Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
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Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#2This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria.
It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well, ivermectin is the compound.
God, science journalism from scientifically illiterate rehashes of press releases is always such garbage.
The actual trial they are discussing doesn’t address using bacteria at all. It is directly the question of “if we repeatedly give ivermectin (the drug) to a population, can we reduce malaria transmission?” ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ) studied in 8 villages for 18 weeks during peak malaria season. With approx 75% participation, malaria incidence dropped around 20%.
Please let’s change the link to the Lancet article.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#3This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria. It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well,…
Yeah, the summary (blood deadly to mosquitoes) seems completely unrelated to the rest of the article.
I'm disappointed by the quality of this article.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#4This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria. It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well,…
It almost sounds as if the journalist believes Ivermectin _is_ a bacteria and a drug derived from it is killing malaria. Agreed that this smacks of sloppy science journalism.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#5I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering).
I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc).
Anyone know what happened to it? If that were to come to fruition than a lot of disease in addition to malaria like chikungunya, dengue, etc will be cured too.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#6From the press article:
> Child malaria episodes could be reduced by up to 20% if populations living in high-risk areas are given Ivermectin, [....]
> An expert, independent from the study, said reports of resistance to the current class of malaria drugs are on the rise. [...] “There are cases of the drugs being sold over the counter, leading to their resistance and overuse. [...]”
If the plan is to give everyone the new drug, why don't they expect to get resistant strains soon?
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#7>science journalism
I think this is the case for pretty much every area of journalism. If you are a subject matter expert, you quickly realize that 90% of coverage of that subject is dreadful.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#8I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that we…
This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week.
The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The debate is around whether or not this will upset balance in ecosystems (many feel it will not).
This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. Then there are others who are in general opposed to this sort of interference in an animal population on ethical grounds.
Related article: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wip...
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#9I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that we…
This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The deba…
> This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data.
This is so infuriating. Many people will die during this extended hemming and hawing.
Humans have driven countless important species to extinction with no thought, but we have to vacillate over a species that is responsible for more deaths than all the wars in human history combined?
My only reservation about driving the mosquitoes to extinction with a gene drive is that we can't guarantee that the mosquitoes will suffer.
Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite
#10I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that we…
This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The deba…
>Then there are others who are in general opposed to this sort of interference in an animal population on ethical grounds.
There are over 250,000 children under the age of 5 that die every year from malaria. In my ethical system, there is very little that can possibly justify trying to prevent something that will save the lives of 250,000 children a year. Anyone who actively tries to delay wiping out malaria causing mosquitoes is classified with climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers.