Slashdot Mirror
Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever
Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired:
"Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists say would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years."
Cane Toads
Yea. I guess these guys never read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring
That sounds suspiciously like an urban legend.
Hint: How the fuck are you supposed to breed lovebugs & mosquitoes? (Give them tiny little Jacuzzis and Play Barry White at them?)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Eh, I don't know who the hell modded this interesting, but these guys (who look a lot more trustworthy than a random Slashdot post) would certainly disagree with it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bug#Folklore
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN694
Charles Darwin thinks that this idea is probably dumb.
Unless they manage to release some critical number of mosquitoes, the faulty ones will die and the normal ones will pass on their undamaged genes.
Having read the article, it sounds like they'd just be releasing these Genetically Modified Anti Mosquitoes (GMAM) near urban areas with dense populations. Basically, these are places where the ecosystem is likely to be severely diminished already due to humans moving in. It's doubtful that using this technique to control mosquito populations in relatively small pockets is going to have any additional impact outside of those areas. Also, you can't really assume that this technique will eliminate 100% of the population. For one thing, there will always be new individuals from outside the affected area moving in. The cost of producing enough of these mosquitoes to guarantee the death of the whole population would be a bit prohibitive. Especially considering that it would likely be a recurring cost. The article pretty much says that this is to control mosquito populations, so it sounds to me as if they don't anticipate any possibility for this technique to eradicate entire populations of the target insect. So, from that point of view, it doesn't sound all that risky.
From the other perspective though, controlling the mosquito population in this way will definitely impact the ecosystem. If Dengue is no longer a problem, human populations will rise faster than it otherwise would have. More people means more ecological damage. Of course I'm not saying we shouldn't save the people, because I know if it were me living in an area with Dengue and my friends and family were getting sick from it, I'd want a solution no matter what the cost to the environment is.
I believe that dengue fever can be eradicated with this approach at least on an area basis IF DONE RIGHT ... but as I understand it, it's going to fairly difficult practically.
They are preventing the female mosquitoes from mating with the "normal" males, and at the same time (via mutant offspring) increasing competition for resources needed by "normal" offspring. This _should_ cause a reduction in the dengue fever mosquito (aedes aegypti) population. The question is, given there will always be a small percentage of normal males who will mate with the females, can they eradicate dengue 100% at least within a given isolated area?
I think so yes.
What they want is to release their mutants so they outnumber the normals by a MASSIVE ratio -this is key. Since their offspring die, this will ultimately reduce the number of female aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The actual percentage of dengue carrying mosquitoes (had to have gotten unlucky and bitten an infected person) is a sub fraction of the dengue carry capable mosquitoes. In turn, there will be a quick dramatic decline in infected people because the chance of a normal aedes aegypti mosquito actually biting a dengue infected person and then giving it to a normal person will become lower and lower.
However I think the public will oppose this for a few reasons:
1. Irrational paranoia about the G word (genetically modified), thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes (even if they are non biting males) being released OMG.
2. The reduction in aedes aegypti females may cause an increase in other mosquito species that compete with it (increase in anopheles (malaria)?).
3. Male mutant mosquitoes will have to be introduced in large numbers to the environment until either aedes aegypti or dengue fever is 100% eradicated (but mad profits if you own the company selling them).
4. Public may get pissed off at the sight of mosquitoes getting released in their neighborhood.
Probably they need to combine this with introducing a harmless (non disease vector) mosquito species suited to a given environment (for example some places may suit aedes albopictus).
I can offer a little bit of perspective on Dengue fever, because I had a particularly bad version that required me to be hospitalized. During my hospital stay, I needed several blood/plasma transfusions in order to compensate for all the internal haemorrhaging caused by the virus. All in all, I was debillitatingly ill for almost five months.
As serious as the illness was, there was never any risk of me dying: my family is well enough off that I received good medical care. But for every guy like me with the resources to get by in the event of catastrophic illness, there are about a thousand who die, coughing and bleeding, in the gutters. I really wish people in the west would think about these people before they dismiss potential solutions to epidemics for "environmental" reasons.
There are many species of mosquitos, not all (or even most IIRC) of which bite humans. There's no need - and no way - to wipe out all mosquitos. Hammering the specific species that transmit deadly diseases to humans is an ecological engineering project and moral choice that I think most humans are comfortable with, though.
The effort in the article specifically attacks one species - the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
A friend of a friend of mine got dengue in Indonesia. I was there after he had gotten over it, but from second-hand accounts it didn't sound like much fun. I think he had a mild form, where he ran a horrendous fever for about a week, and then had a full-body painful rash for about a week, and then had some serious depression for a few months until he figured out that you can take pills to counteract the neurological aftereffects (which I hear tend to last about a year). I'm not sure if he had to be hooked up to an IV during the fever, but I hear that's common practice.
I don't know what the right solution is, but I'm glad people are working on it.
yet, paradoxically, the number of people dying of malaria since the banning of DDT has drastically increased. Not only that, but DDT was banned not because it was fucking up people, but because it was a probable human carcinogen.
Don't get me wrong, DDT is far from perfect, since it DID fuck up the environment (famously birds) and also loses efficacy over time, but you can't just dismiss its benefits to humanity that quickly. Modern, safer pesticides now cost much more than DDT, which cost pennies per kilogram. The net effect is that the poorest regions of the world, mainly Africa, where 1 million children die a year due to malaria, can't afford the insecticides now that DDT is banned. Its certainly not as cut and dry as you make it out to be, and you would be well served to know a bit more about it. Wikipedia has some good references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt#Effects_on_human_health
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddt#DDT_use_against_malaria
Idle hands are the devil's workshop, but idle minds are much worse
New Vaccination Technique May Work for Dengue Fever. There's no commercial vaccine yet, but working on one seems a safer bet then mass-releases of genetically modified insects.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Poor people have the heaviest environmental impact? That's just blatantly false. The fact of the matter is, rich people use an order of magnitude more stuff than poor people. See here for pointers to sources.