Florida District Considers Releasing GMO Mosquitos After Cayman Islands Experiment (accuweather.com)

It's already underway just 364 miles south of Florida, according to the Associated Press. "The first wave of genetically modified mosquitoes were released Wednesday in the Cayman Islands as part of a new effort to control the insect that spreads Zika and other viruses," according to an article shared by Slashdot reader Okian Warrior: Genetically altered male mosquitoes, which don't bite but are expected to mate with females to produce offspring that die before reaching adulthood, were released in the West Bay area of Grand Cayman Island, according to a joint statement from the Cayman Islands Mosquito Research and Control Unit and British biotech firm Oxitec.
"What could possibly go wrong?" asks The Atlantic, citing history's great pest-control fails in Hawaii and Australia. But a similar release is already being considered in the Florida Keys, though Accuweather reports it apparently depends on the results of a November referendum which could also "affect the likelihood of Oxitec trials taking place in other parts of the United States."

Comments

I'll tell you what could go wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

More anti-science hipsters screaming about genetically modified stuff. We lived through the Bush Jr. administration and there was a ton of clearly anti-science bullshit thrown around (e.g. stem cell research, barring the term climate change in NASA, etc). But this is no different coming from the liberal part of the political spectrum.

The general population should just shut their fucking mouths when they feel like spewing an "opinion" about something. Science is a process and is hard. It's about time we fixed our education system to teach kids that your opinion or feeling is not the same thing as the scientific method.

TL;DR: Voice educated questions about scientific stuff. Do not broadcast uninformed opinions derived from your safe spot.

Re:I'll tell you what could go wrong...

[Halo1]

The general population should just shut their fucking mouths when they feel like spewing an "opinion" about something.

Then why don't you starting by setting a good example?

Science is a process and is hard.

That's why it's perfectly fine for people to voice concerns when they start experimenting in the wild. It's not like we have a perfect overview of how significantly reducing these mosquito populations will affect all other animals that feed on them (and the animals that feed on those, plants that depend on their excrement etc), just to name one potential unintended side effect. Or how it may allow other animals to largely expand their population due to reduced competition for habitats or food sources (mosquitos generally don't survive on blood, that's just what they need for procreation). Or conversely, certain nutrients no longer getting sufficiently removed from the water by mosquito larvae, resulting on too high concentrations of certain substances that then start killing other animals or plants.

TL;DR: Voice educated questions about scientific stuff. Do not broadcast uninformed opinions derived from your safe spot.

If anything is anti-science, it's trying to pre-emptively paint any debate by the general public as uninformed hipster trash. Because that is how you create luddites: by telling people they don't have a say, can't possibly understand anything about the ramifications, and should shut up and defer to some abstract scientists in ivory towers on the authority of some anonymous coward throwing a tantrum.

Re:I'll tell you what could go wrong...

[iris-n]

It's not like we have a perfect overview of how significantly reducing these mosquito populations will affect all other animals that feed on them (and the animals that feed on those, plants that depend on their excrement etc), just to name one potential unintended side effect. Or how it may allow other animals to largely expand their population due to reduced competition for habitats or food sources (mosquitos generally don't survive on blood, that's just what they need for procreation). Or conversely, certain nutrients no longer getting sufficiently removed from the water by mosquito larvae, resulting on too high concentrations of certain substances that then start killing other animals or plants.

We're talking about extinguishing one species of mosquito. There are thousands of species out there. They will simply expand their numbers and fill the ecological niche left empty by the death of Aedes Aegypti.

But for the sake of the argument, let's assume that your doomsday scenario does happen. Would you rather risk having children with microcephalia and no ecological imbalance? Or do you actually live somewhere that mosquitos do not proliferate, so you are actually just risking other people's children, not your own?

FYI, I do live in an area where it is full of mosquitos, and I would let the fucking bats go extinct if this is what it takes to protect my children.

Re:Short-Lived Trial

[Anonymous Coward]

GMOs are never made to solve a problem once and for all. They're made to be rented indefinitely. It's all about the cash flow, baby.