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750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

bbc.com

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Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#21

Post by Cogito »

CapriciousCptl wrote: post #10
supernova87a wrote: post #3

Does this even sound right numbers-wise? On Tuesday, officials in the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) gave final approval to release 750 million of the modified mosquitoes over a two-year period. That would mean approx. 1M mosquitoes per day by this organization. Who is cultivating (?) or growing 1M mosquitoes per day. Isn't that like a pickup truck bed cubed size of mosquitoes, every day? Or is it bei…

Aedis aegypti go from egg to adult in about a week and lay their eggs in any standing pool of water you can find. Maybe 100 total eggs per female over several broods before they die so it’s not that hard to cultivate millions a day. Here’s a few examples— https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/https...

Your link got mangled some how, it is meant to be https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11...

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#22

Post by arentyouspecial »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

These anti-Gentically modified people are basically equivalent to anti-vaxxers. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that mosquito borne diseases are a huge public health problem and the studies are solid that using this technology to reduce mosquito populations is safe. Yet, there is always a catastrophe in the gaps type of paranoia.

And what about the animals that depend on mosquito larvae for food?

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#23

Post by pabs3 »

Fwirt wrote: post #15

Whenever this comes up I always find it interesting that nobody comments on the now 60-year ongoing program that eradicated the screwworm fly from the US by doing pretty much the same thing: releasing millions of genetically altered (sterilized by radiation!) screwworms that mate with the native population. I have no comment on the positive or negative outcomes of the environmental modifications that both programs ca…

I wonder what the trade-offs are for genetic engineering vs radiation sterilization for the mosquito situation.

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#24

Post by mosquitoh8 »

There was a study done that said in South America, these mosquitoes became more "robust". A UK company tested these GMO mosquitoes on brown people first. "Oxitec conducted pilot releases of its altered mosquitoes in Brazil, Malaysia, and the Cayman Islands, it knew the inserted gene wasn’t inevitably lethal. Lab tests had shown that when the GM males mated with wild females, roughly 3% of their offspring survived." At first, the mosquito population does decrease. After the population "rebounds", some of these mosquitoes appear to be hybrids that can reproduce in nature. Yale study report notes, ‘rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature.’

Who knows what these implications have...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6#Sec10

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#25

Post by virtue3 »

pabs3 wrote: post #23
Fwirt wrote: post #15

Whenever this comes up I always find it interesting that nobody comments on the now 60-year ongoing program that eradicated the screwworm fly from the US by doing pretty much the same thing: releasing millions of genetically altered (sterilized by radiation!) screwworms that mate with the native population. I have no comment on the positive or negative outcomes of the environmental modifications that both programs ca…

I wonder what the trade-offs are for genetic engineering vs radiation sterilization for the mosquito situation.

"The sterile insect technique was proposed by scientists Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland, and was rapidly adopted by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1958. The technique centers on a unique reproductive handicap that prevents female C. hominivorax flies from mating more than once."

From wikipedia.

So, probably not effective for mosquitos.

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#26

Post by jmgao »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #7

Didn't they already try this somewhere else and it wasn't very effective?

Verily tried it in Fresno, and it kinda worked: https://blog.debug.com/2020/01/three-great-years-of-debug-fr...

They repeatedly released sterile male mosquitos, though, instead of a gene drive, which is better from a PR standpoint, but worse from an actual effectiveness standpoint.

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#27

Post by mosquitoh8 »

ppod wrote: post #19

An interesting aspect to this debate is: what kind of actions do we sort of instinctively judge to have very large tail risk, and should we trust those judgements? Of course, the argument here is about the precautionary principle. But the precautionary principle sort of assumes that we can correctly judge which actions have potentially disastrous (non-ergodic, to use Taleb's vocab) consequences. That in itself is an…

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6#Sec10

This study is interesting. It relates to the company and what happened to the mosquitoes when they tested it in Brazil and Malaysia.

TLDR: Mosquito population became suppressed at first but rebounded to pre-release levels and some carried the genetics of the GM mosquitoes (3% survival rate and can reproduce), unknown implications of hybrid vigor.

"However, it is clear from the data in Garziera et al.6 that the effectiveness of the release program began to break down after about 18 months, i.e., the population which had been greatly suppressed rebounded to nearly pre-release levels. This has been speculated to have been due to mating discrimination against OX513A males, a phenomenon known to occur in sterile male release programs

The release strain, OX513A, was derived from a laboratory strain originally from Cuba, then outcrossed to a Mexican population7. The three populations forming the tri-hybrid population now in Jacobina (Cuba/Mexico/Brazil) are genetically quite distinct (Extended Data Fig. E2), very likely resulting in a more robust population than the pre-release population due to hybrid vigor.

These results demonstrate the importance of having in place a genetic monitoring program during releases of transgenic organisms to detect un-anticipated consequences."

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#28

Post by mosquitoh8 »

arentyouspecial wrote: post #22
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

These anti-Gentically modified people are basically equivalent to anti-vaxxers. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that mosquito borne diseases are a huge public health problem and the studies are solid that using this technology to reduce mosquito populations is safe. Yet, there is always a catastrophe in the gaps type of paranoia.

And what about the animals that depend on mosquito larvae for food?

Replace with Black Soldier Flies. But on the serious note, not all mosquitoes are 'bad'. There are over 3500 species of them. Harmless genus such as Toxorhynchites are actually helpful. The real enemies are mosquitoes from the genus Anopheles that carry Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria.

tldr: Only a hundred or so pose a risk to humans.

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#29

Post by TimTheTinker »

ppod wrote: post #19

An interesting aspect to this debate is: what kind of actions do we sort of instinctively judge to have very large tail risk, and should we trust those judgements? Of course, the argument here is about the precautionary principle. But the precautionary principle sort of assumes that we can correctly judge which actions have potentially disastrous (non-ergodic, to use Taleb's vocab) consequences. That in itself is an…

I think many people have a negative gut response to genetic modification, especially because DNA/RNA as a code has multiple overlaid meanings besides protein sequences. So there could be unintended consequences.

Personally, I’d most question the potential effect on the food chain—what if birds, for example, started developing allergies or other autoimmune issues because of this or other new/modified proteins in resulting male mosquitoes that their immune systems don’t recognize?

Re: 750M genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida

#30

Post by scarier »

Fwirt wrote: post #15

Whenever this comes up I always find it interesting that nobody comments on the now 60-year ongoing program that eradicated the screwworm fly from the US by doing pretty much the same thing: releasing millions of genetically altered (sterilized by radiation!) screwworms that mate with the native population. I have no comment on the positive or negative outcomes of the environmental modifications that both programs ca…

Tangentially related: "The Screwfly Solution" by Raccoona Sheldon is a fantastic (but pretty dark) short story.
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