NEW YORK– Researchers have reported what they believe to be 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 Lone Star tick bites.
In the United States, more than 100,000 people have become allergic to red meat since 2010 because of this syndrome, according to one estimate.
Some outside experts said this appears to be the first documented case of a person suffering a fatal alpha-gal reaction shortly after eating meat.
It’s possible other deaths occurred, but they were assumed to be from other causes and were not thoroughly investigated like this, said Joshua Benoit, a tick biologist at the University of Cincinnati.
A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency was not involved in this investigation and could not say with certainty whether this was the first such death. The CDC recently released a free online training module to increase awareness and improve diagnosis, she added.
Dr. Scott Commins, a leading alpha-gal syndrome researcher at the University of North Carolina, called the death a “total tragedy.”
“This will not happen again, it is completely unnecessary and with increased awareness,” he said in an email.
The case report was published this week in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The lead author was Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills of the University of Virginia, who led the 2011 paper first linking Lone Star tick bites to meat allergy.
People with alpha-gal syndrome may experience symptoms such as hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe stomach pain, difficulty breathing, dizziness, and swelling of the lips, throat, tongue, or eyelids. Unlike other food allergies, which occur shortly after eating, these reactions usually occur hours later.
The new report talks about a healthy airline pilot who, in the summer of 2024, went camping with his wife and children. They ate steak as part of a late dinner. It was unusual: the man rarely ate meat.
He woke up at 2 a.m. 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 5 miles.
Two weeks later, back home in New Jersey, he went to a barbecue where he ate a hamburger. About four hours later, he became ill. Shortly after, his son found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. The son called paramedics, but the man was pronounced dead that night at hospital.
Researchers said blood tests revealed signs of alpha-gal syndrome. The evidence that it came from a Lone Star tick is incomplete. The authors made the connection based on a statement from the man’s wife, who said he had 12 or 13 chigger bites around his ankles earlier in the summer.
But that conclusion makes sense because people in the eastern United States sometimes mistake mite bites for those from tick larvae, Commins said.
The number of cases of Alpha-gal syndrome is increasing for a variety of reasons, including the expansion of the Lone Star tick range, the increasing number of people coming into contact with ticks, and the increasing number of doctors learning about it and ordering tests.
Infected people can take weeks or longer to develop the syndrome, which gets its name from the alpha-gal carbohydrate found in the tick’s saliva. Initial reactions to red meat may be milder, but gradually get worse, Benoit said.
Some patients experience only gastric symptoms, and the American Gastroenterological Association has advised people with diarrhea, nausea and unexplained abdominal pain to be tested for the syndrome.
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