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United Nations Considers a Test Ban on Evolution-Warping Gene Drives (technologyreview.com)
Bill Gates wants to end malaria, and so he's particularly "energized" about gene drives, a technology that could wipe out the mosquitoes that spread the disease. Gates calls the new approach a "breakthrough," but some environmental groups say gene drives are too dangerous to ever use. From a report: Now the sides are headed for a showdown. In a letter circulated this week, scientists funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others are raising the alarm over what they say is an attempt to use a United Nations biodiversity meeting this week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to introduce a global ban on field tests of the technology. At issue is a draft resolution by diplomats updating the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which -- if adopted -- would call on governments to "refrain from" any release of organisms containing engineered gene drives, even as part of experiments. The proposal for a global gene-drive moratorium has been pushed by environmental groups that are also opposed to genetically modified soybeans and corn. They have likened the gene-drive technique to the atom bomb.
In response, the Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, has been funding a counter-campaign, hiring public relations agencies to preempt restrictive legislation and to distribute today's letter. Many of its signatories are directly funded by the foundation. "This is a lobbying game on both sides, to put it bluntly," says Todd Kuiken, who studies gene-drive policy at North Carolina State University. (He says he was asked to sign the Gates letter but declined because he is a technical advisor to the UN.) New technology The gene-drive technique involves modifying a mosquito's DNA so that, when the insect breeds, it spreads a specific genetic change -- one that's bad for its survival.
In response, the Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, has been funding a counter-campaign, hiring public relations agencies to preempt restrictive legislation and to distribute today's letter. Many of its signatories are directly funded by the foundation. "This is a lobbying game on both sides, to put it bluntly," says Todd Kuiken, who studies gene-drive policy at North Carolina State University. (He says he was asked to sign the Gates letter but declined because he is a technical advisor to the UN.) New technology The gene-drive technique involves modifying a mosquito's DNA so that, when the insect breeds, it spreads a specific genetic change -- one that's bad for its survival.
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And when the bats start disappearing will that be OK too?
The majority of the diet of bats is not mosquitos, either in numbers or in weight. Among insect-eating bats, mosquitos are no more than 20% of their diet.
Also, the modified species the Gates Foundation wants to release is only one mosquito species that bites humans. There are numerous other mosquito species which do not bite humans. They'll still be available for bats to eat.
The Gates Foundation is known for being a bit self-serving, but they're not proposing this solution to malaria in a vacuum. It's fairly well considered.
You know how many viruses are around you right now? Trillions and trillions. Each one a message to rewrite the DNA of something in your body (mostly of bacteria), each one indirectly competing with eachother to carve a larger niche out of our existences.
We took a couple of those and use them in the safest way we can to fight against a small number of pathogens.
I understand the fear - that of Andromeda strains, grey goo, and other explicitly fictional thought experiment scenarios.
Someone, somewhere is going to use this tool, and the environment is going to adapt to it - I'd rather use it at least as well as we've used penicillin, and push diseases back for a while, rather than hold it back until it is used in some predictably irresponsible group. in the ironic name of bottomless responsibility.
Mosquitoes aren't a vital part of any food chain. We can keep their DNA in archives. It's a genuine health benefit to limiting the species to non-mammal-biting varieties.
We're already living with a giant experiment in mass animal extinction through mass irresponsibility. This is an action that at least helps many of the most vulnerable species (land mammals) have a better chance, and increases our own quality of life at the same time.
Mosquitoes won't be extinct - but the varieties that bite mammals are worth the effort to select against..