I’m iron deficient, which means that meat is a delicious staple of my diet. I’m not picky either; I’ll eat it in prosciutto form, slathered in barbecue sauce, or tucked into a taco. So for people like me, recent hysteria over an increasingly common tick that can cause a severe, lifelong allergy to red meat has been pretty alarming.
The tick, named the lone star tick in reference to the single white dot on its females’ back, is becoming more common across the East Coast and as far North as Maine because of hotter temperatures that allow them to survive the winter. The tick’s bite triggers a rare allergic reaction to red meat called alpha-gal syndrome, which can initially cause rashes, shortness of breath and, in some cases, be life threatening, according to the CDC. What makes alpha-gal syndrome particularly difficult to identify is that symptoms tend to occur anywhere between two and six hours after eating red meat.
