There’s an epidemic of tick-transmitted Lyme disease, with some estimates putting the number of people diagnosed and treated in the U.S. at 476,000 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But there’s ongoing controversy, with many saying the medical establishment too often refuses to recognize the illness. When science writer Kris Newby got deathly ill after a tick bite, her research led her to uncover shocking facts about America’s history of weaponizing parasites.

“This is a story of the history of the tick weaponization program in the U.S. and the government’s involvement in that, and the cover-up and how it’s related to Lyme disease,” Newby said. She’s the author of the 2019 book, “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons.”

“After World War II, our military people interviewed the Germans and the Japanese, and they found out, well, geez, they were weaponizing fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, flies… as a stealth weapon. So, if there’s a country you want to weaken and disable, you would put these bioweapons, these unnatural germs — and it’s carried by insects… It would weaken the population. It would tie up medical resources. Then, it would be easier to go in and invade the country.

The Lyme disease bacterium was named after William Burgdorfer, who discovered it in the 1980s.

“I never could find proof that the Lyme disease bacterium… Borrelia burgdorferi, had been weaponized,” Newby said. “But what I did discover is that there were several tick-borne diseases that they weaponized.”

Newby says if you can find a tick that bit you, you can save it in a plastic baggy with a damp paper towel and send it to a lab that will test it for everything, not just Lyme. She adds that early treatment with antibiotics can be a lifesaver for numerous tick pathogens that could make you very sick.

“Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” airs at 10 a.m. Sunday, WJLA (Channel 7) and WBFF (Channel 45).