How far are we willing to go to slow climate change? The list of proposed solutions runs the gamut from carbon taxes to eventual bans on fossil fuels. But some activists are now flirting with far more radical ideas. In July, a pair of ethicists from Western Michigan University floated the possibility of deliberately infecting people with a tick-borne condition called Alpha-Gal Syndrome (AGS), making them allergic to red meat and thereby reducing the carbon emissions generated by animal agriculture.

The argument goes like this: since AGS triggers harmful symptoms—severe stomach pain, low blood pressure, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea (and death in very rare cases)—people infected with the condition would switch to more climate-friendly protein sources to avoid harm. The researchers framed this proposal as a form of moral bioenhancement. “It helps [the public] satisfy their obligation not to eat meat, an obligation they would otherwise be disinclined to satisfy,” they wrote in the journal Bioethics. “The allergy presents only after eating meat: no meat, no allergic reaction.”

Since no sane person would volunteer to receive a serious, chronic food allergy, the authors proposed spreading Alpha-Gal Syndrome indirectly through “genetically engineer ticks so that they proliferate AGS.” They argue that ticks are the most viable transmission mechanism, while speculating that “it may be feasible for a person to take synthetic AGS to grocery stores and secretly inject it into beef, pork, lamb, etc.”

After their paper was savaged on Twitter, one of the authors claimed the proposal was only a thought experiment, “a hypothetical ethical framework for discussion when asked about the intent,” The College Fix reported. Still, that response raises a troubling question: why even speculate about genetically engineering insects to harm innocent people? As one of us (Cameron) pointed out in response to the “thought experiment” defense, dangerous policies that cause real harm commonly begin as hypotheticals bandied about by well-meaning intellectuals.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts and Fallacies as they make the case against engineering insects to spread food allergies.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish