This female lone star tick, or Amblyomma americanum, was collected in Maryland. Lone star ticks can transmit the pathogens that cause diseases such as ehrlichiosis and Southern tick-associated rash illness, or STARI. Bites from juvenile lone star tic …
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Researchers at the University of Virginia have identified the first person believed to be killed by a "meat allergy" that's caused by a tick bite.
‘Meat allergy’ caused by tick bite
What we know:
Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills is considered an expert on the recently-discovered the red meat allergy spread by tick bites. Platts-Mills uncovered that bites from Lone Star ticks can make people more sensitive to alpha-gal, a sugar found in the meat of mammals.
The sensitivity can cause allergy symptoms like a rash, nausea and vomiting shortly after eating meat.
Now, researchers have found a man in New Jersey who died from a severe case of the allergy.
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New Jersey man dies after eating beef
The backstory:
The man from suburban New Jersey died in the summer of 2024, when he got violently ill shortly after eating a hamburger.
Researchers said the man's symptoms had actually started a few weeks earlier during a camping trip with his family. Shortly after a steak dinner, the man woke up in the middle of the night with severe stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. According to UVA researchers, he told his son after the incident that he thought he was going to die.
Two weeks later, shortly after eating a burger at a barbecue, his son found him collapsed in the bathroom surrounded by vomit. Paramedics brought him to the hospital, where he later died.
CAPE ELIZABETH, ME - NOVEMBER 22: Chuck Lubelczyk, a vector ecologist for Maine Medical Center Research Institute, displays a vial of live lone star ticks. The ticks -- a species native to Texas and Oklahoma -- were placed within a containment vessel …
Originally, the autopsy labeled the case a "sudden unexplained death." But at his family's insistence, doctors contacted Platts-Mills and his team to look into a connection to the "meat allergy."
While the man hadn't gotten any tick bites recently, his wife reported that he had recently gotten a dozen or so chigger bites around his ankles that summer. Chiggers are mite larvae, and according to Platts-Mills, many chiggers in the Eastern U.S. are larvae of the Lone Star tick, the same species that causes the meat allergy. When the team looked at the man's blood, they found he had had a severe reaction to alpha-gal sensitivity, similar to anaphylactic shock.
Meat allergy symptoms
What you can do:
Researchers said that the New Jersey man was otherwise healthy before he died, and that they suspect other factors made his reaction particularly severe, like drinking a beer with his burger and recent exercise, for example.
Doctors say there are a few things to watch out for if you're concerned about a recent tick bite:
- Severe abdominal pain within three to five hours after eating beef, pork or lamb
- Tick bites that itch for more than a week
Platts-Mills also says that people who live in areas with large Lone Star tick populations should be aware of the risks. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lone Star ticks can be found up and down the East Coast, and as far west as central Texas.
For people who only get moderate hives after eating meat, Platts-Mills says they can control their symptoms with a proper diet.
Dig deeper:
Researchers published their findings in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
The Source: Information in this story is from the University of Virginia's School of Medicine, the article published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, and the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.