U.S. man’s death 1st-ever from red meat allergy caused by tick bite: report

According to researchers, the man fell severely ill after consuming a beef steak for dinner while on a camping trip with his wife and children.

A 47-year-old airline pilot from New Jersey who died from an allergic reaction to red meat caused by a tick bite — known as alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) — was the first-recorded death of its kind, medical researchers say.

An expert group of allergists and immunologists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine reported the man’s cause of death on Wednesday in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. Until then, it had been a mystery.

According to researchers, the unidentified man, who had no significant medical history, fell severely ill after consuming a beef steak for dinner while on a camping trip with his wife and children in the summer of 2024. He experienced severe abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

The next morning, he felt well enough to go on a five-mile hike, but told his wife that at the height of his illness, which lasted a couple of hours, he thought he “was going to die.” The couple decided against seeing a doctor.

Two weeks later, they attended a barbecue in New Jersey, where the man ate a hamburger at around 3 p.m. Afterwards, he returned home and mowed the lawn for an hour. At about 7:20 p.m., after his wife had left the house, he went to the bathroom. Roughly 10 minutes later, his son was on the phone with his mom, saying, “Dad is getting sick again.”

A short while after that, he found his dad unresponsive on the bathroom floor, lying in a pool of vomit. The son called 911 at 7:37 p.m. and initiated life-saving measures.

Paramedics attempted to resuscitate the man for two hours, which included transferring him to the hospital. At 10:22 p.m., he was declared dead.

The autopsy concluded he died a “sudden unexplained death.”