Life

Freaky Tick Bites Make Farmers Allergic to Their Own Farm Animals 

The Lone Star ticks can transmit Alpha-gal Syndrome, a life-threatening allergy to meat and other animal byproducts.

lone star tick bites animal allergy farmers
Ranchers in Colorado (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

The Lone Star tick is a real asshole of a tick. It’s responsible for making a number of farmers across the United States allergic to the livestock they are raising on their farms. 

A report from The Atlantic details the odd effects of the tick-borne illness that is transmittable to humans called Alpha-gal Syndrome, or AGS, which is at the root of it all. In the piece, author Sarah Zhang speaks with Clark Giles, a sheep farmer from Oklahoma who, after a series of tick bites, developed a meat allergy. He didn’t take the allergy to seriously until he had an anaphylactic reaction while eating a hamburger back in 2022. He had to eliminate beef from his diet, but then also discovered he had to cut out pork and lamb, which were the animals he raised on his farm.

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The Lone Star tick is to blame. When it bites, its saliva triggers an immune response and a carbohydrate molecule called Alpha-gal, which sounds like it should have been the name of a female superhero created in the 1930s. Similarly, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a piece in September 2023 about a cranberry and blueberry farmer in New Jersey who has been suffering from AGS after a tick bite. In both instances, the farmers at the center of the articles had to radically alter their diets, cutting out any or all of the meats they found themselves to be suddenly allergic to.

AGS is becoming substantially more prevalent in the United States as its range has spread across the country, with farmers being most affected, especially after repeated bites. The tick used to almost exclusively be found in the southeastern United States, but has been steadily spreading in a northwesterly direction in recent years.

Even stranger, those afflicted with AGS don’t even have to consume an animal product to feel an allergic reaction. Giles, for instance, will feel an allergic reaction when he takes a bite of pork or lamb, but also if he’s just around animal products or inhales fumes from animal byproducts. Shoveling manure used to be an easy job, but now he can’t do it without a respirator, less the fumes spark an allergic reaction.

Giles says he’s been experiencing fatigue, aches and his joints, and brain fog, but he isn’t even suffering the worst symptoms possible. He says a friend also suffering from AGS became so allergic to his sheep that he had to give them up. For some, their sensitivity to animal byproducts is so intense that they can’t even swallow pills and drug capsules since some of them contain magnesium stearate, an animal-based fat derivative used in some over-the-counter medications.

The only thing some farmers can do to continue making money while living with AGS is to completely swap out the livestock they raise on their farms. Some have completely switched over from pork, lamb, and beef to animals they are allergic to, like chickens, and exotic species like emu and ostrich.