We've all (likely) heard of Lyme Disease, caused by a bite from the black-legged tick. We know (or ought to know) that we should wear long pants, tuck in our socks and inspect ourselves (and our pets) for attached ticks when we hike in high-tick risk areas.
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| Lyme Disease Risk Areas in Canada |
Lyme disease (caused by a bacteria) can be nasty, causing all sorts of symptoms like rashes, joint pain, facial palsy, etc... sometimes months after the tick bite. The repercussions of untreated tick bites are long-lasting and scary.
But now... down in the southeastern United States... there's a new tick-borne illness. Some people, who get bitten by the lone star tick (it has a white spot on its back) develop a permanent allergy to all mammalian meat and things like dairy. Yep. You heard that right. The lone star tick can carry can carry a substance called alpha-gal that, after a bite, triggers a delayed allergic reaction to red meat in the poor human who got bitten. It's called Alpha-gal syndrome and there's no cure. But what the heck is Alpha-gal??
Alpha-gal is a sugar molecule that humans don’t have in their system, but a lot of animals do. This includes many mammalian animals such as cows, bison, rabbit, goats, deer, pigs, sheep, and lambs. And their products... like milk, cheese, other dairy products and gelatin. If a person is bitten by a lone star tick and it transmits the alpha-gal molecule, then the person may develop an antibody reaction to the alpha-gal molecule. In other words, they could develop an allergy. This means the next time the person eats red meat such as beef or venison, or something made with beef gelatin, or drinks a glass of milk, or eats ice cream, they could break out in hives or have a more serious allergic reaction.
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| Black-legged tick (left) vector for Lyme Disease Lone Star Tick (right) vector for Alpha-Gal Syndrome |
Well... that shouldn't really matter to us in Canada, right? I mean... the lone star tick is down in the southeast United States. Well... yes and no. It used to limited to the SE US but now... with climate change, and warming temperatures, the tick can survive farther and farther north. It's recently been spotted in the northeastern United States. And... in 2022 and 2023... some have been found in Ontario and Quebec.
Soooo... if we allow climate change to continue to run rampant... we can expect a future in which the lone star tick will colonize higher latitudes... eventually scrambling over the Rocky Mountains and heading for the Pacific Coast. The cynic in me foresees a future in which the majority of North Americans have been bitten by the lone-star tick and are forced to readjust their eating habits. We might not make the switch to less meat now... voluntarily... but there may come a time when nature makes the choice for us.
More Reading
CTV News - Tick bites: Meat allergy caused by tick spit more common now
CNN - Alpha-gal: Meat allergy passed by ticks may affect hundreds of thousands in US, CDC estimates
CTV News - Another tick that causes meat allergy spotted in Canada
BeefResearch Site - The Red Meat Allergy: A Canadian Perspective
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