Ohio faces year-round tick threat as alpha-gal syndrome spreads

For generations, Ohioans treated tick season as a summer inconvenience — a brief, manageable hazard between warm months. That understanding is now obsolete. A small arachnid called the lone star tick has carried a condition called alpha-gal syndrome northward into Ohio, transforming a single bite into a potential lifetime allergy to red meat and, in the worst cases, a life-threatening emergency. The story of this spreading illness is a reminder that the natural world does not observe the boundaries we draw around our seasons or our assumptions.