'If only people knew what a tick could do' - the deadly meat allergies caused by tick bites
When Myfanwy Webb looks back at her birthday party five years ago, she is overcome with regret - remembering what she now sees as a
When Myfanwy Webb looks back at her birthday party five years ago, she is overcome with regret - remembering what she now sees as a missed opportunity to save her son's life. Hours after a celebratory lunch at a restaurant Jeremy began having difficulty breathing. His parents called an ambulance, and the then-15-year-old began vomiting. At the hospital, doctors noted that Jeremy had a suspected meat allergy, but ultimately blamed the episode on his asthma, which he'd had since he was a toddler.
He was sent home the next day. "I made the wrong decision," Webb says, wishing she had asked for more testing. If she had, doctors might have established that Jeremy had actually been suffering from anaphylaxis, and sent him home with an EpiPen. Just over a year later, in June 2022, Jeremy died after eating a beef sausage on a camping trip with friends at a beach north of Sydney.
The cause of death was initially recorded simply as asthma. But in February, after an inquest pushed for by his family, a coroner ruled that the asthma attack and resulting fatal anaphylaxis was triggered by tick-induced mammalian meat allergy (MMA). His death is the first in the world known to have been caused by MMA, also known as alpha-gal syndrome. Diagnosed cases of MMA have steadily escalated since 2007, when an Australian doctor first discovered the allergy was linked to tick bites.
Now, scientists and campaigners are warning that the condition, though easily prevented, can be unexpectedly triggered - and could pose a deadly threat.
The BriefWire