> Could a syndrome so stealthy have lurked among us all along? Commins and van Nunen don’t think so. The surge in alpha-gal patients was too sudden and too great. Van Nunen has worked on Sydney’s North Shore for forty years. “Anyone who had anaphylaxis was sent to me, and I’ve talked to long-term residents,” she told me. “I know that patients didn’t have it before. It is an epidemic.” What triggered it still isn’t clear. Does the alpha-gal in a tick’s saliva piggyback on some virus or antigen that sensitizes people to it? “We lack a unifying hypothesis,” Commins said.

Very mysterious!