CLAIM: Increased incidence of a meat allergy linked to tick spit in the U.S. is connected to a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that involves genetically modifying cattle ticks.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The program to create a modified cattle tick, with the goal of reducing their population and protecting livestock, has thus far been limited to lab work in the U.K., according to a representative for the company conducting the research. The ticks in question have been largely eradicated in the U.S. and do not bite humans, an expert said.
THE FACTS: Recently published government research estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans may have an allergy to red meat because of a syndrome triggered by tick bites, as The Associated Press has reported.
The reaction, called alpha-gal syndrome, occurs when an infected person consumes beef, pork, venison or other mammal products. It’s caused by a sugar in meat from mammals — and in tick spit — that, when transmitted through the skin via a tick bite, can lead to an allergic reaction.
But widespread posts in recent weeks have baselessly suggested that the allergy is somehow tied to a project that has received funding from the Gates Foundation.
“Bill Gates Funded Research Into Genetically Engineered Cattle Ticks—Now 450,000 Americans Have Red Meat Allergies From ‘Alpha-Gal Syndrome’ Caused by Tick Bites,” reads one widespread headline.
However a relationship between the two is “scientifically impossible,” said a representative for Oxitec, the firm doing the research that has indeed received support from the Gates Foundation.
“Oxitec’s early R&D has been conducted in the UK,” Neil Morrison, chief strategy officer at Oxitec, said in an email statement. He added that the research has been conducted in labs and that there has been “no research in the field with a self-limiting (modified) tick.”
Oxitec’s focus is on the Asian blue tick, or Rhipicephalus microplus, and using a self-limiting gene to reduce their population to better protect livestock and curb economic losses associated with tick bites and disease.
Such ticks, while posing issues in other parts of the world, have been largely eradicated in most of the U.S.
Moreover, cattle ticks don’t bite humans, said Sam Telford, a Tufts University professor of infectious disease and global health who has worked on ticks and tickborne infections for more than 35 years.
“Cattle ticks (Rhipicephalus microplus) do not attack humans,” Telford said in an email. “There is no way for people to get bitten by cattle ticks and hence no way AGS is related to genetically modified cattle ticks.”
Ticks are adapted to feeding on certain animals, Telford explained, and cattle ticks feed on cattle and related animals, such as deer. They do not identify humans as their hosts.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson Kate Fowlie said in an email that the evidence “strongly suggests” that alpha-gal syndrome is primarily associated with the bite of the Lone Star tick, or Amblyomma americanum, in the U.S. — even if some other native species of ticks have not been ruled out.
Researchers first published a paper tying alpha-gal syndrome to tick bites in 2011. That was a decade before the Gates Foundation funded Oxitec’s program on self-limiting cattle ticks.
The foundation first announced in 2021 that it was providing Oxitec nearly $1.5 million for an initial feasibility project. In April, the foundation announced it was granting the company another $4.8 million to further develop the program.
The AP has previously fact-checked false claims about the Gates Foundation and Oxitec in relation to malaria cases in the U.S.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
