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Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

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Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#61

Post by danieltillett »

mitchtbaum wrote: post #55
danieltillett wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But how could we put it into practice? I only saw gene-level mechanics in that article. Please show me a machine that could do this at scale Figure 1C is what you need to look at. This is real mosquitoes, not genes. I think the problem is you don’t understand what a gene driver system is and how it works (it is complex genetics so there is no shame in this). The wiki article [1] is not great, but the original articl…

> The problem was until now we didn’t have a good system to actually make these drivers, we do now. Link? Again, please show me a machine that can operate at scale or even a simple demo with an inlet, a re-engineered mosquito, and an outlet. (preferably without insulting me)

I am not trying to insult you, but you do need to try to understand what is being discussed.

I am pretty sure if you knew what a gene driver system is and what it can do then you would understand the significance of this paper. I edited my original post to include a link to a review paper that explores this whole area. You might find reading this helpful.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#62

Post by danieltillett »

Frondo wrote: post #54
mitchtbaum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is really so important to people that they survive... I very much like where you're going with this... > then we could put some on an island as a kind of zoo. wait, what??

The mosquitos, I think he meant.

I was trying to be sly here by being ambiguous, but yes I mean the mosquitoes.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#63

Post by mikeyouse »

tosseraccount wrote: post #27

"may be the cause" "may want to hold off" "may have to do with the complicated effects ..." They need some definitive answers. The incidence of microcephaly is 1.02 per 10,000 births in the UK 2002 for microcephaly (University of Ulster, 2003). [ source : http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/microcephaly/prevalence.htm ] Birth rate in Brazil is 14.5 per 1000 births.( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-fact…

You're comparing the number across births in the UK to the number across the total population of Brazil.. There aren't 190M births in Brazil every year but closer to 2.7M (birth rate of ~14/1,000) -- only counting the known cases of microencephaly yields an occurrence of 89/100,000 or about 90x as frequent as in the UK. Seems pretty substantial, no?

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#64

Post by lern_too_spel »

tosseraccount wrote: post #27

"may be the cause" "may want to hold off" "may have to do with the complicated effects ..." They need some definitive answers. The incidence of microcephaly is 1.02 per 10,000 births in the UK 2002 for microcephaly (University of Ulster, 2003). [ source : http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/microcephaly/prevalence.htm ] Birth rate in Brazil is 14.5 per 1000 births.( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-fact…

I did the math.

2,400 cases / (190,000,000 people * 14.72 births / 1,000 people in 2014) = 8.6 cases per 10,000 births, which is more than 8 times the rate quoted for the UK.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#65

Post by mitchtbaum »

Frondo wrote: post #54
mitchtbaum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is really so important to people that they survive... I very much like where you're going with this... > then we could put some on an island as a kind of zoo. wait, what??

The mosquitos, I think he meant.

Ah, thank you..

Then again, they have wings; and, sea levels both rise and fall...

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#66

Post by PerfectElement »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #47

This isn't the first dangerous disease spread by mosquitos, and may not be the last. Not to mention how incredibly annoying they are in general. I've been to Brazil a number of times, and the thing I could never understand is why, in a tropical country knee-deep in hungry disease causing mosquitos, is there not a single screen on any of the windows there? Big mistake, they're not expensive. They are cheaper and safer…

When I lived in Brazil, we had window screens, but it was on an affluent area in the coast of Rio. I'm not sure it made things that much better though. You need a lot of discipline to keep those screens shut all the time when you live in a tropical country and go outside all the time.

We just learned that during the summer, around 7pm, it was time to close doors and windows and turn the A/C on.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#67

Post by Cieplak »

Alex3917 wrote: post #57
Cieplak wrote: post #51

Maybe it's time to deploy some DDT... http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... Rachel Carson never called for the banning of pesticides. She made this clear in every public pronouncement, repeated it in an hourlong television documentary about Silent Spring, and even testified to that effect before the U.S. Senate. Carson never denied that there were beneficial uses of pesticides, notably in co…

> Rachel Carson never called for the banning of pesticides. It never has been banned for combatting human disease, so I don't see your point. (Except in a few places like the U.S. where several species were going extinct from extreme overuse.)

The italics indicate that I was quoting the article. The words you are quoting as mine are actually taken from the article I linked to.

DDT is so effective because it is persistent, unlike pyrethrins which degrade rapidly and need to be frequently resprayed. As a result, it has significant environment side effects and finds its way into the food chain. My only point was that in this case, DDT might be the lesser of two evils.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#68

Post by bluejekyll »

danieltillett wrote: post #36
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html Yet in many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms. Life would continue as before — or even better. When it comes to the major disease vectors, "it's difficult to see what the downside would be to removal, except for collateral damage", says insect ecologist…

The collateral damage they are talking about here is avoided human misery and death. This is one sort of collateral damage we can happily live with.

I think they mean something more along the lines of Dragonflies. They love to eat mosquitoes and their larvae.

Not that we shouldn't do it, I'm sure they can live off knats just as easily.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#69

Post by sanxiyn »

danieltillett wrote: post #9

The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not? Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene…

Note that it is far from clear [1] is what needs to be done. [1] introduces sterility using gene drive. Sterility is effective but in a sense self-defeating, and it can only suppress, not eradicate, mosquito population.

[2] demonstrates introducing malaria immunity using gene drive. To attack malaria, it is enough to immunize mosquito against malaria, instead of eradicating mosquito. Immunity is also not self-defeating and can reach 100% fixation.

2. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736.full

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#70

Post by jevinskie »

mitchtbaum wrote: post #55
danieltillett wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But how could we put it into practice? I only saw gene-level mechanics in that article. Please show me a machine that could do this at scale Figure 1C is what you need to look at. This is real mosquitoes, not genes. I think the problem is you don’t understand what a gene driver system is and how it works (it is complex genetics so there is no shame in this). The wiki article [1] is not great, but the original articl…

> The problem was until now we didn’t have a good system to actually make these drivers, we do now. Link? Again, please show me a machine that can operate at scale or even a simple demo with an inlet, a re-engineered mosquito, and an outlet. (preferably without insulting me)

The population of the species and reproduction is the system itself. You introduce a new genotype to the population. This new genotype has recessive gene that causes sterility. Because it is recessive and not dominate, this new genotype will produce offspring and further spread the gene amongst the population. A female mosquito with two modified parents will be sterile, bringing about the goal of eradication.

EDIT: Regarding the last sentence, two recessive parents are not guaranteed to produce a modified phenotype offspring. My bio is getting rusty. :)

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