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Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

journals.plos.org

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Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#21

Post by eru »

shaburn wrote: post #17
eru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?

Extremely probable as well as extremely dangerous outcome. Analogous to the risk of ruin in finance, not simply an undesirable out probability. Should we not believe the research above to contain 1/3 insects tested carried pathogenic parasites? Does this not strike you as extreme. Potentially an order or orders of magnitude more dangerous?

Eating insects is about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago.

If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks.

I don't really have any opinion on this, nor any horse in the race.

But, what does any of this have to do with exponentials?

> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...]

Exponential in what input variable?

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#23

Post by asien »

shaburn wrote: post #8
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO. On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them. And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my moth…

These are trivial quantities that are unreasonable to reference.

That’s correct.

The startup Ynsect at the moment is targeting Fish Farming not human.

What would be the impact over many generations of that type of food ?

I’m scared of the “SuperBug” type of disease that would be resistant to antibiotics because it’s been dormant in us for too long...

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#24

Post by sneak »

eru wrote: post #10
shaburn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the brakes should be slammed until that is answered. Unless we want another pandemic. Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.

> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?

exponential has come into popular usage to mean “really high”, i.e. not exponential. I frequently see it used to refer to single values that aren’t even in a time series, or in comparison to one single previous value (“exponentially higher”) when that is, of course, a mathematical impossibility.

It’s similar to how unconscious is now commonly used to mean subconscious (i.e. not unconscious) and literally is commonly used to mean not literally.

It troubles me that our specific words are getting watered down by pop usage, like sharp tools being blunted. This is different than my usual prescriptivist screeching.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#26

Post by eru »

asien wrote: post #18
eru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?

The probability of Covid type pandemic become closer to 1 the more bugs farm they’re. The lethality of of that type of outbreak become stronger the longer the we ignore that threat. It’s just pure Maths to be honest.

I don't know whether what you are saying is true. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that it is.

Could you explain to me what is exponential about this process?

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#27

Post by jeanlou »

ars wrote: post #4
shaburn wrote: post #3

"Parasitic developmental forms were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites were potentially pathogenic for humans. " Sounds horrific. How does this compare to other food sources?

We've been eating other foods for a very long time, and we've developed methods to handle, and prevent, the parasites. Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking. The list of methods is enormous. We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.

I assume in the Western part of the world, you haven't been eating insects in normal times, but it's not the case in other regions.

In my country for instance, people eat termites, crickets, caterpillars/larvae of rynchophorus, Augosoma centurus among others.

They are a considerable source of nutriments such as proteins and lipids.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#28

Post by eru »

sneak wrote: post #24
eru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?

exponential has come into popular usage to mean “really high”, i.e. not exponential. I frequently see it used to refer to single values that aren’t even in a time series, or in comparison to one single previous value (“exponentially higher”) when that is, of course, a mathematical impossibility. It’s similar to how unconscious is now commonly used to mean subconscious (i.e. not unconscious) and literally is commonly…

I suspect that is the case here. Though I had hoped that there would be some interesting mathematical model that Shaburn had in mind, because they mentioned something about rates:

> Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#29

Post by neodypsis »

neodypsis wrote: post #20

Having eating crickets in Mexico in the past, now I'm concerned.

BTW, is there a way to test for these parasites (the rest-of-body kind mentioned in Table 1 [0])?

[0] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#30

Post by thematrixturtle »

shaburn wrote: post #9
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the right question. And other food sources from similar farmers.

I think the brakes should be slammed until that is answered. Unless we want another pandemic. Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.

If you eat any sort of processed agricultural produce (wheat, rice, juice, tomato paste etc), you're already eating lots of bugs that got processed along the way.
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