The same week this article (pic above) ran in Garden and Gun last month a good friend, a college professor who hates the modern practice of medicine and abhors going to the doctor, called with what to him was a puzzling set of symptoms – an apparent allergy which manifests anytime he consumes red meat.
He was concerned, and frankly, he was pissed.
Ironically I had been loosely researching the issue of Alpha-gal allergies potentially induced by tick bite, and had tracked down the leading researcher in the country digging into the issue, Dr. Scott Commins of UNC’s School of Medicine and Thurston Arthritis Research Center. He’s done a very informative podcast you can listen to here, and there’s a partial transcript of the interview as well.
The story is fascinating, and if you’ve gotten a bit lax about tick-bite prevention, this will likely get your attention and change your approach to being in the woods. It sure has mine…
