An airline pilot from New Jersey is the first person to have died of alpha-gal syndrome, a red meat allergy triggered by tick bites, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine announced on Nov. 13.
The 47-year-old man, who was not identified, had two severe reactions hours after eating beef in the summer of 2024 — when he had been bitten multiple times by Lone Star ticks, according to research published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The man died after the second allergic attack.
The cause of his death "had been a mystery" until Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, an allergist at the UVA School of Medicine who discovered alpha-gal syndrome, and his team examined the case, UVA Health said in a news release. Researchers later obtained samples of the man’s blood and determined that he had died from the tick-borne meat allergy.
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Following the man's death, Platts-Mills is urging clinicians to keep watch for people who have developed alpha-gal syndrome or are at risk of exposure, according to the news release. The allergy is primarily associated with bites from Lone Star ticks, found in the eastern, southeastern, and south-central parts of the United States.
