As a senior editor at Discover Magazine, science journalist Pamela Weintraub had covered myriad scientific dramas throughout her career. But it was her own family’s medical odyssey with Lyme disease — and the book she wrote about it, Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic — that brought her to speak on Monday to about 60 people on Martha’s Vineyard, where tick-borne illness is one of the most serious and prevalent health concerns.

With six confirmed cases of tularemia and reports of Lyme disease coming in, the Vineyard has begun another season of documenting tick-borne illnesses.

Although cases are still being confirmed, official numbers will not be released until early next year. But initial reports from state public health officials and the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital indicate no slowdown in the high rates of tick-borne illnesses on Island.

Six cases of tularemia this spring and summer on Martha's Vineyard have been confirmed by the state Department of Public Health.

The Vineyard's first tularemia case of the year, a 50-year-old male landscaper, may have contracted the potentially fatal disease after handling a dead rabbit he found while working in Edgartown, state public health officials said this week.

For the fifth summer in a row, a rare and potentially fatal disease called tularemia continues to surface on the Vineyard.

His team of Harvard scientists collected 5,000 dog ticks and trapped 35 skunks and raccoons on the Vineyard this summer.