(Credit, in part, for this column goes to Wesley Hester, University of Virginia, for the interesting interview between he and Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills)
Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills decided to become a doctor at the ripe old age of nine, when accompanying his father, John, on a trip to New Zealand where he met his formidable grandmother, Dr. Daisy Platts-Mills. With this encounter, Thomas came to understand his unusual hyphenated surname. Dr. Daisy Platts married Mr. Mills in 1902 and said, “We will be Platts-Mills.” This is the oldest “two-for-one” name in the world created by a professional woman and, thus far, has lasted five generations!
Daisy was a powerful woman and her daughter, Ada, was just as unbreakable! She also chose a medical doctor as her profession (this was Thomas’s aunt). By the end of that vacation, Thomas not only knew he would be a doctor, but additionally, chose the college in Oxford he wanted to attend along with his medical school of choice.
As of 2019, Dr. Platts-Mills headed the University of Virginia’s Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and has been on the worldwide radar for several groundbreaking allergy discoveries. He made good on his early commitment and studied at Oxford’s Balliol College like his father. He then received his medical training at St. Thomas Medical School in London and later earned his PhD from London University.
Dr. Martin Chapman, a colleague from University of Virginia, has referred to Dr. Thomas as “a living legend, and “the most insightful clinical investigator of allergic diseases of his generation.”
Platts-Mills current attention has come from his now-famous discovery of over two decades ago—a red meat allergy caused by a tick bite leading to hives, anaphylactic response and, possibly, heart disease in some instances.
International media attention was given to Dr. Platts-Mills via the New England Journal of Medicine regarding his story about the meat allergy/tick bites and has been cited well over 1,000 times!
He had worked earlier on the connection between dust mites and asthma. Dr. Chapman cited that much of Platts-Mills successes came from his fearlessness (never worrying about ridicule) and his pristine methodologies. In the exact words of Dr. Chapman, “That has certainly been a feature of his work-to not be afraid and to put yourself out there and investigate an idea that somebody else may reject, instantly,” he said.
This is what I so admire about this man and I quote from Platts-Mills: The thing that has driven my career has been to be willing to go off the deep end and be totally unafraid of pushing an idea that other people don’t (want to) believe. Too many people are afraid of getting involved in an idea that is too far away from perceived normality.”
Around 1982, Thomas came back to the U.S. as Oscar Swineford Professor of Medicine and head of the division. The chair had just been established by fellows trained by Dr. Swineford. It was at UVA in 2007 that Platts-Mills had first discovered a red meat allergy transmitted by ticks (Lone Star version in the states, primarily). It all commenced as a result of Platts-Mills realizing that the Alpha-Gal sugar was an ingredient in the cancer drug Cetuximab and caused allergic reactions in patients in certain geographic regions. His team found that the AGS was also linked to a mysterious red meat allergy cropping up in the same areas. After painstakingly testing patients, it was determined that the bite of the Lone Star tick caused the allergy. The tick injects the AG sugar when it bites. The sugar causes the reaction to mammalian meat or other products derived from mammals. Dr. Platts-Mills determined that the reason for the delayed onset of symptoms is that the allergen is stored in fat and slow to release… thus the delayed anaphylactic manifestation.
My thanks go to Liz Peregrino, general manager, for engaging in conversation with me and alerting me to this topic for me to research and report on!
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