Return of Alpha Gal

24:16The other is her dog. So you perk up. You thrust your legs out. Wave, do the tick dance. And say that you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping and you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping and you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping and slowly the dog's getting closer and closer and closer and you reach out with one of your tiny little...

24:35Grab on and eat and survive. But the reason that tick ended up on me was I slept in bed with my dog naked. I mean, she's always naked, but I was also naked. I mean, that's not gross. I don't... I mean, does that sound weird? No, but how do you know that's when it happened? Because I know that, like, I did a good tick check on myself and I took a shower and everything. And then in the middle of the night, I woke up with an itching sensation and I went to the bathroom and I couldn't really see what was on, like something was on the back of my arm and it was a tick. So as the tick is biting into Amy, what is it giving Amy that's going to make her allergic to meat?

25:21Well, actually, I need to stop you there, Robert. Difficult one, Robert. I don't know the answer to that. Um, that's Peter Smith and rejoining us is Cheryl Van Noon, the scientist. It's all up for speculation. We don't really know, but here's the theory. Normally, when you eat a piece of meat, you put alpha-gal in your stomach and your stomach digests it and it's in your body and it's no big deal. But the tick cunningly will drill into you, poke into you, and injects its saliva. We'll call that tick spit. Tick spit into its victims. Straight into its victim's largest organ. The skin. And tick spit has an anti-clotting factor, an anesthetic, anti-inflammatory compounds.

26:01And we think the alpha-gal. Now, Peter says the thing about the skin is the skin is like this enormous surveillance system. It's always on the lookout for invaders. So when the alpha-gal comes through your skin, covered by all that bad, bad tick spit stuff. That's going to really like set off your immune system. The immune system freaks out. Like, oh, uh-uh. And the alpha gal, covered now in bad spit, almost sort of by mistake, gets labeled bad. And now it's on the bad guy watch list. So, therefore, the next time you eat meat, the meat comes in. And then the body unleashes wave upon wave upon wave of chemical attacks to do battle against this alpha gal.

26:44And this reaction gets way out of hand. You've got so many antibodies multiplying, multiplying, multiplying, multiplying, making you, rather in this case, Amy, feel just horrible. Right. I mean, it's very weird. It sounds like a science fiction movie. It sounds like the beginning of a science fiction, at least kids book. Let's not go to movie. But like, it's just strange. Which all goes to say that this really is a kind of double tragedy for Amy and her tech. Yeah. Because ticks didn't evolve to bite humans. Right. We're a mistake. Like we have opposable thumbs. We're either going to pull them off.

27:24I actually woke my mom up and she helped get it off. Or if they drop off, they're going to drop off in an airport terminal or a Walmart car park or somewhere like that. Or a shag carpet. Or a shag carpet indoors and they're doomed. And for us, well, we lose something that historically anyway is a big part of who we are. Yeah. Because we adapted in the grand evolutionary scheme of things to like eat flesh, to eat meat. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually sitting here picturing a steak. But actually the thing, I mean, hot dogs like wrap ramps around a weenie and roast. Yum, that sounds so good. My mouth's watering.

28:12weenies and ramps but I am going to my allergist tomorrow because I did I was reading about this allergy a lot when I first got it and I read that for some people the allergy can fade away so I'm going to get a blood test to see what my blood level of alpha-gal is so I'm a little so what are you hoping for tomorrow I want to be normal again

28:39That was the end of the Dan and Amy conversation. She was going to go to the doctor, get herself tested, find out whatever. So we asked her back in. Okay. To find out what happened. So I actually did get an appointment with my allergist, Dr. Korn. Her name is Dr. Korn. She's really nice. So I got the appointment. I got the blood draw, whatever. And a few days later, my doctor called me, and she said that my numbers were still really high. And I was like, well, how high are they? And she was like, three. And I was like, three? That's not high. And she was like, they're supposed to be like one or something.

29:21So they had gone down, but they were still, you know, many times more than they should be. But when you left and you were waiting for the call, were you waiting with the hope that you would soon be eating a bit of hot dog? I mean, honestly, I was hoping no. No? No. I don't. Wait a second. You are the great. No, but I was afraid that she would be like, oh, my God, your numbers are so low. I think you could probably eat meat. Let's do a food challenge. I would be like, ah, because, like, that's such a scary memory. Yeah. I don't, you know, actually just the other night I was eating at an Indian place and I was eating vegetarian, but like I felt something and I pulled it out and in the dim light of an Indian restaurant, like why are they all lit like that?

30:08I was like, was this bacon? And I suddenly, you know, like you just get this drop in your stomach and I'm like, what time is it? Four hours from now if I, you know, because there's something about it being delayed that makes it so difficult. It just is like... Like a suspense movie with you and the victim. It's like it could happen in the next three hours or maybe not. I don't know. I mean, honestly, the only thing that... The real reason I want to be able to eat meat is so that I will be prepared to eat it in case of emergency. I mean, I went on a canoe trip in the Adirondacks and I was like, well, what happens if I get stranded out here?

30:48And like, what if I have to hunt? But I can't even eat meat. I would have to hunt fish. But then when the lake freezes over, what would I eat? I can't survive. Something's wrong with me. I feel evolutionarily challenged. This is what I think about before I go to bed every night. Would I be able to survive if I had just what's on me right now? A pen, underwear, my dog. And so, yeah, I mean, that's a real issue. It's like, it's not a real issue. Obviously, it's never going to happen. I live in Brooklyn. But I do, for some reason, I always think, like, I want to be prepared in case. But, yeah, you know, I don't think I would go back to eating meat necessarily.

31:28Like, you are still more frightened than game, so to speak. Well, also, like, I wish I could be a vegetarian for ethical reasons because it's not so much just the eating meat, but just like, you know, the factory farming and that kind of stuff. So I feel like morally superior now. I can be like, well, I don't eat red meat. Of course, I'm forced to not eat it. But at the same time, I would if I had the willpower. I'd probably go that way anyway. And then also, I think it's great. It's like we're all evolving to be on this planet, which is getting harder to be on. And we know that meat takes a lot of resources.

32:08And like now I don't – now I'm not doing that. So, like, the tick is helping me evolve into a better human being.

32:18So one could, instead of thinking of the tick as your teeny-weeny, irritating enemy, you could think of it as a guiding light, making the world safer to share with your fellow Earthlings. Yeah. So you may have lost your relationship with meat, but at least you have your moral superiority. Yeah, I mean, I am superior.

32:54So huge thanks to Amy Pearl for telling a story which never stopped being scary and wonderful. and to the fellow who brought her into the room, Dan Pashman, whose podcast, The Sporkful, it's all about food in every conceivable way. He talks about eating it, preparing it, worrying about it, as you've heard, getting sick from it, getting fat from it, whatever. And you can find his show on iTunes or Stitcher or on the internet at sporkful.com. And this story was produced by Andy McKeown and Matt Kilty with reporting help from Latif Nasser. See you next time. All right, so that was the original piece.

33:36We're going to take a quick break now, but when we come back, Zahra and Soren are going to follow the thread from Amy's allergy to this brand new genetically modified pig that can help a human who needs a kidney and also maybe solve Amy's problem. Or maybe make it worse. Stick with us. Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs, even on weekends.

34:10It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. This episode is supported by BetterHelp. Hey there, Lulu here. So apparently every year, BetterHelp does a survey called the State of the Stigma Report, where they survey over 2 ,000 Americans trying to figure out how people feel about seeking mental health support. Good news first. 85 % of the people surveyed said that seeking mental health support is a good thing, which is significantly up from last year's result, which, OK, small study, but still fabulous, refreshing.

34:46Take that stigma. Boom. The only bummer is that 74 % of those same people said society discourages people from seeking the mental health support that they need. Why is that, society? I say, let's all do what we can to de-stigmatize seeking professional help for mental health. I mean, I seek professional help for my teeth, for my hair. Why not get professional help for what's going on on the inside of the head? You know, iron out some worries, get a little support. But seriously, if a friend or loved one comes to you seeming a little more overwhelmed or blue or scared than usual, why not encourage them to seek help, praise them for doing it.

35:25And if they don't know where to begin, one thing you could do is suggest BetterHelp. A short questionnaire gets them matched with one of over 30 ,000 fully licensed therapists available at any time of day at the push of a button. And if they don't like the first one they try, remind them that they can switch therapists at any time, as many times as it takes to find the right fit, because mental health is important and none of us can do it on our own. So for any of you listening to this who are curious about therapy but worried about judgment, I say don't Let stigma stand in the way of support.

35:52Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash radiolab. That's betterhelp.com slash radiolab. A new State Department report blames Cuba for fomenting an anti-American left. Meanwhile, the GOP is pushing the C word hard. The barbarians are in the gate. Look, 35 years ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress were fighting communism on a distant shore. Now it's here. Why communism and why now on this week's On the Media from WNYC. Find On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.

36:49Jad Abumrad:You ready for the radio lab? Yeah, sure. Yep. Everybody, come on in. Awesome. So our update today comes to us from producer Sarakari, who you just heard wandering the halls of NYU's Lingone Health Hospital back in 2021. That is when we made this update. Hello. Hi, guys. Hello. Hello. This is really exciting. As well as our executive editor, Soren. Willie. Willie. Wheeler. I can give us a start if you want me to. Yeah, actually, yeah. You should tell us how you even had the idea. Yeah, I mean, I had the idea by someone else having had an idea that I saw their idea in a newspaper. It's called reading.

37:31But like, I don't know, what, a month ago maybe? I was reading the news. The news I was reading was the New York Times. Heard of it. Heard of it. It was like a science section news thing, and the article is basically announcing this big breakthrough. News this evening about a major medical breakthrough. It's been called an astonishing step in medicine. Basically, a group of surgeons had managed to put a pig kidney into a human being. And it worked. Successfully transferring a pig kidney to a human patient. For the first time ever, the person's body didn't reject the kidney. Which, when you think about all the people waiting on kidneys, you know.

38:09Game changer. Yeah, totally. So I'm just I'm reading through this article. But then in the middle of it, there's just a couple lines about a particular pig that they used for this kidney that drew this very weird line back to a story we had told here on Radiolab. That's when I so I brought in Sarah to like report this whole thing out.

38:29Jad Abumrad:So I actually went to talk to the doctor who who did this transplant. Hi, how's it going? Nice to meet you. How do you do? Good. How are you? His name is Robert Montgomery. He's at NYU Langone Health, and he's the head of transplant surgery there. So when did it first occur to you that transplanting a pig kidney into a human would even be... I just started with, like, the most basic question, which is, like, why would you do this? Because we don't have an adequate supply of organs for the people who need them when they need them. And so a lot of people die waiting. And so the idea of xenotransplanting...

39:04Jad Abumrad:And he just made the argument that using animal kidneys was the best way that he could think of to... Make a dent into that waiting list of 90 ,000 people. And do you know, is this person still walking around and is the pig still walking around? Good question. So no. We did this transplant and someone who had been declared brain dead, who had wanted to donate their organs but were unable to donate their organs. And so their family essentially donated their whole body so that we could test a xenotransplant. Like, we're going to try this crazy thing that's never been done and see how it goes. And determine whether this was going to be safe to move into living humans.

39:50I think it's a proof of concept type thing. Yeah.

39:53Jad Abumrad:So the family agreed and the doctors did the transplant. and they could see, you know, like that it worked and the body wasn't rejecting the kidney. The kidney was doing its kidney stuff. But the sort of amazing thing is... Actually, as we sit here today, the same thing happened yesterday. While we were sitting there talking, he told me... You know, at two in the morning, we did our second xenotransplant. We actually just did the second one. You want to see? What? That's like happening right now. that's happening right now. And if you want to, you know, come down with me, I'll show you what we're doing.

40:32Jad Abumrad:And I was like, um, yes. And he took me downstairs to this big room. It's like a conference room. It was totally silent. There was like a window looking into this operating room. Okay, can we walk up to the glass? And you could see just like the jumble of machines and like medical equipment. What are we looking at? All right, so there's a ventilator over here. And in the middle of the room, you could see this person. That's the recipient. Lying there on the table covered by this blue surgical shroud. You can see the patient's body kind of like rising and falling as they breathe. Yeah, that's the ventilator.

41:12Jad Abumrad:And they actually attach the kidney at the person's thigh because they sort of want to be able to watch it and they're not worried about the person getting up and walking around. So there's this incision at the thigh. And in that oval incision, you could see the pig kidney kind of like poking out. It was like covered by plastic. And Dr. Montgomery told me that, you know, when a body rejects a kidney. The kidney will literally turn black moments after the blood goes into it. But you could see like with this one, it was bright pink. And kind of amazingly, just like the first one. Within moments, it started to make urine, believe it or not.

41:52And so we knew right away that it was working. See right where it's dripping in? See how fast it's dripping? All that urine is coming out from that kidney.

42:01Jad Abumrad:So, you know, this is just the second one that worked. But eventually, Dr. Montgomery and his team want to get to the point where they can do clinical trials on people who are walking around and doing things and living their lives and who would hold on to this kidney. Wow. Allow me to presume that you have two questions, which I think you do, even if you haven't said them yet, which is like, one, why did this never work before? And then two, why are we even telling you this? It's not our usual stick to just pick up a New York Times science news article and relay that to you. Which brings me back to that little part of the article that piqued my interest in the beginning, because the pig that they got the kidney from to do this was a very special pig.

42:45Like normally pigs and other mammals that aren't primates have a sugar in their body that our bodies don't have. And so we don't like it or see it as foreign. And that's why usually an organ from another animal would get rejected. But this pig had been genetically modified. It had had the gene that makes that sugar removed. So it didn't have that sugar, which is part of the reason this worked. and that sugar just so happens to be called alpha gal. Alpha gal. Hey, our old friend. There it is. There's the Radiolab connection. Our old frenemy. It's really only the food that was kind of eluding us because we've known and have been also pursuing various medical device applications of the gal safe pig.

43:36You know, we've had conversations with...

43:38Jad Abumrad:So I actually called up the company that makes this pig. They call it the GalSafe pig. The company itself is called Revivicor. Started out as the U.S. division of the Scottish company that cloned Dolly the sheep. The U.K. company that did Dolly the sheep. This is like their sort of like American option. Got it. Okay. And from there, we actually cloned the world's first pigs. So anyway, I talked to David Ayers. He's the company's chief scientific officer and also John Bianchi. Lead product development enterprises at Revivacor, and I also am in charge of regulatory affairs. So at what point, and either of you can take this, at what point did you guys realize, okay, and I just wanted to ask them, like, okay, you made this pig for all of these medical transplant reasons, but did you know about the whole food side of things?

44:36I'll take this one, Dave, unless I'm the poor sap that had to work with the FDA. I shouldn't say that. It was a very collaborative effort with the FDA.

44:48Jad Abumrad:And they told me that while they were in the middle of getting FDA approval for this pig to be used for medical reasons, they heard a certain radio show. After listening to the Radiolab episode, the original episode, and listening to Amy Pearl, we thought, hmm, why not just expand the application to include food? We realized that the pigs that we had developed so that their organs wouldn't be rejected would also be a food source for these patients that have the aflugal allergy or the red meat allergy. Okay, wait, so hearing Amy Pearl on our show had something to do with thinking that, oh, we should make this a food product?

45:28It was absolutely a motivation of mine after listening to Amy.

45:33Jad Abumrad:What? Yeah, totally. Yes. So, yeah, now because of Amy Pearl and her story, this pig is now FDA approved for medical devices and things like that and transplants, but also for food to use the meat of those pigs to make pork products that like people with alpha-gal syndrome can eat. Wow. So, of course, we immediately, like, called up Amy Pearl. Amy Pearl, Amy Pearl, Amy Pearl, Amy Pearl. Hi. Hello. We got something to tell you. Look at this. Oh, no. Oh, my God. You always have, like, tiny little bundles of cuteness in your life. When we talked to her, she had a couple of really small foster kittens, like, scrambling up and down her shoulders and mewing in the background.

46:20So we explained to her, you know, the whole deal. There's this pig that doesn't have alpha-gal that's being used for transplants from which you could make meat that would be safe to eat for people like you, Amy Pearl. That's kind of, I mean, I just, I feel kind of disgusted because it's been a long time, long time since I've had pork or beef. I've found plenty of delicious things to eat that aren't bacon. And she said that even if there is now some pork that's totally safe, she still feels sort of the same way she did at the end of the original show, which is that she's kind of just over red meat.

47:04I've kind of moved on from it, honestly. And happily, it sounds. Yeah. I feel like it's better for my peace of mind. It's better for my health. It's better for the planet's health. And I feel lucky and happy. It's kind of like...

47:17Jad Abumrad:But then, of course, you know, we had to tell her that, you know, we talked to the guys at Revivacor and that she and her story were sort of an inspiration for this meet becoming available to people. I'll just play you a clip of something they said to me. It was absolutely a motivation of mine after listening to Amy. When I heard the Radio Lab podcast, I'm thinking, well, we hold the hammer. Oh, God. Great. I mean, it's so funny.

47:57Oh, well. But it's fine. I mean, I guess he sounds like such a nice guy.

48:06Jad Abumrad:Say more. Say more on what you feel. What were you thinking as you heard it? You sort of like hung your head. I mean, I was thinking that. Never should have gone on a radio lab. I don't know. I'm just like always thinking misanthropic things. But I was thinking like, here's a person who's like, here's me just like talking about how delicious meat is and like juices. And they're like, yeah, I love meat too. And they're like, she seems sad. I'm going to make meat for her. And then it's like, but I actually don't really, I actually, anyway, I can make it for you. I figured it out. I have the hammer, but I actually don't want, it's okay, I'm making it.

48:51Here it is.

48:53Jad Abumrad:I think she felt like because of her, they'd gone and solved this problem that she didn't even really want solved. It's just kind of like you would like go to some kind of special FDA store to buy some special genetically modified pork just so you could have a bite of some kind of meat. I mean, it just was like, I don't know. Do you guys ever get into philosophy? You ever? It just like immediately for me when you say, oh, they created this pig that you can, that alpha gal people can eat. My next thought is like, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? Wait, why? Do you think you can close the gap between those two for us a little bit?

49:39Like, are there some intermediate steps? Because it's like, well, is that good or bad? Well, I guess it's good for people who want to eat pork, but it's bad for the pig. It just immediately brings to mind how to live. Do you live to satisfy your desires and be happy? Or do you live to not harm others? Or why are we even here? Are pigs below us? Are they above us? Is it okay to put a pig first? Like what if someone's kid is dying of kidney cancer? Well, see that then now, like that's now how like, you know, this question has another whole layer because it's not just that they made a pig for people who got bit by a tick but wish they could still have a hot dog.

50:35They also then it turns out made a pig that like could maybe have a kidney that could save a life where there's no other kidney available or maybe in the future more and more and more. But it's just, it's kind of like when you start thinking about breeding animals just for organs for people, it's like re-deciding all over again. Like, should we be eating another animal that might be intelligent? It's like you're just answering all those questions again, but for another purpose. because like you can get organs like kidneys out of other people and they're it's like safe and

51:15Jad Abumrad:I mean yeah that's a good point and and I and I asked this guy um this doctor about this and and you know was sort of pushing him on on like why like you've just opened the door to like a whole new way of exploiting animals and I think his thing which I'm convinced by honestly is like look there are 90 ,000 people right now right now that need a kidney and when it comes to like making the decision for for yourself or like for a loved one if you're like they need a kidney and you're and and you have the option to put a pig kidney in them you're like that's not even a question you know we eat millions of pigs anyway I guess on balance I feel okay you know I mean I I totally agree with you but why don't they just why don't they just make a fake kidney yeah I mean I mean if somebody like imagine humans did not think like oh it's okay to take to like kill an animal just to get its kidney for someone else it was like not even something that crossed their mind we would have invented a plastic kidney by now probably so at this point in the interview unfortunately we actually still had one more thing that we had to tell amy that we learned from the guys at rivivacore i have to tell you something that you might like even less what they named the they named the pig amy before they hit it with the hammer Yeah, yeah, they did.

52:54What? Yeah. Are you kidding us? Are you kidding? No, I'm not. I'm not kidding. By the way, the first pig that went to market, we named Amy.

53:07Jad Abumrad:After Amy Pearl? Of course. Well, I did in my mind. I'm not sure Dave approved that name. What did they name? The one who donated the kidneys? No, no. The first one that they slaughtered for me. they named it Amy and unofficially but but you know they did yeah I mean I can see why they picked something that was like motivating for them like humanizing and motivating and their their like quest to solve this thing that they decided was a good problem to put their thoughts behind. I mean, it can't bother me. I can't let myself think about that. Poor, poor, poor, poor living creatures that suffer.

54:01Yeah.

54:02Jad Abumrad:But I do think it's good. I am grateful that like, you are holding the position of making all of us think twice, including me. Like, I think I've been part of the like, oh, this is a breakthrough. And look at the pig kidney and the human and the heart is beating and everything is working. It's so cool. And I do think that it's really helpful for that you're reminding me there is a cost to this that we shouldn't ignore and that, you know, that we should challenge our imaginations almost to imagine a world where we don't have to exploit these pigs and find another way. There could be some young budding scientist that will listen to this version of the story and come up with an artificial kidney and name it Amy.

54:55That would be great. That would be great.

54:59Jad Abumrad:Yeah, I think that's the only way to make this right. it's funny to think that there's like i mean how big was this pig at the end like usually pigs i guess when they slaughter them for meat maybe they're smaller but like i met a pig in vermont that was like 800 pounds and i gave her a whole watermelon and to her it was like like a gumdrop thanks yeah i mean it was she was just giant i took a hoe i was like scratching her back with a hoe and it just like looked like a little toothbrush on her and she was like oh that I mean, I wonder if Amy got to be that big. I wonder. 800 pound, Amy. Pretty formidable.

55:41Watch out. I'm just like now I'm wishing I could change places with her and then I'll have done my time. And like I would have now be like left the mortal coil and she would be sitting here in this interview with her pig intelligence, which is plenty for this probably. Do you think she could raise those kittens? And then she would end up on one of those unlikely friendship calendars where it's like, look at the pig raising the kittens. Exactly. I wonder if there's a resemblance.

56:16What an incredible turn of events.

56:23Jad Abumrad:What are you thinking? I'm just thinking about Amy the pig going about her. business, you know, with no thought to any of this. Just imagining like, oh, it's so warm here in the mud. I'm going to stay here for a little while. Oh, I'm hungry. I'm going to go check out the trough for a while. Just like that kind of, that kind of living. I don't know. When your brain hurts, you just have to like retreat to your body.

57:10Yeah.

57:18Thank you, Amy Pearl, for coming on the show again and making us think more deeply than we were again. This update to the episode was reported and produced by Sara Kari. And also a thank you to Amy the pig. Thank you, Amy the pig.

57:38Okay, and finally, an update to the update. It is now Lulu in 2026. And back in March of 2024, surgeons transplanted a pig kidney into a living patient for the very first time. That patient was a 62-year-old man living with end-stage kidney disease. His name was Rick Slayman. And he lived with the kidney for about two more months before dying from heart issues, which his doctor said were unrelated to the transplant. The pig, for its part, was genetically edited, of course, but we couldn't find out any more information about its life or name. Thank you to the pig for its service.

58:24Jad Abumrad:Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design.

59:10Our staff includes

59:13Jad Abumrad:Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Anjali Mercado, and Sophie Semay.

59:26Hi, I'm Monica, and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radiolab Science Programming

59:34Jad Abumrad:is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

1:00:09first allergist to connect the allergy to tick bites almost 20 years ago, the latest research into the alpha-gal syndrome, and how almost two decades later, there are still so many mysteries, including why some people are more susceptible to developing the allergy than others, and giving hints about which blood types make your risk higher or lower. To learn more, check out the conversation on Science Friday's podcast by searching for How Does a Tick Bite Cause a Red Meat Allergy? Wherever you cast your pods.