted. Martina Thornton, the Dukes County manager, confirmed that the Tick Communications Task Force said, “Posters are already up on M.V. and Island Home.”

A vital point for posters is on the ferries and at its terminals. I asked Ted Gavin, the Vineyard’s representative to the Steamboat Authority, to bring signage up at his next meeting. On July 21, Gavin told us, “The posters will be on the boat this week or, at the latest, next week.”

I still ask myself why has it taken so long to post signage when the data clearly pointed to a significant health crisis. How many tourists now have alpha-gal syndrome because they were not alerted? Or were their doctors able to pinpoint their symptoms to the lone star tick? Hopefully Realtors and Airbnb rentals are being upfront with renters, and also are leaving information about these ticks.

Thank you to Martina Thornton, Ted Gavin, Bill Cleary (a member of the Oak Bluffs Select Board), and all the others who have answered my barrage of emails. I’m thankful to all who have been putting up tick posters. It will take an Island, and all Islanders, to educate and get this tick under control.

Maria Mabee Mason
Bainbridge Island, Wa., formerly of Vineyard Haven