Michael Loberg’s death on August 7 should be noted by everyone on the Vineyard whose life has been impacted by ticks and tick-borne infections. It is poorly known that the unique program that we have on the Vineyard owes its existence to his efforts.

Michael asked for support from the all-Island boards of health to apply for and ultimately win a community health grant from the hospital to start a tick-borne disease program. This five-year effort from 2011-2015 comprised public education and environmental components. Of particular merit was that Michael convinced Dick Johnson to join the program and apply his experience and knowledge of Island ecology to understanding more about tick exposure on the Vineyard. Dick started the yard survey program, and was the one who saw the start of and watched the lone star tick problem grow in real time.

Dick, Michael, Matt Poole and I (we comprised the steering committee for the grant’s activities) tried to get people interested in nipping the lone star problem in the bud because we knew what would happen if the community did not act. Sadly, no efforts were made because the interventions — vegetation destruction by fire or mowing, deer reduction and application of insecticides to deer (“4-posters”) — were too politically difficult as well as expensive. Now, of course, the cat is out of the bag.

The Martha’s Vineyard Tick-borne Illness Reduction Initiative became a unique model of community action in Massachusetts. No other community in Massachusetts has such an advanced educational effort. The website is now one of the best information sources in the country. Michael invested funding from the community grant to develop “locally branded” video information, with all of the videos being produced locally and starring people known to the community such as Mike Jacobs, Dave Caron, Lena Prisco, Matt Poole, Bruce Stelle, Adam Moore, Curtis Chandler and Steve Atwood, among others. He knew that the educational message would carry more weight if it came from the community as opposed to from off-islanders.

Michael used the community health grant to buy pharmacy data that demonstrated how under-reported Lyme disease was at the time. Although the Department of Public Health only received a hundred or so reports of Lyme disease each year from the Vineyard, at the same time Michael found that there were at least 2,000 prescriptions filled for doxycycline each year. This magnitude of under-reporting was later confirmed by the CDC in its nationwide analysis of pharmacy and electronic health records, which showed that although they received about 35,000 reports of Lyme from state departments of public health, the records suggested that there were 10 times as many cases each year.

The Martha’s Vineyard Tick-borne Illness Reduction Initiative lives on with Patrick Roden-Reynolds, with Dick advising on a daily basis. Patrick is supported by state public health funding, and some operating costs are provided by The Island Tick-borne Illness Prevention Fund that Michael and Dick set up with the Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation to allow for continuing the program after the community health grant expired. The funds that have been received, mainly through suggested donations for the yard surveys that Patrick undertakes, as well as greatly appreciated donations from community members, is not sufficient to build upon the amazing program that Michael started. His leadership will be missed as the Vineyard faces the expanding threat of the lone star tick plague. Who will step into his big shoes?

Sam Telford is a professor of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University.