This paper advocates for what can only be described as a biological attack on humanity's evolutionary heritage. For over 2 million years, meat consumption has been the cornerstone of human development:
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Brain Development: Richard Wrangham's research demonstrates that cooking meat around 1.8 million years ago triggered the "expensive tissue hypothesis"—our guts shrank as our brains expanded, creating the metabolic trade-off that enabled human intelligence. Archaeological evidence from Qesem Cave shows controlled fire use specifically for meat processing, while Oldowan tools reveal systematic meat acquisition strategies that preceded every major cognitive leap in human development. The human brain consumes 20% of our metabolic energy—a luxury only possible through meat's concentrated nutrition.
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Physiological Adaptation: Humans evolved shorter digestive tracts, reduced jaw muscles, and smaller teeth specifically for meat consumption. We lost the ability to synthesize certain amino acids and vitamins (like B12) because we evolved obtaining them from animal sources.
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Cognitive Revolution: Cooked meat provided the caloric surplus that freed time and energy for tool-making, language development, and complex social cooperation. Every major leap in human civilization correlates with improved access to animal proteins.
Weaponizing Disease Against Human Biology
The authors explicitly advocate for genetically engineering disease vectors to attack this fundamental aspect of human physiology:
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Deliberate Pathogen Deployment: They propose modifying ticks to spread alpha-gal syndrome more effectively—this is textbook biological warfare methodology, deploying disease agents to disable enemy populations.
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Targeting Core Metabolism: AGS doesn't just cause "discomfort"—it triggers severe anaphylactic reactions to mammalian proteins, potentially fatal responses that can occur from trace exposure to meat byproducts in medications, cosmetics, or processed foods.
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Irreversible Biological Damage: Unlike other allergies, AGS often persists for years or permanently, representing deliberate, long-term biological sabotage of human metabolic capacity.
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Medical Reality: The true severity extends beyond the authors' "nonfatal" claims. AGS causes delayed anaphylaxis 3-6 hours after exposure, making emergency treatment complicated and causation identification difficult. Cross-reactivity occurs with mammalian-derived medications, vaccines, and medical devices, potentially making crucial healthcare inaccessible. Victims report psychological trauma from living with unpredictable, life-threatening reactions—biological terrorism that destroys quality of life.
Civilizational Destruction Through Biological Coercion
This represents an assault on the biological foundations of human civilization:
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Nutritional Warfare: Forcing dietary restrictions that contradict millions of years of evolution, particularly targeting populations dependent on animal husbandry—essentially attacking traditional cultures, Indigenous peoples, and economically vulnerable populations who rely on livestock.
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Cultural Genocide: Meat consumption is central to countless human traditions, religious practices, and cultural identities. Biological enforcement of veganism represents cultural destruction through pathogenic means.
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Economic Warfare: Deliberately crippling the $1.02 trillion global meat industry that employs millions and feeds billions, with disproportionate impact on the 1.3 billion people in developing nations who depend on livestock for nutrition and livelihoods. This biological attack would systematically impoverish traditional cultures and Indigenous peoples whose survival depends on animal husbandry—economic warfare disguised as moral enhancement.
Bypassing Human Agency Through Biological Tyranny
The most insidious aspect is the complete circumvention of human choice:
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Informed Consent Violation: No person consents to being infected with a disease to modify their behavior—this violates every principle of medical ethics and human rights.
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Biological Authoritarianism: Using pathogens to enforce ideological compliance represents the ultimate form of tyranny—controlling behavior through biological manipulation rather than persuasion or governance.
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Species-Level Sabotage: Attacking the biological capacity that enabled human civilization itself—this isn't just individual harm but an assault on our species' evolutionary adaptations.
The Precedent for Biowarfare
History shows us where this logic leads:
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Totalitarian Methodology: Every genocidal regime has used biological warfare or medical manipulation to control populations. The authors are proposing similar methods with academic legitimacy.
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Historical Parallels: From Unit 731's deliberate disease deployment to the Tuskegee syphilis experiments' medical manipulation to Soviet bioweapons programs targeting agricultural systems—the authors propose methodologically identical approaches with academic legitimacy. The only difference is ideological justification, but history shows that claimed moral purposes never justify biological warfare against civilian populations.
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Slippery Slope: If disease can be weaponized to enforce veganism, what other behaviors could be "enhanced" through pathogenic modification? Reproduction? Political beliefs? Religious practices?
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Irreversible Consequences: Unlike other forms of coercion, biological modification cannot be easily undone—victims remain permanently altered.
International Law Violations
This proposal violates multiple established legal frameworks:
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Biological Weapons Convention: Deliberately spreading disease agents to modify population behavior constitutes biological warfare prohibited under international law since 1975.
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Nuremberg Code: Medical interventions without informed consent violate fundamental principles established after Nazi medical experiments—yet the authors explicitly advocate circumventing consent through pathogen deployment.
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Bioterrorism Statutes: Using disease agents to coerce behavioral change meets legal definitions of bioterrorism, regardless of claimed moral justification.
The Humanist Response
This paper represents everything Political Humanism opposes: the replacement of rational discourse with biological coercion, the denial of individual sovereignty, and the technocratic imposition of contested moral frameworks through disease.
A truly humanist approach would:
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Respect evolutionary heritage while addressing legitimate environmental concerns through innovation
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Preserve individual choice in dietary decisions
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Advance through education and technology, not biological manipulation
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Maintain bodily autonomy as sacrosanct
Conclusion: Recognizing the Threat
The authors' proposal constitutes biological warfare against human evolutionary heritage. By targeting the metabolic foundations that enabled human civilization, they advocate for nothing less than the systematic biological disruption of our species' core adaptations.
This is not ethics—it is weaponized pathology masquerading as moral philosophy. It represents an existential threat to human agency, evolutionary heritage, and civilizational foundations that demands immediate recognition and categorical rejection.
The fact that Bioethics journal published this biological warfare advocacy reveals how deeply anti-human ideologies have captured academic institutions. This demands immediate action: journal retraction of the paper, ethics investigations at the authors' institutions, and defunding of any research developing pathogen deployment for behavioral modification. Academic freedom does not extend to advocating biological attacks on human evolutionary heritage.
Source: "Beneficial Bloodsucking" by Parker Crutchfield & Blake Hereth
Published: Bioethics journal (PMID: 40693342, DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70015)