Perhaps it’s a drinking or smoking game at Western Michigan University. Try to come up with the most farcical, April Fool-style Net Zero nonsense and see if we can get it published. How about writing a paper titled ‘Beneficial Bloodsucking’ that states it is “morally obligatory” to promote a plague of the lone star tick whose bite can lead to medical problems including an allergy to red meat. Oh, and it could kill you, but more about that later. Promoting these ghastly ticks, which are already increasing in numbers in large areas of the United States, is said to: “prevent the world from becoming a significantly worse place… doesn’t violate anyone’s rights… promotes virtuous action or character”.
How stupid can academics be? These clowns are prepared to unleash a proliferation of ticks on the general population because one side effect of a bite happens to induce an allergy to red meat, notably beef, pork and lamb. What is proposed is a deliberate tick injection of the sugar molecule alpha-gal into human tissue, leading to an immune defence response causing a syndrome known as AGS. This leads to potentially fatal allergic reactions to red meat and many associated products including dairy products such as milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter. Gelatine is also a problem, so no treats for children since it is found in many favourite brands of candy. It is not just mammalian products that cause problems. Alpha-gal-like structures have been found in carrageenan, a seaweed-derived thickener used in some processed food, and in a number of medicines.
It is feasible to genetically edit the disease-carrying capacity of ticks, state the authors. “If we are right, then today we have the obligation to research and develop the capacity to proliferate tickborne AGS and, tomorrow, carry out that proliferation,” they add. Tickborne AGS is said by these maniacs to be a “moral bioenhancer”.
So who are these temple-of-learning thickos, these climate-bothering cretins who are promoting a widespread Net Zero fantasy to abolish the eating of meat? Step forward Parker Crutchfield, a professor in the Department of Medical Ethics, Humanities and Law at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine. He is also an adjunct assistant professor in the university’s philosophy department. Our second bright spark is Blake Hereth and he is an assistant professor at the university’s medical ethics school. Of course, the full force of investigative journalist techniques have been employed (Grok) to assert the paper is genuine and not some bored academic’s idea of a lark. It appears to be 100% genuine and has been published in the John Wiley publication Bioethics. Just to be sure, it can be confirmed that Western Michigan University exists, although annual in-state tuition fees of $15,000 seem a little steep if this anti-human tosh is an example of the teaching on offer.
Alpha-Gal Syndrome is a growing concern in the United States and many other parts of the world, notably Australia. According to the Centre for Disease Control, AGS is a “serious, potentially life-threatening” tickborne allergy. The CDC suggests that between 2010 and 2022 nearly 450,000 people may have been affected. The numbers appear to have been rising due to better diagnosis and an expanding range of the lone star tick. From a southern base, the tick is moving northwards and there have been reports of bites in New York and Pennsylvania. High-risk areas are centred around the Southeast and Midwest. There is currently no vaccine or treatment available, and the usual defences against insect bites such as repellent and wearing covering clothing are suggested.
AGS can significantly impact the quality of life of sufferers. The allergic reaction can involve symptoms such as hives, itching, stomach pain, lowered blood pressure or, in severe cases, anaphylaxis. There have been deaths recorded due to AGS, primarily involving medical products containing alpha-gal such as cetuximab and heparin. Cetuximab is a cancer treatment drug used widely in oncology, while heparin is a life-saving blood anticoagulant that is a staple in emergency centres and hospitals around the world. There are reported to be at least 10 deaths attributed to alpha-gal reactions to medical products, with most fatalities due to anaphylactic shock. It appears that no deaths have been directly linked to AGS and red meat consumption, but with cases on the recent rise this could be due to unreported or misdiagnosed cases.
AGS is a serious and growing threat but manageable as a public-health issue. That is unless these Net Zero nutters at Western Michigan are allowed to set or even influence public policy.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
The question: How stupid can academics be? was answered by George Orwell:
““There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.””
Only in this case I think we could amend it to: “There are some ideas so dangerous that only a climate scientist/modeller could believe them.” Geo-engineering and Sun dimming spring to mind.
Did the authors check with CDC?
Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) is a serious, potentially life-threatening allergy to alpha-gal that can develop after a tick bite.
The best way to protect yourself and your family from AGS is to prevent tick bites.
https://www.cdc.gov/alpha-gal-syndrome/about/index.html
How about Britain?
Treatment is limited to antihistamines and EpiPens, and avoiding meat products. Several medicines can precipitate an acute anaphylaxis. Prevention includes prompt tick removal without squeezing the tick, which prevents the injection of tick saliva antigen into genetically susceptible individuals.
https://bjgp.org/content/75/753/186
WUWT should award the Richard Parncutt prize to these idiots for ‘unservices’ to humanity.
The term “Alpha-Gal Syndrome” brings a completely different visual to mind.
“WUWT should award the Richard Parncutt prize to these idiots for ‘unservices’ to humanity.”
Idiots is much too kind a word. They are straight-up evil.
Why are the ones suggesting these actions always about one comet away from becoming Heavens Gate followers?
Thanks for the Richard Parncutt reference – had to look him up, what a jack wagon.
If the tick born allergy is such a good idea, why don’t these bioethicists release a bunch of them at the next COP/IPCC/WEF/WHO meeting? I would love to see the results.
I expect that some ranchers will apply the Yellowstone ‘train station’ solution if the tick release on the public was attempted.
Great idea!
Incredible. Don’t these maroons ever look in the mirror to see how insane they seem? Is there absolutely no reference that their fellow academics can use to judge their sanity?
The backlash of this movement will be very unpleasant.
Once again, however, I am forced to consider that this is how the Roman Empire looked from within before its collapse. Far too many entitled people living in luxury and security, being supported by the common working people, and producing not only nothing of value, but positively harmful ideas that would be devastating. Geoengineering is another subject with similar lunatics.
Perhaps there will be no backlash, merely a collapse into dysfunctional and tyrannical enclaves, run by elite bureaucrats.
The collapse heralded…. The Dark Ages and a thousand years of Christendom and no real progress.
I think you are wrong there. Europe prior to the rise of Rome was not on map of the ancient world. Europe had been a backwater forever. During the Bronze age, there is hardly a mention of Europe in the historical record. Rome prospered by expanding East, looting the countries they conquered. It was the conquest of Egypt that put the Roman state on a sound financial footing. It is emphasized that Rome’s Eastern wars paid for themselves as they expanded. The establishment of the Eastern capital diverted the wealth of the East away from Rome, which decayed and fell to barbarians. Attempts by the Eastern empire to reclaim lost Western provinces, with the exception of Egypt (the biggest prize) failed and bankrupted the Eastern empire. There was nothing to steal in the West. Europe didn’t not go into Darkness. There is a rich historical record of the Dark Age. Europe just didn’t have much wealth. They did develop amazing intellectual and technology superiority, spurred on by the discovery of the new world. The Europeans founded huge empires in the New World and East, again, mostly founded by looting the conquered peoples. North American was an exception. There was nothing to steal there. Now that Europe has lost its colonies, it has gone into a step decline and will be irrelevant in 100 years, just like it has been for most of history.
There are one or two native Americans who might disagree…
Especially when they found gold in California and Alaska.
It will be a Muslim collection of states
The East taking its revenge on the West
Go East, young man
Don’t forget other parallels with the decline of the Roman Empire, e.g., the unchecked ‘immigration’ of foreign invaders into the Empire, few of whom had any intention of ‘assimilating’.
I used to wonder about comparisons with the Roman Empire too. I have gradually come around to see two main differences:
The US broke away from the British Empire in a way that no province could have broken away from the Roman Empire. No groundswell of populism could really affect the Roman Emperor except to get more bread and circuses and speed up its downfall.
So I do think we are better off.
You left out an important attribute. The Roman empire and especially the elites moved from building to accumulating wealth. That similarity is too striking in today’s world.
And yet the UN is trying as hard as possible to become one.
In a way. The financial corruption of modern governments is a growing industry, however. The governmental system of the USA, not only allows corruption, it actively encourages it. That model is unfortunately being adopted elsewhere slowly. That model turns a democracy into a dictatorship by the wealthy unprincipled elite.
.
The word it, I believe, autocracy.
“Far too many entitled people living in luxury and security, being supported by the common working people…”
Along with a multitude of slaves.
And ‘wage slavery’ is the modern, and ‘more enlightened’ form of slavery.
Wage slavery existed prior to the Great War of Rebellion that started in 1860.
Yes, more commonly known as American The Civil War. The winners always have the opportunity to rewrite history unopposed.
This is not just “nuts”. What they’re proposing is more or less biological warfare against the population to achieve political ends, and at all costs including human life. What’s the next step? Gene drive with mosquitoes? This is horrible! This shouldn’t be allowed to stand as it is, and these people should be locked up and deprogrammed in a mental institution.
More than that, I believe this would be coved under the heading “Crimes Against Humanity”. They should remember how that worked out for the 1930s-mid 1940s German government officials.
“deprogrammed in a mental institution.”
My guess is the authors are pretty dim, they certainly haven’t considered existing legislation, let alone the carnage they are advocating.
promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory
In the UK, for example…
Actus reus
The inciter is one who reaches out and seeks to influence the mind of another to commit a crime
Then we have the “Offences against the Person Act 1861” and the… “Biological Weapons Act 1974”
Promoting their idea is morally repugnant.
It could be viewed as planning for genocide.
The worrisome side of all this: the climate narrative has been promoted now for about 20 years. A whole generation of school children has been exposed to it and quite a few seem to be really “brainwashed” as young adults, just like in certain sects. When one sees what
certain people do (e.g. gluing themselves to a freeway etc…) maybe deprogramming would really be something to consider.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The outsider with the gun.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Extreme deprogramming…I don’t like nor should I accept people with genocidal tendencies. The average human being is bloodthirsty enough.
Deprogrammed with extreme prejudice.
Our two climate-concerned professors should consider volunteering themselves for further research in this area. Perhaps a redo of Fauci’s infamous experiment on flesh-eating flies is in order, but with these two clowns and ticks instead of the hapless Beagles and the flies.
The Barry Marshall method will do nicely.
Not sure I see the connection: Marshall infected himself to advance good science that had been previously blocked by the ‘peer review’ gate keepers of his day. Conversely, the two jokers in the subject article apparently sailed through peer review because their ‘research’, although unambiguously misanthropic, is looked upon very favorably by today’s climate science gate keepers.
Who are these nutbars, a reincarnation of Dr Mengele? Make them take their own bioweapon, and televise their own suffering to dissuade other nutbar academics from ever even considering such crimes against humanity! This climate catastrophe cult brainwashing as gone too far and must be eradicated like excising a cancerous tumor!
Complete and total agreement.
The primary goal is to reduce meat consumption, because without allergy on a massive scale that won’t happen. The real aim is of course to reduce the human population by hook or by crook.
These authors should be prosecuted for promoting a crime against humanity.
Club of Rome.
The Population Bomb.
The manuals have been in print for decades.
When I was a kid, my brother and I used to think up bizarre punishments for stupid adults. The one I laugh at the most now was a big artillery shell, hollow, lined with iron maiden style spikes, with the adults inside, because we knew that artillery shells spun. We laughed about the adults yelling Oww Oww Oww as they bounced around inside.
Kids don’t always know as much as they think they do. That’s what this tick plague reminds me of. The difference is that my brother and I outgrew these fantasies pretty quickly.
We have one in Switzerland (Schloss Kyburg): In the dark ages, people were sentenced to death by getting locked up in the “Eiserne Jungfrau” (iron maiden). It was a quite common torture device in Europe. It’s a sort of piercing of the third kind, and it doesn’t need to be spun. Of course with the spin you get a “mixer” effect …/sarc
Possibly not. There’s no actual evidence of this being anything but fictional.
Having said that, many, many far more vicious and horrific devices were definitely used.
It counts toward annual raises, promotion, travel funds, and sabbatical. That is all it is.
“doesn’t violate anyone’s rights”
Can’t make this up, wtf
Great. Mosquitos carrying COVID vaccines and ticks that will “cure” us of our red meat addiction. If Orwell had thought of this first, he wouldn’t have written it. Because he didn’t specialize in comedy.
“Bioethics”
The irony is so thick.
Check out the lead author’s other work:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/authored-by/Crutchfield/Parker
Especially “Compulsory moral bioenhancement should be covert”. And I thought Klaus Schwab and Maurice Strong were dangerous!
Covert AND moral. What’s not to like?
“Some theorists argue that moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory. I take this argument one step further, arguing that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration ought to be covert rather than overt. This is to say that it is morally preferable for compulsory moral bioenhancement to be administered without the recipients knowing that they are receiving the enhancement. My argument for this is that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration is a matter of public health, and for this reason should be governed by public health ethics. I argue that the covert administration of a compulsory moral bioenhancement program better conforms to public health ethics than does an overt compulsory program. In particular, a covert compulsory program promotes values such as liberty, utility, equality, and autonomy better than an overt program does. Thus, a covert compulsory moral bioenhancement program is morally preferable to an overt moral bioenhancement program.”
Mengele would be proud, and pissed off that he didn’t come up with this rationalization.
Curious how they arrived at that.
If it is covert, then people will not know to avoid red meat and billions will get sick and/or die.
Oh. Perhaps that is the goal.
This is what passes as medical ethics as taught in our woke, Leftist-infested academia. It is just one example of the ultimate decadence of socialist societies.
For tick borne Lyme disease, the answer is to kill the white tailed deer. Monhegan Island off the main coast imported four deer back in the 1930’s. The deer prospered. Monhegan Island became a hot bed for Lyme disease. They killed all the deer. No more Lyme disease.
Recent article in the NY Times says Martha’s Vineyard is a hot spot for AlphaGal disease. They have plenty of deer to cull, but they won’t. A lot of the readers think this is swell. People will stop eating meat. Many sick people read the NY Times.
Is this not conspiracy to commit murder?
That could be argued. Likewise genocide.
That researchers would seriously consider doing this tics me off!
(Somebody had to say it. 😎
So, this is the real bug in the Climate Apocalypse?
story tip:
UK government suggests deleting emails to help save water:
https://notthebee.com/article/british-government-tells-subjects-to-delete-emails-to-stop-climate-change
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall
HOW TO SAVE WATER AT HOME
I have literally never seen anyone at all leave a tap on while brushing teeth or shaving. Is this really a thing?
Yes, it is. I am guilty of it. Not shaving, but brushing teeth.
Notice that not one of the usual climate trollettes has anything to say against this moronic idea.!
In response, I propose closing any academic department where this idea is accepted along with all departments devoted to anthropogenic CO2 and the monies spent on cures for this hypothetical disease.
Stupid? No. Vicious? Yes.
The first rule of medical ethics is primum non nocere (do no harm). Inducing a potentially life threatening allergy in someone is harmful, and therefore unethical.
Q.E.D.