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Gates Foundation Funds "Altruistic Vaccine"
QuantumG writes "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to the University of Queensland, Australia to develop a vaccine against dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitoes. Unlike other vaccines, the 'altruistic vaccine' doesn't specifically protect the individual being bitten, but instead protects the community by stopping the transmission of the pathogen from one susceptible individual to another. The hope is to do this by effectively making their blood poisonous to mosquitoes, either killing them or at least preventing them from feeding on other individuals. Professor Paul Young explained how his work fell outside current scientific traditions and might lead to significant advances in global health — he said he could envision the vaccine being used around the world within 10 years, and it would be designed to be cheap and easy to implement."
I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything but is $100K really all that much considering how expensive it must be to do this kind of research?
I could presume it is enough money to pay for the salary of the one researcher that was awarded this grant. It's not a lot of money, but Microsoft has spread their grants to other researchers working on other projects as well.
Mosquitoes certainly have their role in the ecosystem and killing them will certainly have unforeseen consequences. More like in the Mao and sparrows story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sparrow_Campaign
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Well actually yes this strategy is very sensible. I think you're not quite understanding the research. The vaccine doesn't stop you being bitten by mosquitoes, but would be designed to stop the virus infecting the mosquitoes. This breaks the cycle of infection and prevents many other people being infected. Yes that's little consolation for you, but in the long run, less people being infected does have a direct benefit for you.
You can eliminate it if you hit the herd immunity threshold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
That requirement is essentially the same as for regular vaccines.
As for risking mosquitoes evolving to smell the poisonous blood -- isn't that a best-case scenario? Where the immunity to spreading the disease is converted to an immunity to getting the disease because the vectors avoid the innoculated.
The worst-case scenario basically leaves us back at square one with no loss and only a temporary gain.
Watch the following video to learn more about the "altruistic vaccination" that the Gates Foundation is engaged in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7_xfUV4kSo
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
-- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
> In the more immediate, what does this do to your liver?
Well I guess that is what the research is for, right?
> Longer term, what impact might this have on other insect populations?
Well, since mosquitos can also feed on animals, most of them will never come in contact with the poison. I don't know how this will affect their natural predators (eating multiple poisoned mosquitos might have a negative effect on them, depending on the poison), but I assume they will investigate that too before they start handing out the stuff to everyone everywhere.
> And will this impact negatively effect human populations?
Well I guess that is what the research is for, right?
> This approach is dangerous.
Maybe. If we don't research we'll never find out. The whole thing would be dangerous if we were to give this stuff to everybody before having some idea to what the answers to your questions might be. But since thas hasn't been the way to do these things in science for some decades now, your whole post seems somewhat overrated, this last bit in particular.
Exactly,
Unlike other grants such as the NFS, the Gates foundation is very results driven. In essence Bill Gates is using the money just like in a business with the only exception the goal isn't to make more money to to have the best effect on humanity. So 100k grant to do some research (And this guy probably has other money, Money from the university that pays his salary and facilities) The 100k pays for tools and grad students (Who work cheap) to help with his research. Now with further study if it shows more of a success then he may get more. But if it is a dead end research the Gates Foundation is only down 100k vs. More.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.