The USDA has given the green light to a vaccine against the bacteria that causes Lyme:

The vaccine isn’t a rodent-sized injection, which wouldn’t work for targeting large populations quickly. Instead, it’s coated onto edible, nutrition-free pellets that mice gobble up.

The vaccine makes mice develop antibodies that neutralize Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes most U.S. cases of Lyme disease. When ticks imbibe the blood of a vaccinated mouse, the idea goes, they won’t get an active infection and so can’t transmit the bacteria to people or other animals. 

If this works, it’s great news. Not perfect, since the ticks swarming over our landscape carry other diseases, but still great. (I wonder if there’s some overlap of the anti-vax and PETA cohorts that will oppose it – which sounds ridiculous but I no longer am surprised by any reason for people to be outraged.)

Science News article is here.