When views promoted by ethicists cause harm.
My response:
I read “Beneficial Bloodsucking” (Crutchfield & Hereth, Bioethics, 2025) with deep concern. The authors argue that alpha-gal syndrome (AGS)—a tick-borne allergy that renders patients unable to consume mammalian meat—should be promoted as a form of “moral bioenhancement.” Their thesis rests on two claims: first, that eating meat is inherently immoral, and second, that spreading AGS (for example through genetically modified ticks) would curtail this wrong. Both claims are gravely flawed, and publishing such a proposal risks undermining trust in bioethics and medicine.
First, promoting disease is irreconcilable with medical ethics. AGS is not a minor inconvenience but a complex, often life-altering condition. Patients endure unpredictable reactions ranging from hives to anaphylaxis, sometimes hours after exposure. Some live in constant fear of accidental ingestion or even environmental contact with mammalian products. Social isolation, anxiety, and depression are common. AGS is an emerging public health problem with potentially severe, lifelong impacts, many impacts are yet unknown. To describe this as “beneficial” disregards both the morbidity and the profound psychological burden borne by patients.
Second, the assurance that spreading AGS “doesn’t violate rights” is indefensible. Respect for autonomy and informed consent are bedrock principles of medicine. Inflicting illness on unsuspecting individuals to enforce a dietary ethic is a direct violation of bodily integrity. Unlike vaccination, which prevents disease, AGS confers no benefit to the individual—only harm. Ethical standards from the Nuremberg Code onward prohibit precisely this kind of coercion.
Third, the moral premise itself—that all meat consumption is wrong—is stipulated, not demonstrated. Philosophers continue to debate this question. While critiques of factory farming have merit, many frameworks allow meat consumption when it is humane, sustainable, or nutritionally necessary. Billions worldwide rely on animal protein for survival. To declare their diets immoral is neither a consensus view nor a sound basis for coercive intervention. Genuine virtue cannot be manufactured through biological incapacitation; it requires free, informed choice.
Finally, proposals of this kind corrode public trust. Patients depend on clinicians and ethicists to safeguard their health, not to advance ideology through disease. Troublingly, one of the co-authors, Parker Crutchfield, has previously argued that moral bioenhancement should be administered covertly—that is, without the recipient’s knowledge. In effect, he has defended lying to patients and the public in order to “promote morality.” Such views undermine the fundamental commitment of medicine to honesty and informed consent. Advocating deception or deliberate illness feeds public suspicion that scientists cannot be trusted to act transparently. In an era already plagued by misinformation, this rhetoric is profoundly irresponsible.
For these reasons, “Beneficial Bloodsucking” fails on ethical, clinical, and philosophical grounds. The suggestion that society should deliberately proliferate a debilitating disease in order to enforce a contested moral stance deserves emphatic rejection. Public health must never be weaponized for ideology.
In the end, it makes me wonder whether the [my perceived] recent uptick in AGS has been caused by human manipulation.
