Reply To: Tick bites and meat allergies

Maybe Hashem made Lone Star Ticks to help Jews struggling with cravings for eating non-kosher animals? And let’s add cows for good measure?

“If your nose gets stuffy or begins to run after eating meat, or you become nauseated or develop a rash, you may have a meat allergy.

Meat from any kind of mammal — beef, lamb, pork, goat, and even whale and seal — can cause an allergic reaction. While we do not definitively know the number of people in the U.S. affected by meat allergy, we do know that it is uncommon.

A bite from the Lone Star tick can cause people to develop an allergy to red meat, including beef and pork. The Lone Star tick has been implicated in initiating the red meat allergy in the US and this tick is found predominantly in the Southeast from Texas, to Iowa, into New England.

A meat allergy can develop any time in life. If you are allergic to one type of meat, it is possible you also are allergic to other meats, as well as to poultry, such as chicken, turkey and duck.

Studies have found that a very small percentage of children with milk allergy are also allergic to beef. Talk with your allergist to see if you should remove beef from your milk-allergic child’s diet.”

(American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology © 2014)