Excerpt: This is not a parody. Two bioethicists have argued in the prestigious professional journal Bioethics that we should breed ticks to cause more infections of a condition that causes an allergy to red meat. Seriously.

Why would anyone want ticks to become more dangerous? Meat-eating is wrong, and so anything (apparently) that causes fewer of us to eat meat is "beneficent":

1. Eating meat is morally wrong.
2. If (1), then eating meat makes people morally worse and makes the world a worse place.
3. So, people would be morally better and the world would be a less bad place if people didn't eat meat.
4. If an act makes people morally better and makes the world a less bad place than it would otherwise be, then that act is morally obligatory. [Corollary of consequentialism]

5. Promoting tickborne AGS [a tickborne syndrome that causes a meat allergy] makes people morally better and makes the world a less bad place.
6. So, promoting tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.

Notice that this isn't a claim about factory farming, but an all-inclusive argument that we have a positive duty not to consume animal flesh.

If people choose to be vegans, more power to them. Acting consistently with one's moral beliefs is a uniquely human endeavor. But humans are omnivores. Meat is part of our natural diet, offers inexpensive nutrition, is good for us (in proper proportions), and not unimportantly for many, offers an enjoyable eating experience.

The authors' absolutism causes them to make an immoral argument:

Our main conclusion is that we should promote a particular tickborne syndrome: alpha?gal syndrome (AGS). AGS is caused by the allergen alpha?gal, which in humans causes an allergic reaction to eating mammalian meat and mammalian organs. People who have the allergy may have a variety of symptoms, including hives, gastrointestinal upset (e.g., vomiting and diarrhea), or anaphylaxis in severe cases. Often, these symptoms present 2–6 h after ingestion of mammalian meat. However, there is little reason to believe that there are additional harms associated with the allergy, aside from the allergic reaction itself. Although AGS is typically associated with the lone star tick (LST), other ticks also transmit AGS.