Tick bites are bad

Not only rickettsial diseases, Lyme disease, but now meat allergy

Yep, always something to worry about—— Hello Alpha-gal!

First, Lyme disease from an accidental military bio lab release into surrounding deer population.. and thus deer swam to on shore into the town of Lyme on the mainland..(read the book “Bitten”)

Then realizing other non-tick insects can carry the agent. Borellia Burgdorferii.. Yep the doctor that “discovered” it was a “Swiss” doctor working in a US military lab.. All of a sudden my “Operation Clip” antenna goes up.. way up. But know that chiggers may have given me this stuff a couple years ago here in Texas. The Lone Star tick gets the headlines (but has nothing to do with the Lone Star State) other than it is here too.

But now this about meat allergy. I have a family member that all of s sudden developed abdominal pain when eating beef. Okay with pork, chicken, elk, bison.. but not cows meat. Her allergist wisely many years ago recognized it was due to a tick bite - Turns out they lived in Charlottesville VA. and the paper was written at U. VA.. there. So yes it is real. I didn’t know how many folks might be affected.

So today I read the following.. Be aware. Use you bug spray when you go out!

Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans May Have Meat Allergy Linked To Tick Bites, Researchers Estimate

The New York Times (7/27, Anthes) reports that hundreds of thousands of “Americans may be living with alpha-gal syndrome, a meat allergy that has been linked to tick bites, with many of those people going undiagnosed, according to two new studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The Times adds, “Alpha-gal syndrome was most common across a large swath of Southern, Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states, where the lone star tick is known to live, the researchers found.”

According to the Washington Post (7/27, Sun), one report indicated that “between 2010 and 2022, there were more than 110,000 suspected cases of alpha-gal syndrome.”

The AP (7/27, Stobbe) reports, however, that “health officials believe many more have the problem and don’t know it.” Meanwhile, the “second report estimated that as many as 450,000 Americans have developed the allergy.”

NBC News (7/27, Edwards) reports, “In one of the new reports, 42% of 1,500 doctors surveyed had never heard of alpha-gal syndrome,” while “a further 35% said they were not confident in their ability to detect or treat the illness.” The reports are available here and here.

So alpha-gal is a bad girl after all! Beware of her and other “loose gals” - not in the bars and dance halls but out in the country side.