As lone star tick spreads in North America, posts baselessly blame 'climate agenda'
- Published on June 4, 2026 at 18:30
- 5 min read
- By Manon JACOB, AFP USA
Experts are predicting a severe tick season for North America in 2026, including propagation of the lone star species whose bites can trigger potentially lethal red meat allergies in humans. But there is no evidence to back claims the disease-carrying mites have been "genetically engineered" and are being purposefully released by Bill Gates-linked biotech firms or other labs to force people into vegan lifestyles. Rather, experts say shifts in ecosystems and growth of mammal populations that ticks feed on are responsible.
"WEAPONIZED TICKS ARE HERE -- AND IT'S NO ACCIDENT! Genetically modified ticks are exploding across America, triggering Alpha-Gal Syndrome," claims a May 29, 2026 X post sharing a video making similar statements about a "climate agenda" which was viewed nearly three million times on Instagram.
"Now the ticks are doing the dirty work: forcing you off real food and onto their synthetic slop," the text in the X post continues.
Similar claims gathered hundreds of thousands of interactions and raised concerns across platforms in multiple languages during peak tick season (archived here).
It is the latest in a series of conspiratorial posts about tick propagation, as outbreaks surge throughout the United States and Canada. US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has also baselessly claimed Lyme Disease was "bioengineered."
Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a potentially fatal allergy to mammal products, including red meat, is spread by bites from the lone star tick, nicknamed for the white dot on the back of adult females (archived here and here).
But Holly Gaff, biological sciences professor and lone star tick specialist at Old Dominion University (archived here and here), told AFP that there "is absolutely no evidence that there is any bioengineering that created this Alpha-gal allergy."
"There is a long history of this allergy as we look back in time," she said on June 2, though it took time to recognize it due to its singularity.
Claims tying the outbreaks to an alleged release of ticks by Bill Gates or one of the billionaire's companies are equally unfounded.
The Gates Foundation on June 2 said the claims circulating online were false. "The foundation is not involved in any work in relation to Alpha-gal syndrome," a spokesperson said.
Deadly allergy
Over 800 species of ticks are present on all continents, including Antarctica (archived here).
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes the lone star tick as "very aggressive" and hard to kill (archived here). They behave differently from other species, travelling long distances to find a host -- preferably a large mammal.
Lone star ticks do not transmit Lyme disease, but they can spread other diseases with symptoms that resemble those of Lyme (archived here).
"In the United States, bites from the lone star tick are the most common trigger for AGS," University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill associate professor of medicine, Onyinye Iweala, told AFP on May 30 (archived here).
But Iweala emphasized that people with AGS "can eat all the poultry, fish, and other seafood (shellfish, etc.) that they want. In addition, many folks with Alpha-gal can eat dairy. So having Alpha-gal does not force a person to commit to a vegan diet at all."
No cure currently exists for AGS, but a large proportion of sufferers may progressively reincorporate meat from mammals back into their diet with time and by avoiding new bites (archived here).
Ecosystem and host shifts
The Amblyomma americanum -- the taxonomic name for lone star ticks -- reportedly appeared in the 1750s and spread across the eastern United States (archived here and here). They later receded as forested land reduced and certain mammal populations decreased.
Lone star ticks were mostly found in southern US states in the past, but have recently been increasing in both density and distribution in the American Northeast, experts told AFP (archived here).
The biggest factor, according to Old Dominion's Gaff, is the overpopulation of the white-tailed deer (archived here).
"That is a buffet for the lone star tick in all life stages, and with the explosion of deer in the last few decades, the ticks have exploded with them," she said.
"Additionally, we have moved out into the suburbs and exurbs," she said.
"Climate change is also allowing the lone star tick populations to move northward to some extent," she acknowledged, "but the explosions are more related to habitat change and deer populations."
The cold, dry, prolonged winters typically associated with much of New England have been recently less intense due to warming in the region. In turn, a greater proportion of pests -- including ticks -- survive these milder winters (archived here).
Megan Linske, ecologist and assistant scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (archived here), told AFP on June 2: "Most of these species have a multi-year life cycle so their ability to survive winter is crucial."
Ethics paper
Some posts used a July 2025 ethics paper from Western Michigan University as evidence to legitimize their claims. The widely shared article titled "Beneficial Bloodsucking" examines implications of ethical commitments to eat less meat via species such as the lone star tick (archived here).
A university spokesperson told AFP on May 29 that the "work in question is a piece of academic philosophy published in Bioethics" as "a thought experiment."
It said the paper is not a policy proposal. "No research of any kind is being conducted on this subject, and nothing in the article describes any activity undertaken or proposed at" the university's school of medicine.
One of the paper's authors, Parker Crutchfield, also said the work "was not funded, and we don't have any conflicts of interest" (archived here).
Crutchfield said on May 29 that he and his team "have received quite a lot of attacks, harassment, and threats" following the paper's publication, with a noticeable increase "over the last two weeks" due to news coverage of the high tick season.
Read more of AFP's reporting on health and climate misinformation.
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