Last updated: August 30, 2026
Plenty of health sites use the word "reviewed" loosely enough that it means nothing. This page states exactly what happens to content here before you read it, so you can weight it accordingly.
Why review status matters
Tick-borne disease content sits next to real decisions: whether to go to a clinic, whether a rash is worth a photograph, how urgently to act on a fever after a bite. Independent clinical review catches errors that a careful non-clinician cannot, particularly around symptom interpretation, treatment urgency, and the difference between what guidance says and how a clinician applies it. This site does not have that layer, and a reader is entitled to know before deciding how much weight to give a page.
The review a page does receive
- Editorial review against primary sources. Every page is checked against the sources it cites by Phillip George before publication. Claims that cannot be traced to a citable primary source are cut. The sourcing rules are in the Editorial Policy.
- Source re-checks on update. When a page is revised, cited links are re-opened to confirm they still say what the page claims. Health agencies restructure their sites often enough that this matters.
- Deliberately conservative phrasing. Where evidence varies by region or is actively changing, pages describe the range and the uncertainty rather than picking the cleanest-sounding answer.
- Reader corrections, acted on. Credible reports are verified and the page is fixed. See the Corrections Policy.
The review a page does not receive
- No clinical review. No physician, nurse practitioner, or other licensed clinician reads these pages before publication.
- No veterinary review. The pets and ticks content summarises published guidance; no veterinarian signs off on it.
- No entomological review. Species and identification content is written from CDC and provincial identification material, not verified by a working entomologist.
- No second editor. One person writes and one person edits, and that person is the same person. Reader corrections are the only independent check the site actually has.
What to do instead of relying on us for a clinical decision
Use this site to understand the landscape and to find the right authority. Do not use it as the last step before a decision about your health or your animal's.
- Symptoms after a bite: contact a clinician or your local public health service. The CDC advises seeing a doctor if a rash or fever develops within several weeks of removing a tick (CDC — What to do after a tick bite). Illness that is worsening, or a severe headache or confusion after tick exposure, is a reason to be seen the same day rather than to keep reading.
- Whether preventive antibiotics apply to your bite: ask a clinician. The CDC frames post-exposure doxycycline as something to discuss with a provider in certain circumstances, not a rule to self-apply (CDC — Preventing Lyme disease).
- Test results: the clinician who ordered them. Serology timing genuinely affects interpretation and that is not a job for a website.
- Identifying the tick: in Canada, submit a photo to eTick.ca. In the United States, start with your state health department or land-grant extension service. We do not identify ticks from reader photos.
- An animal: your veterinarian. Tick preventives are species-specific and some products safe for dogs are dangerous for cats.
- Local risk and case counts: your provincial or state health authority, which publishes for your jurisdiction more often than we can summarise it.
How to check us
Because there is no reviewer standing behind these pages, the citations do that job instead. Every substantive claim links to the agency page it came from, usually in the sentence or the note directly beneath it. If a linked agency page and our summary of it disagree, the agency is right. Tell us and we will fix ours.
Medical disclaimer
This site is for education and is not medical advice. Nothing here creates a clinician-patient relationship. If you think you may have a tick-borne illness, seek professional medical care.