Common tick bite can cause allergy to red meat

ABC NEWS (Australia)

On average, every Australian eats more than 19 kilos of red meat each year. But for some, consuming meat could be potentially life threatening as a result of an allergic reaction from a tick bite.

Transcript

00:00 The mid-north coast of New South Wales is full of idyllic hinterland valleys.

00:07 Elizabeth Rowley lives with her family on 18 acres outside of Hannam Vale, a tiny village

00:15 on the Stuarts River, 40km northwest of Tarry.

00:20 This is not just the normal maintenance needed for a lifestyle block. Keeping her lawn short

00:26 is a key defence against a tiny insect whose bite has caused years of illness.

00:32 I contracted it 12 years ago but wasn't diagnosed for another 4 years after that. I just felt

00:39 sick all the time, your stomach felt like you wanted to throw up, very foggy, I used

00:44 to explain it like I felt like I was as drunk as a thousand men but I had all their hangovers

00:48 all at once at the same time.

00:50 A tick bite led to Elizabeth developing mammalian meat allergy, an allergy to meat from a mammal,

00:57 think cattle, pigs, sheep and any product that comes from them. But it took her years

01:03 to work out what was happening.

01:05 I had been to allergists and they just said no, I've got no idea, you have to find out

01:09 what's going on yourself. I'd stopped dairy, I'd stopped eating seafood, gluten, all of

01:14 the things you kind of know about but nothing made any difference.

01:20 Simple things like attending a barbecue and inhaling meat fumes, or patting the family

01:25 dog can have severe consequences.

01:28 I don't wash my hands straight away after patting them, after about 4 hours I just don't

01:34 lick, I just really ache and feel a bit chesty like you can't breathe. Great, especially

01:39 if they lick, don't be naughty.

01:43 Mammalian meat allergy was discovered in 2007 by Australian allergy specialist Professor

01:48 Cheryl Van Noonan.

01:50 A milder systemic reaction would be generalised welts or urticaria, ranging through to involvement

01:57 of closure of your throat, breathing difficulty, impending loss of consciousness and passing

02:04 out and needing resuscitation. And even, unfortunately, it can be lethal in a very tiny minority of

02:13 people.

02:14 Well of course mammalian meat allergy can be provoked by tick bite.

02:17 She's now one of the world's leading experts, helping people adjust their whole lives to

02:22 avoid any product that comes from a mammal.

02:26 The mammalian allergen is in a number of medical products. For example there's an anti-cancer

02:38 drug which is a magic bullet for people with colon cancer and head and neck cancer. But

02:44 unfortunately injected intravenously, this can be a life-threatening experience having

02:48 their treatment.

02:50 New flu vaccines, snake anti-venom, even Ventolin for asthma sufferers can all contain mammal

02:56 products and cause life-threatening reactions for people suffering mammalian meat allergy.

03:04 At Elizabeth Rowley's home, Chooks and Guinea Fowl are allies. The birds dine on ticks,

03:09 keeping everyone else safer from them.

03:11 Yeah at the moment they're just learning I suppose, like to scratch around and stuff,

03:16 just same as the Chooks will. And then, yeah, eventually they'll realise that their main

03:23 meal is normally ticks and bugs and things like that.

03:27 (bird chirping)

03:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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