Coroner rules NSW teenager died of a meat allergy from tick bites

Thursday, 26 February 2026 15:06

New South Wales teenager Jeremy Webb has become the first Australian to have died from a tick-induced red meat allergy.

NSW teenager Jeremy Webb has become the first Australian to have died from a tick-induced red meat allergy.

The 16-year-old had trouble breathing after he ate a dinner of beef sausages while camping with three friends on the NSW Central Coast on June 10 in 2022.

Jeremy's friends tried to revive him after he collapsed but the asthmatic teenager was pronounced dead after midnight at Gosford Hospital.

Jeremy Webb died after eating sausages on a camping trip with friends.

NSW Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes ruled Jeremy died from an anaphylactic reaction to mammalian meat which triggered an asthma attack in findings released today.

"The experts appear to agree that an acute exacerbation of asthma was the immediate cause of Jeremy's death and that the evidence is consistent that that acute exacerbation occurred because of a severe allergic reaction to mammalian meat," Forbes said.

"Without the anaphylaxis caused by the allergy Jeremy's asthma would not have caused his death."

The 16-year-old's death was initially ruled to be asthma.

Clinical immunologist and allergy physician Professor Sheryl van Nunen later diagnosed Jeremy with mammalian meat allergy after a tick bite.

Van Nunen told the ABC that Webb's death is the first documented case of mammalian meat allergy in Australia and the second in the world.

A 47-year-old man from New Jersey is believed to be the only other fatal case.

The court heard when Jeremy was about five years old, he and his family moved to a large block of land on the Central Coast which was surrounded by dense bush.

Over the years he experienced a number of tick bites.

Myfanwy Webb holds a photo of her son Jeremy outside of Lidcombe Coroner's Court on the first day of the inquest into his death on November 17, 2025.

Following his death, the teenager's parents Myfanwy and Johnathan Webb advocated for an inquest into his death to promote better education into mammalian meat allergy for the public and medical practitioners.

His mother previously told the coroner she missed her son dearly and thought about him every day.

"I may never be able to hold him again but he was and will always be an integral part of my life," she said.

Mammalian meat allergy is also known as alpha-gal syndrome.

In Australia, almost all cases are induced by bites of the eastern paralysis tick, which is endemic throughout the eastern coastal regions of Australia.

Van Nunen has diagnosed and managed more than 800 patients with mammalian meat allergy in the last 20 years.

She told the coroner's court that a tick causes the allergy by injecting an allergen into the body which cause the body to manufacture alpha-gal allergy antibody.

That antibody causes the body to become sensitised to a molecule known as alpha-gal that is found in most mammals including cows, pigs, sheep and kangaroos.

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