Rheumatologists can play a major role in diagnosing and treating neurologic Lyme disease, according to a paper published in the journal Pathogens by an immunologist and rheumatologists at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that each year about 476,000 people in the United States may contract Lyme disease, which is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and rarely Borrelia mayonii and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged (deer) ticks. Most infections occur in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, Wisconsin and Minnesota and on the West Coast, particularly northern California. To read the full story.