Matthew Liao opines about genetic engineering humans to be meat intolerant

During a lecture at the 2016 World Science Festival, Dr. Matthew Liao, director of the College of Global Public Health’s Center for Bioethics at New York University, explained his vision of genetically modifying people in the name of saving the earth.

“People eat too much meat. And if they were to cut down on their consumption on meat, then it would actually really help the planet,” Liao said.

“But people are not willing to give up meat. Some people will be willing to, but other people – they may be willing to but they have a weakness of will. They say ‘this steak is just too juicy, I can’t do that.’ I’m one of those by the way,” Liao admitted.

“So here’s a thought. So it turns out that we know a lot about — we have these intolerances,” Liao continued. “For example I have a milk intolerance. And some people are intolerant to crayfish. So possibly we can use human engineering to make the case that we’re intolerant to certain kinds of meat, to certain kinds of bovine proteins.”

“There’s this thing called the Lone Star tick where if it bites you, you will become allergic to meat. So that’s something we can do through human engineering. We can possibly address really big world problems through human engineering,” he added.