Unnerved by the Trump administration’s systematic rollback of regulations curtailing greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and household appliances, two enterprising academics have hit on a novel idea to save the planet from manmade climate change: deliberately infect people with a tick-borne, potentially life-threatening allergy to red meat.
Climate activists and Biden administration regulators targeted the agricultural sector for decarbonization by, for example, pushing to replace diesel-fueled farm equipment like tractors and combines with electric-powered models. But enlisting genetically engineered ticks to curb the consumption of steaks, hamburgers, and pork loins would take the fight to an entirely new level.
Two researchers from Western Michigan University have proposed just that in a paper ominously titled “Beneficial Bloodsucking.” Published by the journal Bioethics in July, the paper argues that intentionally spreading alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) could be ethically defensible, and perhaps even necessary, because it reduces animal suffering and combats climate change. As the authors, Parker Crutchfield and Blake Hereth, put it:
“Because promoting tickborne AGS prevents something bad from happening, doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, it follows that promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto (‘to that extent’) morally obligatory.”
Really? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AGS “is a serious, potentially life-threatening allergy,” affecting “as many as 450,000 people.”
“Whatever excuse they may concoct to justify it,” notes Cameron English, director of biosciences at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), “deliberately releasing ticks into the environment with the intention of making people sick is unethical because it interferes with the proper functioning of their bodies.” English adds that “Crutchfield and Hereth want to infect millions of people with AGS precisely because ‘it is extremely difficult for most human beings to … forego acting on their desire to eat meat.’”
Forcing people to become vegans—not by regulations, but by spreading a potentially deadly disease —introduces a new level of coercion into the climate debate, one with serious public-health implications. Bites from ticks, specifically blacklegged deer ticks, were identified in 1975 as the cause of Lyme disease. While AGS is primarily caused by bites from lone star ticks, “a few cases of AGS have been reported following bites from blacklegged and western blacklegged ticks,” the CDC points out. In other words, using ticks to combat manmade climate change also runs the risk of spreading Lyme disease, whose symptoms include “fever, rash, facial paralysis, an irregular heartbeat, and arthritis,” according to the CDC.
Furthermore, removing red meat from people’s diets via insect infestation would eliminate an abundant source of essential nutrients that plants and other proteins often cannot provide. “Red meat is a rich source of high-biological-value protein, heme iron (which is more absorbable than plant-based iron), vitamin B12, zinc, and selenium – nutrients critical for preventing anemia, supporting immune function, and maintaining cognitive health,” ACSH’s Cameron English points out. “These benefits are especially important for children and pregnant women.”
Hostile online reactions to the bizarre proposal prompted one of the co-authors, Parker Crutchfield, to describe the paper as “just a thought experiment and not an endorsement of spreading the allergy-causing ailment.” This backpedaling comes too late. In an age where social media can disseminate bad ideas instantaneously — particularly when they originate in a serious-sounding journal like Bioethics —their mere publication can confer a degree of legitimacy.
It is high time that academic journals start taking responsibility for the content of the articles they select for publication. Public discourse is not served when academic journals abandon even the pretense of seriousness to embrace the fleeting whims of political fashion.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).