As the tick crisis mounts on Martha’s Vineyard, an Island health care provider is piloting a new treatment path for people with tick-borne illnesses and allergies.
The Tick Center, set to launch next month through Martha’s Vineyard Medical, will bring a variety of health care and wellness providers under one roof to try to holistically conquer Lyme disease, alpha-gal syndrome and other conditions transmitted by ticks.
The past several years have seen the Vineyard become one of the nation’s hotspots for tick-borne illnesses and allergies. Positive alpha-gal tests on the Island jumped from just two in 2020 to more than 750 in 2025, and health care providers are trying to keep up.
Jeff Levy, CEO of Martha’s Vineyard Medical, told the Gazette on Tuesday that he’s hoping to revolutionize the way that Islanders can get treatment for tick-borne illnesses and allergies by pairing frequent lab testing with services like medication management, acupuncture and yoga.
“It was really born out of observing the challenges that people have who are not helped by what traditional clinical medicine is able to do for Lyme disease and the other co-infections,” he said of the effort. “You just have a bunch of people on the Island who are suffering.”
Mr. Levy is also an advisor to Tick Free MV, the Island nonprofit aiming to reduce tick-borne illness and disease by reducing the overall number of ticks on the Vineyard. Tick Free MV is not affiliated with Martha’s Vineyard Medical or the Tick Center.
Dr. Gerry Yukevich, a doctor at Martha’s Vineyard Medical, will serve as medical director at the Tick Center. It will also claim Katherine Friedman as its care provider and Aubrey Stimola Ryan as a care provider, according to a statement from Mr. Levy.
Martha’s Vineyard Medical has long been diagnosing and addressing tick-borne illness, Mr. Levy said. Former CEO Michael Loberg started the Martha’s Vineyard Tick-Borne Disease Initiative at Martha’s Vineyard Medical back when it was Vineyard Medical Care.
“The Tick Center starts where what our traditional tick clinic has been doing for 40 years ends,” he said.
Mr. Levy said that the new initiative will offer a mixture of evidence-based and evidence-supported approaches. Evidence-based approaches, he explained, are backed by peer-reviewed studies, which he said are “critically important.” But he also noted that there are other parts of treatment that traditional medicine is ignoring.
“[There are] things like acupuncture, nutritional supplements and yoga and mindfulness that are broadly accepted, but are not the subject of massive trials,” he said.
To provide these services, the Tick Center has tapped Vineyard Complementary Medicine, Vineyard Nutrition and Wholesome MV. The center is also working with PillClarity, a certification agency specializing in helping patients find allergen-free medication options, and a testing center called Labcorp to check patients’ bloodwork at regular intervals to see if and how they’re benefitting from the care they’re receiving.
“We’re getting amazingly aggressive pricing,” he said of the partnership with Labcorp.
Patrick Roden-Reynolds, tick biologist for the Islands' boards of health, is heartened to see new efforts to serve Islanders suffering from tick-borne illnesses and diseases.
“Hopefully it'll bring more access, or easier access, to [care for] these tick bite issues that a lot of people on this Island are dealing with,” he said of the Tick Center.
The Tick Center has also created a new diagnostic index to assess how patients are being impacted by their conditions and whether or not they’re improving.
Dr. Yukevich, who has been working in different capacities at Martha’s Vineyard Medical for over 20 years, is particularly concerned about the rise of alpha-gal on the Island and throughout the country. He said that mammalian products that can trigger anaphylaxis in alpha-gal patients lurk everywhere, from restaurant kitchens to medications administered on the operating table.
He is hopeful about Mr. Levy’s willingness to embrace approaches to the syndrome outside of what traditional medicine offers. Acupuncture, for example, could be effective for reducing alpha-gal patients’ immune reaction to mammalian products by reducing their levels of immunoglobulin E, the blood’s indicator of an allergic reaction.
“Part of it is also going to be learning. Our education is in process,” he said. “There’s a lot at stake.”
Mr. Levy said there is value for patients in having all providers under one roof and collaborating on a patient’s care. He hopes the Tick Center will set a “national standard” for how tick-borne illnesses and allergies are managed.
He isn’t aware of any other clinic in the country taking a similar approach.
“We’re bringing together an array of protocols that exist separately, but not in this coordinated way, at least to our knowledge,” he said.
Mr. Levy said that an initial appointment at the Tick Center is $350 and said that subsequent costs are dependent on the kind of care patients require. The practice does not take insurance directly, but patients can seek reimbursement with their insurance company, according to the Tick Center’s website.
Mr. Levy expects that the clinic will add an allergist, an infectious disease doctor and a functional medicine doctor in the near future. He also wants the Tick Center to direct new focus to research. He noted that Mr. Loberg was passionate about research being a core part of what is now Martha’s Vineyard Medical.
“We really look at that heritage as critically important,” he said. “We expect to work with researchers jointly to help advance knowledge and hopefully create a vaccine or a cure, ultimately, for alpha-gal.”
Dr. Yukevich hopes to take blood samples from different subpopulations, expose the samples to alpha-gal, and see how different samples react.
“Some people aren’t affected by this phenomenon in their systems,” he said. “It would be interesting to see why that could be the case.”
For both Dr. Yukevich and Mr. Levy, tackling a rapidly spreading public health crisis requires remaining nimble and learning as they go.
“Our goals will probably be changing as time goes on, depending on how this epidemic occurs and how it develops,” Dr. Yukevich said. “We won’t be calling the shots, the ticks will.”
Those seeking the center’s services can request an appointment on mvmed.org/tickcenter.
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