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The first ever death caused by a tick-borne meat allergy has been recorded.
An otherwise healthy 47-year-old man died within four hours of eating a beef hamburger this summer. The cause of his death was considered a mystery until researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine re-examined the case and discovered the allergy.
Meat allergies can be caused by bites from the lone-star tick, which has a marking on its back that resembles a star. The allergy sensitizes the body’s immune system to a sugar found in red meat called alpha-gal.
When a person has alpha-gal syndrome, they can experience allergic symptoms after eating beef, pork or lamb. Symptoms include rashes, nausea and vomiting.
Researchers had worried that fatal anaphylaxis—an extreme allergic reaction—could also be a possibility, but until now there were no known cases.
The victim, whose name has yet to released, is reported to have gone camping with his wife and children last summer. One night during the trip, the family ate steak, and the man soon began to experience severe stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. Although he recovered, he told his family he had believed he was going to die.
Two weeks later, he ate a hamburger at a barbecue and was dead within four hours.
After an autopsy proved inconclusive, his wife contacted the University of Virginia’s medical school for help.
They tested blood samples from the victim and found that he had been sensitized to alpha-gal. The blood also showed that he had suffered an extreme allergic reaction.
When researchers asked the wife about her husband’s history of tick bites, she said he had suffered 12 or 13 chigger bites around his ankles during the summer. Many suspected chigger bites are actually bites from juvenile lone-star ticks.
The range of the lone-star tick has expanded massively in recent decades due to a variety of factors including warmer climates, changes in land use and increased populations of host animals such as wild turkeys and white-tailed deer.
Establish breeding populations have been documented in parts of the northeast, including New York and New Jersey, and the Midwest.
The CDC’s website notes that, “Amblyomma americanum distribution in the 1750s reached across the eastern United States. Since then, tick distribution receded as forested land was reduced and white-tailed deer populations decreased. White-tailed deer are a keystone host for this tick.
“Since the 1940s, conservation measures and relocation of deer have led to increased numbers and range of white-tailed deer populations in the Eastern United States. Associated with the expansion of white-tailed deer populations, the lone star tick has repopulated their historical range.”
A representative of the University of Virginia Medical School offered the following advice about lone-star tick bites and meat allergies.
“The important information for the public is: First, that severe abdominal pain occurring 3 to 5 hours after eating beef, pork or lamb should be investigated as a possible episode of anaphylaxis; and, second, that tick bites that itch for more than a week or larvae of ticks often called ‘chiggers’ can induce or increase sensitization to mammalian-derived meat.
“On the other hand, most individuals who have mild to moderate episodes of hives can control symptoms with an appropriate diet.”
