Almost every time he eats a steak, Mack Halsey develops hives on his arms and legs. Burgers are no better. About two to four hours after a meal, his skin starts to itch and break out in hives.
For a long time, Halsey, who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, blamed the additives in meat, the antibiotics, the hormones. It was only after he went to Scott Commins, a University of Virginia immunologist, that he got his diagnosis: alpha-gal allergy, a reaction to red meat that results from having been bitten by a tick.
Scientists agree that this allergy can be very dangerous, sometimes causing anaphylactic shock and potentially even death, and that the allergy is on the rise.