[AmericanThinker] Researchers consider infecting Americans with ticks to make them allergic to red meat
Two researchers from Western Michigan University have written a paper titled “Beneficial Bloodsucking,” which was published by the journal Bioethics this past July. (No, it isn’t about vampires.)
The paper argues that intentionally spreading alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a potentially life-threatening allergy to red meat, could be not only morally defensible, but perhaps even necessary, in order to reduce animal suffering and combat climate change.
Here are the authors, Parker Crutchfield
| …attention-seeking adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University… |
and Blake Hereth,
| … (they/them) is Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. The two very white gentlemen desperately need to do something to differentiate themselves from the crowd if they’re ever to get tenure and keep their jobs in a difficult academic environment… |
in their own words:
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.
Say what?
Enlisting genetically engineered ticks to curb the consumption of hamburgers, steaks, and other red meats violates the hell out of everyone’s rights.
As one might expect, there were numerous negative online comments, prompting Crutchfield to characterize the paper as “just a thought experiment and not an endorsement of spreading the allergy-causing ailment.”
| And yet they committed their mental onanism in public. So gauche. |
Beneficial Bloodsucking
by Parker Crutchfield , Blake Hereth
[PubMed] ABSTRACT
The bite of the lone star tick spreads alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy. Public health departments warn against lone star ticks and AGS, and scientists are working to develop an inoculation to AGS. Herein, we argue that if eating meat is morally impermissible, then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne AGS are also morally impermissible. After explaining the symptoms of AGS and how they are transmitted via ticks, we argue that tickborne AGS is a moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat. We then defend what we call the Convergence Argument: If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly pro tanto obligatory; promoting tickborne AGS satisfies each of these conditions. Therefore, promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto obligatory. It is presently feasible to genetically edit the disease-carrying capacity of ticks. If this practice can be applied to ticks carrying AGS, then promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.
|