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submitted 1 month ago by Gsus4@mander.xyz to c/science@lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1116242

Woke ticks are out to turn the US South into soyboys > > (did I do that right?)

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[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 69 points 1 month ago

Living in the middle of Y'all Quaeda, I'd think the local cousin fuckers would be more riled up about this. Eating steak is a point of passion down here, second only to worshipping Trump.

For the most part it's just ignored... I kinda anticipate a trend of folks acquiring the allergy, then literally killing themselves in denial.

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 33 points 1 month ago

RFK will save them...with leeches eheh. You vote for a snake oil salesman, you get witch doctors, have fun in the middle ages! :)

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[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 56 points 1 month ago

I'm no vegan but isn't this technically a good thing? Red meat has negative environmental impacts right?

[-] grue@lemmy.world 39 points 1 month ago

My first thought reading the headline was 'the Earth is healing,' LOL

[-] paraphrand@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

I can just imagine the coming conspiracy theories.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

isn't this technically a good thing?

Far from it. There shouldn't be anywhere near this many ticks as there are now. It's a sign that the climate is changing and that is getting warmer overall.

Where I live is considered to be the tick hotspot in all of Canada. 15 years ago it would be wildly rare to hear that someone had a tick on them. Now it's rare to hear the opposite. Go for a hike in the trails nearby and you can easily walk out with at least a few dozen on you.

And it's not just the temperature itself. It's that the climate is affecting everything in the ecosystem.

We're going to see crazy tropical infections and parasites migrating a bit more north every year, and we're not ready for it.

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[-] jeanofthedead@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 month ago

Except you can die if you accidentally eat a trace amount in something.

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 month ago

Even better for the environment!

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[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 9 points 1 month ago

Probably. In some situations where there are no predators and you have semi-wild herbivores roam (usually goats, they are the least picky eaters) to eat forest fuel to prevent forest fires, it might be an ecological solution. But otherwise, yeah, red meat is something to reduce, not sure if this will be enough.

[-] atticus88th@lemmy.world 35 points 1 month ago

So red meat prices are about to plummet right?

[-] ALilOff@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

I need ox tail to be affordable again

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[-] moakley@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Fun story: I once watched a lone star tick crawl into the headphone jack of my phone. After trying for hours to get it out, I did two google searches:

  • What eats ticks?

  • Guinea hen mating sounds.

Thirty seconds later, it crawled out.

[-] possumparty 13 points 1 month ago

Probably more effective than opossum noises

[-] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Hhhhhhhhhhh

[-] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 26 points 1 month ago

My experience has been starkly different from Sterile_Techniques and I'm also living in what might be termed as "the middle of Ya'll Quaeda" USA. So, it's interesting to hear that there's such a big difference in opinion / understanding on this topic.

For sure, 20 - 25 years ago it seemed like almost nobody had heard of it, and whenever someone said they were allergic to meat because of a tick bite, there was a lot of skepticism and denial.

However, these days, pretty much everybody knows someone who has this allergy, and that's no exaggeration. Even the most backwoods, anti-science, do my own thing, fuck your feelings kind of people are telling others to check themselves for ticks and/or taking steps to keep ticks off them because they're aware of all the risks from tick bites. Now, they might be claiming that it's government bio-warfare, related to 5G and/or covid, or some other unnecessarily contrarian bullshit, but they do take it seriously from what I've experienced.

Also, the good news is (or bad news I guess depending on your perspective) is that a lot of people seem to experience improvement of symptoms in time, so it's not necessarily a permanent thing for everybody. I don't know if it's just that some people continue to test the limits and end up inadvertently putting themselves through exposure therapy or if the immune response itself just naturally wanes over time, but several people I know who've had this for 5 - 10+ years say they can usually get away with a small amount of mammal meat, like maybe a hotdog now and then at a minimum, even though a small bite would have caused them a lot of trouble when they first developed the allergy.

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[-] Auk@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago

Transition to eating the rich.

[-] stu42j@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

isn't that red meat though?

[-] Sxan@piefed.zip 5 points 1 month ago
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Nah most of them are white.

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[-] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Vegans really should consider weaponising these ticks, like breed billions and fly around cities carpet bombing everything.

No more beef industry overnight

[-] AlecSadler 14 points 1 month ago

I love beef and steaks and beef tacos and beef all the things.

But I would support vegans weaponizing this.

[-] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 29 points 1 month ago

Same, I wonder how quickly the beef industry will come up with a vaccine.

It would be hilarious to see the mental gymnastics of anti-vaxxers being okay with ONLY this vaccine

[-] psoul@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

They’d be like “I’d rather be autistic than vegan, worth it”

[-] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Audibly laughed at this, thank you. That's 100% what they'll do. They'll fly flags outside their house with that slogan.

[-] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago

If suddenly beef wasn't an option, I think beef substitutes like quorn and stuff would start getting real good real fast

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[-] bilb@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 month ago

Ah yes, globally, but also in the US

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

You have a lot more pretentiousness than knowledge, my friend. The density of cases is much higher in the US than any other country, by nearly an order of magnitude. Besides, don’t people like you get happy when something is worse in the US?

[-] bilb@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 month ago

You're reading an awful lot into a cheap joke.

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[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 month ago

Because people don't read the source anymore:

that nickname is misleading, because alpha-gal syndrome can cause strong reactions to many products, beyond just red meat.

The alpha-gal sugar molecule exists in the tissues of most mammals, including cows, pigs, deer, and rabbits. But it’s absent in humans.

the allergy also can be set off by exposure to a range of other animal-based products, including dairy products, gelatin (think Jell-O or gummy bears), medications, and even some personal care items.

it’s possible to get over the allergy if you can modify your diet enough to avoid triggering another reaction for a few years and also avoid more tick bites.

[-] TheSaddestMan@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Yes. Tl;dr: avoid (more) tick bites

I find it disturbing people have forgotten about parasites because we got rid of most of them. Ticks are not "just like mosquitos", ticks have seriously dangerous pathogens, and even mosquitos transfer Malaria. Malaria. Which is - if I'm remembering correctly - killing more people in Africa per year than all other causes of death globally combined. That's including coal mining deaths (deadliest job), human war and murder (second-deadliest "animal" for humans is ourselves) and attacks by wild/domesticated animals, and heart attacks and strokes (most common death for the elderly).

I'm going to have to admit I don't know the death toll of Malaria for sure, but it IS or WAS the reason mosquitos are/were the deadliest predator for humans. Either way, I'd rather die than have my life turn into an episode of Monsters Inside Me.

[-] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Idk if I'm allergic to red meat, but I do know that my body has a really hard time digesting it. It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.

Haven't eaten any red meat in years because of it.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.

I sort of thought that everyone experienced that.

[-] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I don't think that's what should happen lol

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[-] stoly@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

This is the Earth saying NO MORE. The world would be a better place if all the food used to feed livestock went to humans instead.

[-] aeternum 8 points 1 month ago

We literally grow enough plant based food to feed 16B people. Instead we give it to the 90B land animals we eat instead. For some reason

[-] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

most people don't want to live on cereal and soy meal

[-] aeternum 5 points 1 month ago

it's almost as if.... we could grow something else. We'd actually free up a not-insignificant amount of agriculture land if we all ate plant based.

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[-] roofuskit@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago
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[-] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago

Ahaha, Gaia hypothesis confirmed.
Want to reduce human impact on biosphere?
Make is so they can't eat meat anymore. lol.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago
[-] devilish666@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

When vegans took actions too seriously

[-] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I think its crazy how many people get ticks where they go unnoticed long enough for it to bury and reach your blood. I wanna say it's a full 24 hours before that happens and even then idk how much it takes before this will effect you since even things like limes disease means it needs to be in you for even longer.

Idk about others, but I have had my fair share of ticks, but thankfully, never one go unnoticed long enough that it broke through. People really should check more. Showering is a great time to discover if you may have one on you.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 14 points 1 month ago

You haven't lived somewhere the ticks are really bad then.

There is a point especially with ticks too small to see with a negative eye that you will simply not catch them all even if you catch 99% of them.

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[-] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I got a tick bite. And I didn't even notice it. It was right on my arm. So it's not like I've just been sitting around feeding the fucker for the fun of it.

As the doctor told me. They can be very tiny, they latch on, and then you accidentally rub it off, never knowing it was there. And during that, it regurgitated and that's why you see the giant tick bite mark.

The real question. Is why people see a giant hollow red circle and just ignore it. It's a very distinctive mark, I don't know how you could miss it, unless it's on the back of your thigh or back. Go to the doctor, get penicillin. That's it.

And these days, if you know you live in a high risk area, you can get vaccinated.

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[-] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

As a kid, I had a ticket on the top of my head just a bit back of center. Couldn't see it in a mirror, didn't feel anything weird right away. My mom noticed it at some point, but we had no idea how long it had been on there at that point. I was between 6-8 IIRC.

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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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