Before you try to shut me up, I had malaria, several times, and was privileged enough to survive it. As I said, I saw children die. Fuck, I brought people to the only working hospital in a radius of more than 500 km to get them treatment. And I still want caution to be applied, and I don’t care if some guy somewhere believes he or she figured it all out.
Nature always finds a way. Predictions are hard, especially concerning life. That includes Plasmodium and Anopheles.
Get your shit together before you try this out in the field, that’s what I’m saying. And I’m not saying this lightly.
That could have been my kid dying.
Same logic is also being used to make extinct an animal, the worm that causes Guinea Worm Disease (probably will be eradicated in the near future), so the mosquito wouldn’t be the first animal to be targeted for extinction for being a pathogen. Is it also wrong that we are on the brink of exterminating Guinea Worm Disease? The differences are, Guinea Worm Disease is a parasitic worm and we all hate parasitic worms, and we’re doing the extinction with water drinking filters, not with scary new gene technology. But does that matter?
What about in places where mosquitoes are an invasive, non-native species, like in Hawaii? I can’t think of any other locations where mosquitoes were introduced by humans, but they were in Hawaii. They arrived in Hawaii in 1826.
They didn’t think that glyphosate and it has taken this long to find out. I hope they do a ton of research and consider every possibility before unleashing this on the world.
I believe they are trying to eradicate the species itself, which can also infect dogs. There are other related species that don’t infect humans and they won’t be eradicated. They’re getting close, with the last guinea worm to die within the next few years likely. We’ll still have the DNA sequence if someone in future decides it was a tragic mistake to eliminate the things.
Anyway, just pointing out, we have targeted at least one other animal-kingdom species for eradication, and we’re in the end game on it.
The intentions behind this are all well and good - it’s the inevitable ability to weaponize this shit that raises dread within me. Human beings (low-life, self-deluding, destructive little shits that we are) will inevitably turn this tech into a means of eugenics. Count on it.
There are a lot of reasons to be super cautious about this, but I honestly wonder if the damage to the ecosystem from targeting this one species of mosquito would be any worse than the DDT spraying that the US did during our successful malaria eradication campaign in Southern states in the 1940’s. Lots of people forget (or never knew) that malaria used to be a thing in this country.
Well, the DDT devastated bird populations, especially raptors, since it caused shells to be too thin, and chicks would not survive to hatching. So yay, and fucking boo, all at once, as this seems likely to work out to me.
IIRC, there have been theoretical studies about the ecological impact of rendering malaria-carrying mosquitoes extinct, and the end result was that it won’t cause any big disruption. They are not any kind of a keystone species, and there are other species of mosquitoes and similar insects that would quickly expand to fill the void left by the extinct mosquitoes.
Thanks for the insight. So not only are they a disease vector, but really they are NOTHING BUT a disease vector. No unique value in any food chain, I guess.
It would be nice if organisations proposing these actions covered off such ramifications rather than just the usual “yay - malaria beaten” level of public relations. Hey-ho.
As an ecologist, I can easily assume that several functional relationships are replaced, but also that we don’t know shit about the true functions these critters have in ecosystems.
I’m not in panic mode here, but I sincerely whish the science behind such claims is truly solid and thorough. Besides the ethics of such a decision, I don’t trust anyone who says this will have a “limited” or even “no impact”.
That’s a wordy piece nearly sainting the idea getting rid of Aedes aegyptii. In no way it’s anything I would be looking at if I would carry out an impact assessment.
sigh The trouble with this is that it’s a very emotional issue, for everyone. See above: I really saw children die of malaria. I can only compartmentalize this experience, and try to shut it off when thinking about the idea of using gene drives on the vector. All opinion and report pieces aside, this needs thorough thought and thorough science. And where I stand, philosophically, it would not even be ethical to wipe the vector out. I can understand if I am quite isolated with this opinion - cf. your link - and I am in an unsolvable dilemma there.
Well, yeah. But you and me, we’re just some people on the internet arguing about this.
I expect the people who’d make actual decisions about engaging in a campaign of extinction against malaria-carrying mosquitoes, for example, would have much more and better information available to them. I certainly wouldn’t think my own recollection, and this Guardian article I found quickly, would be enough to base such a decision on!
However, it’s enough for me, as a random internet bystander, to think that as we’re driving important species into extinction by accident, we might as well get some bastards on purpose.
