Tick bite causes allergy to red meat and pork

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.somdnews.com/article/2014...uthernMaryland

Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Tick bite causes allergy to red meat and pork
Health officer warns residents to be cautious outdoors
By ANDREA FRAZIER
Staff writer

When Fran Stump of Lusby first started breaking out into hives about the size of a silver dollar, accompanied by nausea and an upset stomach, about four to six hours after some meals, her husband thought it was cheese. Somebody else thought it was additives, while another believed salt to be the culprit.

But Stump, who had started a detailed food diary after her first allergic reaction in September 2011, narrowed down the common denominator: beef and pork, which she had previously eaten without a problem.

Stump?s reactions, of which she had four more during the course of about two years, became progressively more severe. During the fifth and final one, her heart raced and her blood pressure dropped.

Through independent research made up primarily of Google searches and a Facebook forum, Stump discovered a perplexing explanation to her sudden allergy to beef and pork: a tick bite...

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ound-the-world

Tick bites that trigger severe meat allergy on rise around the world
?Tick-induced mammalian meat allergy? reported in Europe, Asia, Central America and Africa but most prevalent in parts of Australia and the US
Thursday 6 October 2016 18.30 BST

People living in tick-endemic areas around the world are being warned of an increasingly prevalent, potentially life-threatening side effect to being bitten: developing a severe allergy to meat.

The link between tick bites and meat allergies was first described in 2007, and has since been confirmed around the world.

Sufferers of ?tick-induced mammalian meat allergy? will experience a delayed reaction of between two and 10 hours after eating red meat. Almost invariably, they are found to have been bitten by a tick ? sometimes as much as six months before.
Tick populations booming due to climate change
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Although most cases of tick bites of humans are uneventful, some immune systems are sensitive to proteins in the parasite?s saliva and become intolerant of red meat and, in some cases, derivatives such as dairy and gelatine.

Poultry and seafood can be tolerated, but many sufferers choose to avoid meat entirely.

Cases of the emergent allergy have been reported in Europe, Asia, Central America and Africa, but it is most prevalent ? and on the rise ? in parts of Australia and the United States where ticks are endemic and host populations are booming...