A teenager’s death was caused by a tick-induced red meat allergy, a coroner has found, in one of the first cases of its kind globally.<\/p>\n
Coroner Carmel Forbes warned of a risk of more deaths in multiple states as she handed down findings into the 2022 camping death of 16-year-old Jeremy Webb.<\/p>\n
Jeremy’s death was attributed to a severe asthma attack caused by an anaphylactic reaction to red meat he picked up after being repeatedly bitten by ticks as a child.<\/p>\n
As a result of the bites, he developed a condition known as mammalian meat allergy, meaning he became sick after eating red meat.<\/p>\n
After eating a dinner of beef sausages while camping with friends on the NSW Central Coast, Jeremy vomited and then passed out before paramedics arrived.<\/p>\n
He could not be revived and Forbes found his death was caused by an acute asthma attack triggered by the allergic reaction.<\/p>\n
His death predates the first documented fatal case of tick-induced mammalian meat allergy \u2013 that of a New Jersey pilot in 2024, described in a peer-reviewed article published in December.<\/p>\n
The teen’s death from the condition is the first of its kind in Australia, allergy expert Sheryl van Nunen told the ABC.<\/p>\n
While deaths from the allergy are rare, Forbes warned more may be possible without better awareness of the condition among doctors.<\/p>\n
“Australia’s eastern seaboard has the highest rate of [mammalian meat allergy] in the world,” Forbes’ findings state.<\/p>\n
Ticks can be commonly found from north Queensland to northern Victoria, the CSIRO says.<\/p>\n
Evidence in the findings shows cases of the allergy have risen 40% in Australia since 2020.<\/p>\n
Jeremy ended up in hospital with asthma and anaphylaxis caused by the allergy a year before he died but was not referred to a specialist for further treatment.<\/p>\n
“Jeremy, his family and his GP were unaware that his red meat allergy may have carried an attendant risk of life-threatening anaphylaxis,” Forbes’ findings state.<\/p>\n
The 16-year-old was remembered by his family as “intelligent, independent, disciplined, determined with a strong moral code”.<\/p>\n
Forbes recommended the local health district update its allergy training for doctors to include the tell-tale signs of mammalian meat allergy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager’s death was caused by a tick-induced red meat allergy, a coroner has found, in one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,134,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-302996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}