tickcard

Spot the underlined correctly...

I found this device for removing ticks in Cotswolds. It's credit card sized and, without the wallet, weighs 5g. The card has a magnifying lens included. I guess if you happen to have a Sliva compass with you, you'll already have one of these. And as it's separate from the TickCard it's more useful because you can use the device whilst magnifying the critter (assuming it's on an area of your body where you can use both hands).

...and correct! (Blogger wont let me put a line under it).

How it differs from other devices is that you don't twist the tick, the manufacturer claims that, "biologists have found that that squeezing, twisting or in any way stressing a tick increases the risk of it injecting harmful agents into the bloodstream of its host..." There is no qualification on the packaging to substantiate this claim. In fact whilst reading the packaging (four pages of A6) I started to get the impression that the copywriter was playing the fright card, so I did a count of various words that were used in the copy. This is what I found.

Exclamation marks - 12
Safety/safe - 7
Disease - 5
Dangerous - 4
Serious - 3

Now whilst I'm fully aware that the number of people contracting Lyme Disease has been on the increase, and the swift removal of tick is important in lowering the odds of catching the disease, I dislike the use of fright factor to sell a product.

I'm also at odds with the fact that the USP of the device is contra to current practice, especially where there's no reference back to medical basis of the package's claims. And if I'm wrong on this point then I would expect them to include a reference to the research.