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West African Village Weighs Using Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In Malaria Fight (scientificamerican.com)
New submitter omaha393 writes: A public engagement campaign is underway in the hopes of convincing Burkina Faso residents to allow the release of genetically modified mosquitoes to combat deadly mosquito-borne pathogens. GM mosquitoes rely on a technology called "gene drives." Different gene drives offer different solutions, typically leading to subsequent broods being sterile, predominantly male, resistant to infection or nonviable due to toxic traits. Researchers in this case are only in the preliminary stages of releasing sterile males but hope to begin wider releases of GM mosquitoes in about 6 years.
Burkina Faso is not the only country to pursue GM mosquitoes in efforts to prevent disease. Brazil has become a testing ground for wide release, and last fall voters in Florida Keys approved measures to begin releasing GM mosquitoes to fight the spread of Zika. Both the WHO and the U.S. FDA have approved the technique, but skeptics are critical of the method.
Burkina Faso is not the only country to pursue GM mosquitoes in efforts to prevent disease. Brazil has become a testing ground for wide release, and last fall voters in Florida Keys approved measures to begin releasing GM mosquitoes to fight the spread of Zika. Both the WHO and the U.S. FDA have approved the technique, but skeptics are critical of the method.
Still waiting for these beauties to start being mass produced, looks like they're making progress.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
You'd think they would use a standard unit of measurement, like the kilogram, rather than genetically modified mosquitos.
I think your underestimating how much suffering malaria causes. Malaria is nasty stuff. It's super painful , leaves you completely unable to get out of bed , you run huge fevers , and because the body can't really mount an antigen defence against it , you'll get it over and over and over again. The end result is it paralyses entire regions by making huge portions of the workforce perpetually sick and this has contributed hugely to Africa's economic misfortunes. A society where almost everyone of age can work is a society where people can work their way out of poverty and that means cleaner water , better tended environments and cheaper government
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Then I suggest you learn English properly.
Weighs can also mean considers the importance of different parts of a decision.. IE. Weighs the factors in a decision.
As it clearly does here smart arse.
More importantly.. Perhaps someone should tell them actual tests of these modified mosquitoes have failed, as not surprisingly it turns out that the changes mutate out again very quickly as survival is actually dominant.
Who would have thought.
"what if birds don't like to feed on the GMO mosquitoes, or fish don't like their larvae?"
Because there are no liberal birds or fish. They will go on eating what they have been used to eating in their environment, since the GMO version does not taste any different.
But you're missing the whole point of gene drives, which are to in a short time eliminate the target species. So long as there are other prey species for the birds and fish to move on to, no problem. Fish flies, damsel flies, there is a plethora of substitute species out there. In any case, only a small fraction of the 3,000 mosquito species even bite humans. Eliminating them all would not even cut into the supply of mosquitos in the environment, since the species remaining after the gene drive would just populate to fill the gap..
Bed bugs and cockroaches were already mentioned!
Once upon a time there used to be an inexpensive effective way to control mosquitoes, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. As long as it was sprayed in limited areas where there are concentrations of mosquitoes, it was pretty safe. I'm not advocating using it from crop dusting aircraft to cover huge areas. Rachel Carlson is personally responsible for the pain, suffering and death of huge numbers of people through the ban.
I know this will probably bring up a few replies about bird egg shell thinning, but I'm writing about allowing LIMITED use of DDT in areas of mosquito populations to prevent the death of 400,000 people (per webmd.com) per year.
According to the headline: "West African Village Weighs Using Genetically Modified Mosquitoes..."
According to Wikipedia: "In 2014 its population was estimated at just over 17.3 million." That's a mighty big village! Actually Burkina Faso is a country. Very few villages could afford such a program and it would be pointless when it was surrounded by other villages who prefer regular mosquitos. Don't know why the headlines here so often mislead the readers and continue to add caps to every word- just like in good old 1856 when headlines sold papers.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Honestly I'm cautiously optimistic about GM stuff in general, though I think gene patents should be abolished to weaken the more reckless influences of the profit motive. If you can engineer important nutrient production into a staple crop, or selectively graft in specific traits from wild relatives to make your crops able to survive an extra three weeks of flooding, or months without water like a resurrection plant, it seems like it might be irresponsible *not* to do so. Just make sure it's subjected to thorough independent testing against unintended consequences.
Gene Drives though are in a whole different terrifying league. That's no longer just a modified organism, that's an organism with advanced bacterial DNA-editing tools grafted into it. We've only just recently stolen powerful cutting-edge gene editing tools from bacteria, the potential implications of which we're only beginning to imagine, and are now talking about installing them into complex organisms where they will tend to spread throughout the entire species - a decision that can never be undone short of extinction. All other changes could be potentially reverted, but only by releasing another Gene Drive into the population - it can remove anything except itself.
Now, if we could count on the GD only doing what it was supposed to, that would be scary enough. The lines between species are much fuzzier than we imagine, and the potential for strange interactions is vast. We might accidentally wipe out all mosquitoes and relatives, a wide family of important pollinating insects, rather than just the disease-carrying species we were aiming for. But even worse, the one constant thing in genetics is mutation - and so any gene drive that doesn't lead to the extinction of its host species will eventually mutate, and now we have a misprogrammed gene-editor spreading through the population doing who-knows-what. Or alternately, there's now some extremely powerful gene-editing tools in the organism, the product of billions of generations more evolution than anything else in its genome, and nature does seem to love to find a way to put useful genes to work.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
>> cockroaches
>No way.
Agreed. Anything that can wipe out cockroaches will doom us all.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I've seen this sentiment here before regarding DDT, and it's mostly nonsense.
Once upon a time there used to be an inexpensive effective way to control mosquitoes, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
There still is, and it's still used for that purpose. In some places, though, it's not as effective as it used to be because mosquitoes were selected for resistance thanks to indiscriminate spraying.
Rachel Carlson is personally responsible for the pain, suffering and death of huge numbers of people through the ban.
The ban on DDT is a ban against wholesale agricultural spraying. It explicitly includes an exemption for disease vector control, and DDT is still used for public health mosquito control.
I'm writing about allowing LIMITED use of DDT in areas of mosquito populations to prevent the death of 400,000 people (per webmd.com) per year.
Yep, that's exactly how it's used today.
An awful lot of assumptions there about what will happen as a result of driving a species to extinction. Though frankly, with all the extinction we've already caused by accident, I'm not overly worried about intentionally adding human-biting mosquitoes to the pyre. But "species" is a very fuzzy line with interbreeding in corner cases being a common occurrence. What happens if the gene drive starts spreading to *all* mosquitoes? Or even further afield?
And in any host population where it takes up residence without driving them to extinction, there *will* be mutations, and evolution can probably eventually find a way to put their shiny new high-tech gene editing tools to use.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Rachel Carlson is personally responsible for the pain, suffering and death of huge numbers of people through the ban.
Nope. You're just looking for a scapegoat.
Which says a lot about you. In reality, numerous countries, including African ones continued to use DDT with RIS. But you would rather blame an environmentalist who actually served to warn us of real problems with the effects of DDT that were developing due to its misuse.
Not to mention the development of resistance in mosquito populations which was rendering it less effective.
Oh no, you would tell us the person we should be outraged at, who didn't cause any of the actions you allege, is the one warning us.
Not even concern over lack of research into malarial medication, corruption in African countries, lack of education, lack of resources, just misguided venting.
What does that tell us about yourself?
On one hand yay potentially end suffering on the other increase population
This is nonsense. Better health does NOT lead to increased population growth. I leads to a decrease. As parents are more assured that their children will survive and be healthy, they invest greater resources into each child's nutrition and education, and have fewer children. This has happened repeatedly many times throughout the world.
Mosquitoes and Mosquito larvae are critical food sources for numerous creatures. No mosquitoes == no larvae == starving little fish, starving bats, starving birds, starving spiders, etc.. etc.. etc...
Only a few species of mosquito transmit malaria. Most do not. The beauty of this extermination gene is that it only affects the targeted species. The population of other mosquitoes will expand to fill the niche, and the little fishes will be fine.
Eventually, yes. There's a very consistent pattern. When countries industrialise and get all the good stuff like healthcare, dependable food and sanitation the population does rise very rapidly - every time. It takes a full generation for the culture to change to reflect the new conditions. Once cultural change does catch up, then growth levels off and sometimes even goes negative.
Weighs can also mean considers the importance of different parts of a decision.. IE. Weighs the factors in a decision.
In Ouagadougou, it is a bit more literal. They weigh the scientist on a beam balance to see if he is heavier than a mosquito. Or a duck.
Magic Fairy Dust kills all bad bugs.
Magic Fairy Dust kills nothing but bad bugs.
Nothing but Magic Fairy Dust kills bad bugs.
Magic Fairy Dust does not persist in the environment.
Eggshells do not have to support ten pounds of raptor.
Who needs eagles, hawks and falcons anyway? All they do is control the varmint population.
Seriously, turn off Fox Propaganda, go read Silent Spring and only then can you have an informed opinion on what Rachel Carson wrote.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Now this is different, but what if birds don't like to feed on the GMO mosquitoes, or fish don't like their larvae?
No Problem, we'll just let another 429 000 die horrible, painful death from malaria this year, They are mostly brown and black people anyway, nothing compared to a few bird deaths.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds