What’s driving this tick season in Mass.? One expert says climate, another says deer
About six years ago when Larry Schubert heard a tick bite can cause a red meat allergy, he didn’t believe it. “There’s no way,” he said.
Then, four years ago, he got a bite from a lone star tick while working in Aquinnah, a town on Martha’s Vineyard where he’s lived for 50 years and runs a construction and carpentry business. He pulled the tick off and felt fine.
When a friend came for dinner and brought leftover prime rib for an appetizer, he ate a few bites.
“At like 3 in the morning, I woke, and I was like, ‘Something is not right.’ I got out of bed. I was itchy, I was sweaty, I was confused.” He looked in the mirror and saw a red rash all over his body.
Research assistant Acar Seyis places an Ixodes scapularis, otherwise known as a deer tick, into a container to inspect under a microscope on Thursday. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
A test at the doctor confirmed: He had alpha-gal syndrome, a red meat allergy often caused by a lone star tick bite.
Schubert, now 69, has been reinfected by a lone star tick bite since, and no longer can eat red meat.
“It bothers me, but I roll with it,” he said. His wife also has the syndrome, and their diet has adapted. “We say we eat fins and feathers.”
The lone star tick has been growing in numbers on Martha’s Vineyard and the Cape in recent years, as the bug’s range expands from its more southern U.S. roots.
“The lone star tick is moving northward and into Massachusetts, at least partly due to climate change,” Dr. Catherine Brown, state epidemiologist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said in a statement. The tick’s saliva can trigger a red meat allergy, like it did in Schubert.
That’s one of a number of growing tick concerns in the state and region this year.
More tick bites
So far this year, the Northeastern U.S. has seen more tick-bite emergency room visits than each of the previous six years, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergency room visits for tick bites in Massachusetts are higher this year compared to the previous three years, state data shows .
Data from the June 2025 Tick Exposure and Tick-borne Disease Syndromic Surveillance Report. (Department of Public Health)Department of Public Health
”This logically suggests that the tick populations may be larger this year than the last three years," Brown said. “However, other factors that play a role are the amount of time that people are spending outdoors and spending time in places where they can come into contact with ticks, and then where people are seeking health care.”
Dr. Esteban A. DelPilar-Morales , an infectious disease doctor at Baystate Health in Springfield, said he’s seeing more people come in with tick bites in recent months.
“This summer has been fairly active,” he said. His mother-in-law was recently sick and hospitalized in the Berkshires, and he looked at her lab results. “You have a tick infection. You need to be treated,” he told her. She has since recovered.
“It’s that common,” DelPilar-Morales said. “We’re seeing a lot of visits to urgent cares and emergency rooms with symptoms that are mostly tick-related.”
Most of the time, unless you are really sick, the emergency room is not necessary, and a primary care doctor or urgent care can address a tick bite, he said.
At the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases at UMass Amherst, laboratory technician Jacqueline Borges readies a Dermacentor variabilis (American dog tick) for a look under a microscope. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
Ticks are a problem every year, said Dr. Stephen Rich , a microbiology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and executive director of theNew England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases.
“We’re always reluctant to say there’s more ticks or even less ticks, primarily because their distribution is so spotty,” he said.
It’s possible one side of a trail is full of ticks and the other clear, he said.
“There’s really no little tick years,” Rich said. “They’re always abundant.”
In Massachusetts, there’s three common types of ticks. Most common are black-legged, or deer, ticks and dog ticks. Less common is the lone star tick.
Lyme disease is the most common illness tick bites can cause. Often, it causes a bull’s-eye rash around the bite site and flu-like symptoms.
The state has one of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country, according to 2023 CDC data, the most recent available. The only states with rates higher than Massachusetts were Vermont, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Maine.
Rates of Lyme disease across the country are rising, too. The case rate in 2022, the most recent available, was the highest in 30 years, according to CDC data .
Infected ticks also can spread babesiosis, granulocytic anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Powassan virus, albeit less frequently.
Dorsal view of a female lone star tick, or Amblyomma americanum. (Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images, File)Getty Images
‘Newer kid on the block’
Martha’s Vineyard Hospital saw two reported cases of alpha-gal syndrome in 2020, and that number ballooned to 445 last year, the Vineyard Gazette reported .
The lone star tick, usually the culprit of the syndrome, used to be in Massachusetts, but because of land-use changes, it was wiped out of state in the mid-20th century, Brown told the state Public Health Council earlier this month.
It’s now reestablished on Martha’s Vineyard, she said. “This kind of reemergence and reintroduction is almost certainly due to climate change or at least in large part to climate change,” Brown told the council.
So far, diseases from the lone star tick are not common in Massachusetts, according to Brown.
Geographic distribution of suspected alpha-gal syndrome cases per 1 million population per year in the United States, from 2017 to 2022. (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. DelPilar-Morales said he has not seen any cases of alpha-gal syndrome at Baystate. “The numbers seem to be relatively low,” he said of the syndrome’s presence in the region. “It’s something quite new.”
Most mammals, though not humans, have the alpha-gal sugar molecule in their bodies. It’s also in some tick saliva, and when it bites a person, it can trigger an allergic reaction. Red meat and other animal products with alpha-gal in them can cause reactions.
The reaction can be, in the most serious cases, life threatening. For some, the reactions go away a year or two later, according to the Mayo Clinic .
Not everyone who is bitten by develops the syndrome, and researchers are trying to better understand why that is, according to the CDC.
At the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases at UMass Amherst, laboratory technician Jacqueline Borges looks at an American dog tick under the microscope. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
“In some ways, we have more questions than answers in why and how,” Rich said.
He expects the lone star tick to move northward and inland over the course of years.
Since 2010, the CDC says there’s been at least 110,000 cases of the syndrome, but there could be as many as 450,000.
What roles are deer, climate change playing?
Ticks are much more prevalent in New England today than several decades ago, Rich said.
“People that have been in New England for a few decades know things have changed,” he said. Climate change may be a factor, he said, but not the main one. “I think it’s got to be secondary to white-tailed deer,” he said.
Ticks feed and breed on white-tailed deer. For a few types of ticks, like the black-legged and lone star, it’s their primary breeding spot.
A white-tailed fawn hides in the long grass in Forest Park in May. (Douglas Hook / The Republican, File)Douglas Hook
The New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Disease, which Rich leads, is looking at how to control ticks as they feed on deer.
“We’re trying to explore different ways to kills ticks on the backs of deer,” he said.
Climate change might be a driver of the lone star tick moving northward, Rich said. There’s also some evidence they are adapting to colder temperatures.
“Climate change is likely having a greater impact on the geographic range of tick species than on length of tick season or size of the tick population in a state like Massachusetts,” said Brown, the state epidemiologist. The lone star tick is an example of that.
In general, spring and summer are trending hotter and longer thanks to climate change. More warm days means more opportunity for ticks to be active and spread disease, according to the DPH .
Laboratory technician Jacqueline Borges works to identify different tick species at the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases at UMass Amherst on Thursday. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
So how can you protect yourself? Wear long pants, sleeves and socks outdoors, the DPH recommends. Tuck your pants into your socks — that’s for public health, not fashion. Repellents with DEET can help, and so can treating clothes with permethrin.
Schubert, who is living with alpha-gal syndrome, has been treating his clothing with permethrin.
“Most everybody that I’m friendly with and associated with has sort of taken up permethrin, socks, gaiters, pants. Sometimes we’re good at it, and sometimes we’re not so good at it.”
Inspect yourself after spending time outdoors.
Ticks can be very small if they are at an early life stage, DelPilar-Morales said.
“Look for new freckles,” he said, urging people to look closely. “Freckles are not supposed to move.” After a tick is removed, you can put it in a bag to save for identification.
If you find a tick on you, stay calm. Use tweezers to pull it out, the DPH says. Contact your doctor if you get a rash or other symptoms, like a headache.
Different ticks from across the United States are sent to the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases at UMass Amherst to be studied. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
Read the original article on MassLive .
