On average, every Australian eats more than 19 kilos of red meat each year. But for some, consuming meat could be potentially life threatening as a result of an allergic reaction from a tick bite.
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00:00 The mid-north coast of New South Wales is full of idyllic hinterland valleys.
00:07 Elizabeth Rowley lives with her family on 18 acres outside of Hannam Vale, a tiny village
00:15 on the Stuarts River, 40km northwest of Tarry.
00:20 This is not just the normal maintenance needed for a lifestyle block. Keeping her lawn short
00:26 is a key defence against a tiny insect whose bite has caused years of illness.
00:32 I contracted it 12 years ago but wasn't diagnosed for another 4 years after that. I just felt
00:39 sick all the time, your stomach felt like you wanted to throw up, very foggy, I used
00:44 to explain it like I felt like I was as drunk as a thousand men but I had all their hangovers
00:48 all at once at the same time.
00:50 A tick bite led to Elizabeth developing mammalian meat allergy, an allergy to meat from a mammal,
00:57 think cattle, pigs, sheep and any product that comes from them. But it took her years
01:03 to work out what was happening.
01:05 I had been to allergists and they just said no, I've got no idea, you have to find out
01:09 what's going on yourself. I'd stopped dairy, I'd stopped eating seafood, gluten, all of
01:14 the things you kind of know about but nothing made any difference.
01:20 Simple things like attending a barbecue and inhaling meat fumes, or patting the family
01:25 dog can have severe consequences.
01:28 I don't wash my hands straight away after patting them, after about 4 hours I just don't
01:34 lick, I just really ache and feel a bit chesty like you can't breathe. Great, especially
01:39 if they lick, don't be naughty.
01:43 Mammalian meat allergy was discovered in 2007 by Australian allergy specialist Professor
01:48 Cheryl Van Noonan.
01:50 A milder systemic reaction would be generalised welts or urticaria, ranging through to involvement
01:57 of closure of your throat, breathing difficulty, impending loss of consciousness and passing
02:04 out and needing resuscitation. And even, unfortunately, it can be lethal in a very tiny minority of
02:13 people.
02:14 Well of course mammalian meat allergy can be provoked by tick bite.
02:17 She's now one of the world's leading experts, helping people adjust their whole lives to
02:22 avoid any product that comes from a mammal.
02:26 The mammalian allergen is in a number of medical products. For example there's an anti-cancer
02:38 drug which is a magic bullet for people with colon cancer and head and neck cancer. But
02:44 unfortunately injected intravenously, this can be a life-threatening experience having
02:48 their treatment.
02:50 New flu vaccines, snake anti-venom, even Ventolin for asthma sufferers can all contain mammal
02:56 products and cause life-threatening reactions for people suffering mammalian meat allergy.
03:04 At Elizabeth Rowley's home, Chooks and Guinea Fowl are allies. The birds dine on ticks,
03:09 keeping everyone else safer from them.
03:11 Yeah at the moment they're just learning I suppose, like to scratch around and stuff,
03:16 just same as the Chooks will. And then, yeah, eventually they'll realise that their main
03:23 meal is normally ticks and bugs and things like that.
03:27 (bird chirping)
03:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]