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After collapsing, Jeremy’s friends desperately attempted to resuscitate him. Sadly, the teenager, who suffered from asthma, was declared deceased shortly after midnight at Gosford Hospital.
New South Wales Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes revealed today that Jeremy’s death was attributed to an anaphylactic reaction triggered by consuming mammalian meat, which subsequently led to a severe asthma attack.
“Experts concur that the immediate cause of Jeremy’s death was an acute asthma exacerbation,” Forbes stated. “The evidence indicates this was due to a severe allergic reaction to mammalian meat.”
“Without the allergy-induced anaphylaxis, Jeremy’s asthma alone would not have been fatal,” she added.
Initially, authorities attributed the 16-year-old’s passing solely to 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.
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.
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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