Researchers have reported what they believe is the first documented death from a meat allergy that can be triggered by tick bites.
A 47-year-old New Jersey man died last year from alpha-gal syndrome, which in 2011 was first linked to bites from the Lone Star tick.
More than 100,000 people in the US have become allergic to red meat since 2010 because of the syndrome, according to one estimate.
Federal health officials did not immediately respond to questions about the case, but some outside experts said it appears to be the first documented case of someone suffering a deadly alpha-gal reaction shortly after eating meat.
It’s possible other deaths have happened but were assumed to be from other causes and not thoroughly investigated like this one was, said Joshua Benoit, a tick biologist at the University of Cincinnati.
Dr. Scott Commins, a leading alpha-gal syndrome researcher at the University of North Carolina, called the death an “unmitigated tragedy.”
“Totally unnecessary and with increased awareness, this won’t happen again,” he said in an email.
The case report was published this week in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The lead author was the University of Virginia’s Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, who led the 2011 paper that first linked Lone Star tick bites to the meat allergy.
People with alpha-gal syndrome can experience symptoms including hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe stomach pain, difficulty breathing, dizziness and swelling of the lips, throat, tongue or eye lids. Unlike some other food allergies, which occur soon after eating, these reactions typically hit hours later.
The new report tells of a healthy airline pilot who in the summer of 2024 went on a camping trip with his wife and children. They had steak as part of a late supper. That was unusual — the man rarely ate meat.
He woke up at 2am with severe stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. He gradually felt better, went back to sleep, and the next morning he felt well enough to eat breakfast and walk 8km.
Two weeks later, back home in New Jersey, he went to a barbecue, where he ate a hamburger. About four hours later, he grew ill. A short time after that, his son found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. The son called paramedics, but the man was declared dead that night at a hospital.
The researchers said blood tests revealed evidence of alpha-gal syndrome. Proof that it came from a Lone Star tick is incomplete. The authors made the link based on a statement from the man’s wife, who had said he had 12 or 13 “chigger” bites around his ankles earlier in the summer.
But the conclusion makes sense, as people in the eastern US sometimes mistake the bites from mites with those from larval ticks, Commins said.
The number of cases of Alpha-gal syndrome is growing for a variety of reasons, including the Lone Star tick’s expanding range, more people coming into contact with the ticks and more doctors learning about it and ordering tests for it.
It can take weeks or longer for infected people to develop the syndrome, which is named for the alpha-gal carbohydrate found in the tick’s saliva. Initial reactions to red meat may be milder but grow progressively more severe, Benoit said.
Some patients have only stomach symptoms, and the American Gastroenterological Association has advised that people with unexplained diarrhea, nausea and abdominal pain should be tested for the syndrome.
