The explosion of ticks and Alpha-gal syndrome

In 1975, a movie filmed in Martha's Vineyard made people afraid to go into the water. Today, a real animal in Martha's Vineyard is making people afraid to go outside. "It's gotten to the point now that grandparents are not allowing their grandchildren to come visit them," said Sam Telford.

"We stay in the apartment," said Ben DeForest. "You just don't know; these things are out there . It's gone from a 20-foot great white shark, to an apex predator that can fit on the tip of a needle."

Ticks have been giving us diseases for centuries, including Lyme disease, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But this year is remarkable. Emergency room visits for tick bites are the highest they've been in nearly a decade , as ticks spread into new parts of the country -- and to top it off, a new horror has hit the headlines: Alpha-gal syndrome . One tick bite can make you violently allergic to meat: beef, pork, veal, lamb, venison, rabbit, everything but seafood and poultry.

Adriana Stimola lives on Martha's Vineyard, where Alpha-gal is an epidemic. "About five hours after having a hamburger on the beach at midnight, I wake up and I have a rash, I have some swelling in my hands, and I'm in gastric distress," she said.

Her children got it, too, and her husband. "He had a burger, and at midnight woke up and shot out of bed," she recalled. "Pretty quickly he was like, 'My mouth feels weird. My lips are swelling.' And I just said, 'Get in the effing car!'"

Alpha-gal reactions can include anaphylactic shock, where your airways close up. Some people become allergic to dairy products, too, or even to the aroma of meat. Some react to things that contain animal products, like marshmallows, Doritos, and medicine capsules.

Stimola says it has even affected going to a friend's house for dinner: "I feel that really deeply," she said. "It kind of hurts to say, 'Oh, I can't eat that,' 'cause I miss that kind of connection where I'm eating food that other people love."

Ben DeForest grew up on Martha's Vineyard, "in the woods, in the water, in the fields, all of that," he said. "And I don't go there anymore. I stay on asphalt and concrete."

DeForest is the owner of the Red Cat Kitchen, where he's accommodated the Martha's Vineyard epidemic by creating a special menu. "When you go out to eat, you don't necessarily feel like explaining your entire medical history to a stranger who's taking your order," he said.

He showed us a dish from his "Alpha-gal friendly," no-red-meat menu: Halibut, parsley, and bull's blood ("It's beets").

Alpha-gal syndrome, which was discovered in the mid- to-late 2000s, is not brand-new to the country, says Sam Telford, a professor of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University: "Not at all. And in fact, it's very interesting that it has risen to national prominence because of places like the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard, when in fact people in the South and Midwest have been suffering this all along.