Researchers say they believe they've documented the first known death from alpha-gal syndrome — a red meat allergy caused by tick bites.

The findings, by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology . The report says a 47-year-old airplane pilot in New Jersey fell ill four hours after eating a hamburger at a barbecue in 2024. The man's son found him unconscious on the floor of a bathroom surrounded by vomit. The man was declared dead at a hospital. The autopsy cited a "sudden unexplained death."

Two weeks before he died, the man had become ill several hours after eating a steak dinner, waking up with abdominal discomfort, writhing in pain, having diarrhea and vomiting. "I thought I was going to die," he to

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