Alpha-Gal Syndrome
Two bioethics professors from the medical school at Western Michigan University have proposed what most people would think is a crazy, impossible idea: encourage the spread of an allergy to red meat! Presumably they think this will help save the planet.
There is a peculiar allergy called “Alpha-gal syndrome” or AGS (short for the substance people are becoming allergic too, which occurs in the red meat of cows and pigs). When bitten by a tick carrying this substance in its saliva, the victim can suddenly develop a variety of allergic reactions when consuming red meat. More types of ticks are now able to spread this unusual allergy, and the condition now occurs throughout the United States.
The symptoms can vary, but in some cases the allergic reaction is life-threatening. Here the CDC describes the condition:
Yet the two Western Michigan bioethics professors make the claim that reducing meat-eating is a public good, and should therefore be encouraged, stating,
“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.”
While this crackpot idea is unlikely to gain much support, it does point out that a growing number of people have been convinced that humans should stop eating meat to save the planet.
Whether they blame cows for belching methane, a greenhouse gas, or blame them for eating too much corn or soy in feedlots that could feed humans instead, there is a global movement afoot to reduce the number of livestock being raised. Even Harvard has gotten into this act, demanding that total livestock “emissions” on the planet be reduced by over 60% by 2036 to comply with the UN’s Paris Agreement. (The Trump administration has removed the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.)
Denmark has already imposed a yearly tax on livestock emissions that will rise to about $100 per cow per year by the end of the decade.
And the United Nations claims that beef has the highest carbon footprint, by far, of any food humans consume, and is a major cause of climate change.
This is a looming threat for ranchers, who don’t really know whether future government administrations will force them to reduce their herds. Will Americans someday soon be told how many ounces of beef or pork they will be allowed to eat?
