US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#2This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later.
I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#3This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later. I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?
We make things worse down the road all the time. Its only that while the time goes by, we advance technologically to tackle on solving those things we made worst in the first place. Of course that makes things worse downER the road...
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#4I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale?
Makes me think of the four pests campaign. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#5This sounds like the wolbachia release of aedes egyptai mosquitoes that verily or w/e did in socal earlier in the year. Not so frightening, since it's just a sterilization technique using existing bacteria.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#6I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale? Makes me think of the four pests campaign. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
This case it's probably being done to recent invasive species... As in the ecosystem was fine before they came, and will be fine after they're gone again.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#7I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale? Makes me think of the four pests campaign. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
This case it's probably being done to recent invasive species... As in the ecosystem was fine before they came, and will be fine after they're gone again.
To be fair, depending on your definition of "fine," it could be fine now and it could be fine in the middle of an ice age.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#8This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later. I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?
Right now we're indiscriminately spraying pesticides that definitely have a harmful effect on the environment. All the evidence points to this being a better solution.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#9I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale? Makes me think of the four pests campaign. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Our current solution is for trucks to drive down the road spraying pesticides everywhere.
We know that kills far more than mosquitoes.
Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease
#10This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later. I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?
http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/...
Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues.
So when you have millions of people dying every year from a cause on one hand and only vaguely specified fears of some nebulous future harm, the reasonable and ethical thing to do is to do what you can to eliminate mosquitoes.