"Lone star ticks don’t spread Lyme disease, but they can transmit other serious diseases and are linked to a mysterious meat allergy. And the threat is growing."
"The most distinctive feature of lone star ticks may be the starlike white splotch on the backs of adult females that gives them their name. But it’s the baby (larval) lone star ticks that may make a bigger impression. That’s because they tend to hunt in packs, colloquially — and horrifyingly — referred to as “tick bombs.”
“When you find one,” says Holly Gaff, a professor of biological sciences at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, “you usually make, I always jokingly say, 500 new best friends crawling up your leg.”
Lone star ticks aren’t the greatest driver of tickborne disease in the United States — that distinction belongs to blacklegged ticks, which spread Lyme disease, the most common infection you can get from a tick bite in this country. And though a bite from a lone star tick is less likely to result in disease than a bite from a blacklegged tick, lone star ticks do cause a diverse array of health problems, transmitting bacteria and viruses and also potentially triggering an enigmatic allergy to red meat.
Lone star ticks used to be found mostly in the Southeastern United States, but they are on the move — and their numbers are growing. They’re becoming more and more common in Northern states, and even parts of Canada, where they were once scarce."
Catherine Roberts reports for Consumer Reports via the Washington Post July 8, 2024.
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