https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/nyregion/jetblue-pilot-death-tick-alpha-gal.html
After a Mysterious Death, a Family’s Quest for Answers Leads to a Tick
A JetBlue pilot’s illness looked like food poisoning, but it was actually an increasingly common tick-borne meat allergy that can be fatal.
By Joseph Goldstein, The New York Times, Nov. 20, 2025
…
The physicians linked his death to a growing menace: an allergy to red meat triggered by a tick bite. They published their findings last week in a medical journal, asserting that it is the first death of its kind linked to the tick-borne allergy, called alpha-gal syndrome….
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2023 that between 96,000 and 450,000 people nationwide might have developed the allergy since 2010, although many were unaware that they had….
The allergy is usually sparked by the bite of the lone star tick, which has proliferated in New York and New Jersey in recent decades. The allergy can cause a range of symptoms: hives, nausea, diarrhea or anaphylactic shock. The symptoms, which generally appear several hours after eating meat, can be severe enough for patients to end up seeking emergency care, although a correct diagnosis is sometimes made only after repeated allergic attacks….
People should get tested for alpha-gal if they found themselves getting violently ill hours after eating red meat…. [end quote]
Since ticks are spreading and alpha-gal can be mistaken for food poisoning…a heads-up.
Wendy