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New Tick Concern: Spreading Food Allergy

There’s a new and unusual reason to worry about tick bites in large swaths of the United States.  More than 1,000 cases of people developing an allergy after a particular tick bite have been found.  The discovery comes partly thanks to a doctor who became a research subject himself.

FOX News Radio’s Chris Hoenig explains:

Audio clip:

University of Virginia researchers, discovering a tick that does not transfer Lyme Disease, but does transfer an allergy to meat.

(Dr. Platts-Mills) “It’s a completely new form of food allergy.”

The symptoms typically consist of hives within a few hours of eating beef, lamb or pork.  Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills is both a researcher AND a patient.

(Dr. Platts-Mills) “When you have something happen to you, yourself, you really get it.”

The culprit is the Lone Star Tick, which is most prevalent in the southeast U.S., but can be found everywhere from Maine to Oklahoma.

(Dr. Platts-Mills) “There are an awful lot of people who get exposed to ticks.  And I think it matters that, if they get unexplained hives, they can think about it.”

Chris Hoenig, FOX News Radio.

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One Comment

  1. GandA

    June 15, 2012 at 11:38 am

    Would like to talk to Dr. Platts-Mills. My husband had this allergy beginning in 2000 after a bite of unknown origin on his ankle. He had severe whelps and swelling after eating beef or pork until suddenly in 2010. Now he has no effects from eating mammal. We know several people in our area who also suffer from this allergy. All had bites before developing the allergy.