Bill Gates’ foundation funded research into ticks, but not those that cause meat allergy

As an unfounded rumor that farmers in the U.S. were finding “boxes of ticks” in their fields spread in the spring of 2026, a related claim circulated that Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates was behind the spread of ticks inflicting people with alpha-gal syndrome. 

(People who develop alpha-gal syndrome become allergic to red meat and other products that contain it. The alpha-gal molecule occurs naturally in many mammals, but not in humans.)

Prominent people contributed to sharing the rumor on social media, including British influencer Russell Brand, who has repeatedly relayed disinformation and fringe conspiracy theories (archived):

Variations of the rumor said Gates was intentionally spreading alpha-gal syndrome via ticks because he wants people to stop eating red meat. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, suggested on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that it was because Gates was making “genetically-made meat” (at the 1:28:55 mark in this video).

In short, the rumor is false. While it is true that the Gates Foundation has funded a project involving ticks and that Gates backed a company in California whose lab-grown meat received FDA approval in 2022, the ticks that spread alpha-gal syndrome are not the same as the ticks that are the focus of the research Gates’ organization backed in 2023. We reached out to the Gates Foundation to ask if they would continue to support this project, or if they were planning to support more projects involving ticks.

The Associated Press debunked a version of the claim about Gates in 2023. A similar claim that accused activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals of using ticks to spread alpha-gal syndrome was the subject of a Snopes fact-check in 2017.

Lone star tick versus Asian blue tick

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic say, the tick that spreads alpha-gal syndrome is the lone star tick (scientific name: Amblyomma americanum). Climate change has favored a dramatic increase in the population of lone star ticks and other types of ticks in North America and elsewhere. As a result, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found in 2025 there had been an “explosive rise in tick-linked meat allergy across the U.S.”

Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation backed Flyttr (formerly Oxitec), a project in the U.K. that seeks to curb the proliferation of the Asian blue tick (scientific name: Rhipicephalus microplus), a tropical cattle tick that is a major vector of disease for livestock. In the 2024 statement announcing the launch of the project, Flyttr explained the severe impact of the Asian blue tick on agriculture across the world:

The cattle tick is considered the most important biting parasite of livestock worldwide. It transmits dangerous diseases such as babesiosis and anaplasmosis, and causes significant economic losses to farmers. In Brazil alone, it costs farmers an estimated US$3.2 billion each year. This pest is spreading at an alarming rate through many African countries and is a growing problem worldwide due to its invasiveness and resistance to most pesticides. The impact of cattle tick infestation is especially devastating in low-income countries, where the inability to control the parasite and monitor diseases has a severe impact on livestock economy.

In order to limit the spread of the Asian blue tick, Flyttr is developing a so-called “Friendly™” technology, in which the team releases males that carry a gene that makes it less likely that their offspring will become adults:

Friendly males carry a self-limiting gene that when passed on, prevents their offspring from surviving to adulthood. With regular releases of Friendly males, the number of offspring – in most versions of the technology, specifically the damaging female offspring – is reduced, resulting in a reduction in the pest insect population.

Flyttr is applying the same technology to limit the spread of other pests such as disease-carrying mosquitos or moth caterpillar that eat maize, according to its website.

Lab-grown meat and plant-based meat

Separately, in 2017, Gates became a “series A” (early) investor in UPSIDE Foods, a company that has developed lab-grown meat. The company received FDA approval for its product in 2022. 

In addition, Gates is a self-described “plant-based foods advocate.” In his 2021 book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Gates acknowledges that meat plays a major role in many cultures, though meat production is a major culprit in the greenhouse effect that is warming up the planet. He adds that in many situations, plant-based meat and “cultivated meat” (lab-grown meat) can replace regular meat without releasing greenhouse gases in his book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”:

But we can cut down on meat eating while still enjoying the taste of meat. One option is plant-based meat: plant products that have been processed in various ways to mimic the taste of meat.

[ … ]

Another approach is akin to plant-based meat, but instead of growing plants and then processing them so they taste like beef, you grow the meat itself in a lab. It has somewhat unappealing names like “cell-based meat,” “cultivated meat,” and “clean meat,” and there are some two dozen start-up companies working on getting it to market, though their products probably won’t be on supermarket shelves until the mid-2020s.

“I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat,” Gates said in a 2021 interview with the MIT Technology Review. “I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.“

For further reading, in March 2026, Snopes debunked the claim that Gates donated $50 million to develop “biologically modified” crops.