Lone star tick carries a new health concern

Sometimes, big stories start small.

A man in New Jersey has died from complications from a tick bite. The culprit? A lone star tick, one that’s often recognized by a white star-shaped spot on its back.

But it’s a far more complicated story than just that.

And, by the way, it was only a matter of time.

Everyone has a tick story: from finding scores of small versions of the critters climbing your socks after walking through low Manitoba brush in the spring, to finding full-grown ticks transversing your torso with their peculiar multi-legged mountaineering gait. From stories about the odd crannies where they’ve lodged, to the pets they’ve inhabited and how hard they can be to dispatch.

There are even regular and unfortunate stories about contracting Lyme disease from ticks, and the bull’s-eye rash that lets you know to seek treatment.

But a bite from a lone star tick is different. Their bite adds a sugar molecule called alpha-gal to the bloodstream, and the body’s reaction to that molecule can — weeks or even months later — trigger an allergic reaction in the unlucky human tick victim when they are exposed to alpha-gal again.

The allergic reaction can include sometimes-deadly anaphylactic shock, which it did in the New Jersey man. (That was confirmed by blood tests after his death.)

And how do humans get exposed to that potentially deadly alpha-gal once they’ve been sensitized to it by their tick bite?

Well …

Alpha-gal is in a whole host of food products in the mammals we eat. Meat from cows, pigs and lamb can trigger a reaction. For some, cheese, butter, milk and cream are off the safe list as well.

It may present as a simple food allergy, causing abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea after meat products are eaten. It may also appear as a skin rash.

In the most serious cases, the allergic reaction can be deadly.

In the New Jersey man’s case, the man first became violently ill after a steak dinner. Two weeks later, a hamburger at a barbecue proved fatal.

Are lone star ticks in Manitoba now? Not regularly. But Manitobans aren’t always just in Manitoba, either. Some have been found on Manitobans and their pets returning from travel south.

They are, however, thanks to climate change, gradually marching northwards, hitchhiking primarily with deer and making their own small strides with that odd little prehistoric-looking stagger.

“In 2023, we received ticks from seven counties in New York State that are lone star tick encounters,” Saravanan Thangamani, who directs the SUNY Center for Vector-Borne Diseases at Upstate Medical University, told National Public Radio. “This year we got about 15 counties. In addition to increasing numbers, they’re also expanding in geographic range, so this is a cause of concern.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were more than 110,000 suspected human cases between 2010 and 2022 — but the real numbers could be as high 450,000 because it’s not well known and infrequently diagnosed.

“The significance of this case is that a large and increasing population of the United States is being exposed to the lone star tick, both because the tick is moving north and because there are now large populations of deer in many states,” said a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology examining the man’s death.

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside …

At least the big freeze is coming. At least for the next few months, you won’t be squinting at a tick noshing on your ankle and wondering if you’d better rethink that burger.

» Winnipeg Free Press