ANSWERING the phone at 2am mum Myfanwy Webb’s heart broke.
Because it was an emergency doctor, and he uttered the phrase no parent ever wants to hear: “I’m so sorry – your son has passed away.”
Jeremy and his mum Myfanwy, pictured together – he was a bright and loving boyCredit: Refer to source
Jeremy was with his mates who battled to save himCredit: Refer to source
Myfanwy’s boy Jeremy had gone away on a camping trip and seemingly suffered an shortly after he had eaten a dinner of sausages with friends.
He’d been rushed to a local hospital but died.
Recalling this, Myfanwy, married to Jonathan, 58, and mum to Kalena, 22, says: “His friends had bravely performed after he collapsed.
“When ambulances arrived they took over but, devastatingly, he couldn’t be saved and was declared dead at 12.29am in hospital. He was only 16.”
Jeremy and his sister Kalena when they were youngerCredit: Refer to source
Pictured left to right: Jeremy, Jonathan, Myfanwy Webb and Kalena WebbCredit: Refer to source
She remembers dropping him off at school on the morning of the trip in June 2022. “I said to him ‘Have a good weekend’ and he said ‘Will do Mum’,” she says.
The next day he called her and told how he’d been wandering around town and enjoying himself.
But that night came the dreaded call.
The 54-year-old says: “I was numb from shock. I woke Kalena and told her what had happened. We were staying away with friends, and when I felt like I could drive, we jumped in the car and headed home.
“The four-and-a-half-hour drive felt like a nightmarish blur. When we arrived Jonathan was at the hospital. The police had knocked on our door to deliver the soul-crushing news to him.”
The family also visited Jeremy at the morgue. “He looked peaceful,” his mum says. “There was a small smile on his handsome face. I said, ‘I love you,’ and held his hand, and tears dripped down my face.”
More than 300 people attended his celebration of life. But as time progressed, Myfanwy, from New South Wales, , couldn’t shake the feeling he hadn’t died of an asthma attack.
Instead she believed it was something rather more unusual.
Because while Jeremy had indeed been diagnosed with asthma aged five, when he was older, his symptoms changed. These changes coincided with the family moving to a block surrounded by bushland.
He would be bitten by countless ticks. His mum carefully removed them, but aged 10 he started to vomit and would get short of breath sometimes after eating red meat.
She explains: “A bacon pasta, steak, or lamb meal could set him off. One night just the fumes of roast pork caused Jeremy to become ill.”
Myfanwy, a medical research scientist, thought there could be a possible link between the ticks and the meat – an incredibly rare allergy called alpha-gal syndrome or mammalian meat allergy (MMA).
Symptoms of AGS
Alpha-gal allergy is an unusual type of food allergy that can start with a tick bite.
It involves an allergic reaction to a carbohydrate known as alpha-gal which is found in the muscles of mammals.
Allergy to alpha-gal is rare in the UK.
When alpha-gal gets into your bloodstream, the immune system responds and makes antibodies that mark the alpha-gal molecule as ‘foreign’.
The next time you eat meat from mammals such as lamb, beef or pork – but not poultry such as chicken or turkey – the body’s immune system wrongly identifies the alpha-gal in the meat as a threat.
When this happens, the body releases chemicals, such as histamine, in response.
The symptoms of alpha-gal allergy are usually delayed, appearing three to eight hours after eating.
Mild to moderate symptoms may include:
- A red raised rash (known as hives or urticaria) anywhere on the body
- A tingling or itchy feeling in the mouth
- Swelling of the lips, face or eyes
- Stomach pain or vomiting
In more serious cases, people can also experience anaphylaxis, whose symptoms include:
- Swelling in the throat, tongue or upper airways (tightening of the throat, hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing).
- Sudden onset wheezing, breathing difficulty, noisy breathing.
- Dizziness, feeling faint, sudden sleepiness, tiredness, confusion, pale clammy skin, loss of consciousness
Not all species of ticks can cause alpha-gal allergy. Most known cases have been linked to the lone star tick which is found in southern and eastern areas of the United States.
Cases of alpha-gal allergy have also been reported in many other countries including the UK, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Japan and South Africa, and involve different species of ticks.
Source: Anaphylaxis UK
“But he was never formally diagnosed,” she says. “For a while, he avoided meat altogether, though sometimes he ate it without reacting. I thought it was more like an intolerance.”
So after he died, thinking back to all the times he had reacted badly to the meat, she carried out more research. “I read that alpha-gal syndrome could cause in severe cases,” she says.
“For years he’d wake in the night struggling to breathe. We believed it was nocturnal asthma. Sometimes it got so bad he needed hospital treatment. But [after he died] I learned the reactions can be delayed hours after eating. I realised many of those episodes could have been allergic reactions.
“His asthma medication often didn’t seem to have helped, and by morning his eyelids were swollen. And Jeremy had eaten beef sausages with his friends before he died.”
In December 2023, she gathered Jeremy’s hospital records and the medical research she’d done on tick-induced meat allergies and emailed the New South Wales State Coroner requesting an inquest.
“I knew it wouldn’t bring our boy back, but it was a chance to help others,” she says. “Ten agonising months later, we received confirmation our request had been accepted.”
In November 2025, the began with Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes delivering her findings in February this year.
She said Jeremy had suffered fatal anaphylaxis – an allergic reaction – as a result of acute exacerbation of his asthma caused by a severe allergic reaction to mammalian meat… the sausages.
Jeremy was the first confirmed Australian death linked to a tick-induced red meat allergy, and only the second person in the whole world.
Throughout, experts said that Jeremy’s previous admission to hospital was a ‘missed opportunity’ to flag the life-threatening risks of his allergy.
As a result, Magistrate Forbes recommended Jeremy’s death be used as a case study by the Central Coast Local Health District. She also recommended a training module be developed for emergency department registrars.
Myfanwy says: “I felt elated to have answers that would help save other lives. Jeremy would be proud. At last, we have a chance to warn others about alpha-gal syndrome. It is our boy’s legacy.
“There’s no way Jeremy would have eaten that sausage if he’d known it could kill him. Jeremy gives me the strength to keep pushing forward.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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