05/18/2026
Fact check in the comments
Take a good look at the cartoon. The smug professor in the lab coat. The open jar labeled "ENGINEERED TICKS."
The chalkboard behind him reading "FOR YOUR OWN GOOD." The American family at the picnic table getting rained on by the swarm he just released.
The tick falling toward them, calmly saying "You're welcome."
We wish we were exaggerating. We are not.
Two professors of medical ethics at Western Michigan University's medical school just published a peer-reviewed paper in a major academic journal arguing that it is, quote, "morally obligatory" to release genetically engineered ticks on the American public so that more of us become permanently allergic to beef, pork, and lamb.
The paper is called "Beneficial Bloodsucking." It was published in the journal Bioethics in 2025. The authors are Parker Crutchfield and Blake Hereth, and they teach the future doctors of America in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Here is what they actually wrote. They call the disease-carrying tick a "moral bioenhancer." They say we have an obligation to "expose others" to alpha-gal syndrome, the meat allergy spread by the lone star tick. They say we should "undermine attempts to cure" the allergy. They say AGS is not even a disease, so it does not need a cure.
Their plan is to use CRISPR gene editing to redesign the tick so it can survive in more environments, including cities, possibly by hitching rides on rats. They cite the gene-edited mosquito programs already operating in other countries as their working model.
That is the jar in the cartoon. That is the swarm coming out of it.
Their justification is that eating red meat is morally wrong, and since you will not stop on your own, the credentialed class at a state-affiliated medical school is going to make the decision for you. They argue this is not a violation of your rights, just a tolerable, quote, "infringement," same as a vaccine mandate.
That is the chalkboard. "For your own good." Their words, not ours.
Nobody is going to ask you. Nobody is going to put it on a ballot. One of the same authors previously published a paper in the same journal titled "Compulsory Moral Bioenhancement Should Be Covert," meaning forced biological modification of the population should be kept hidden from the population.
That is the family at the picnic table. That is every American household. We are the ones at the table. We are the ones who never agreed to any of this. We are the ones the tick is talking to when it says "You're welcome."
This is not a parody site. This is not a tweet. This is a peer-reviewed paper sitting in the flagship journal of the bioethics field, written by tenured professors at a medical school, available right now on PubMed.
The Founders had a phrase for the principle these professors just casually walked past. It was called "consent of the governed." Apparently a tick does not need your consent.
Source: Crutchfield, P. and Hereth, B. (2025). "Beneficial Bloodsucking." Bioethics 39(8): 772–781
