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Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

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Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#51

Post by andrewflnr »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #42
indigo0086 wrote: post #10

So all benefits, no negatives?

The negative is you're disrupting the ecosystem. They reduce the mosquito lifespan's which might impact their population. Things that eat mosquitoes might have to adapt. At this point I'm prepared to accept that though. The suffering these things cause is immeasurable. I hate mosquitoes so much I wish I could nuke them.

More likely, the targeted mosquitoes are outcompeted by other mosquito or small insect species that are just as useful to whatever was dependent on the targets. There's an obvious exception for if some plant is exclusively pollinated by some disease-carrying mosquito, or other bet specific relationship, but that seems unlikely and easy to detect in advance.

People in these discussions forget that there are lots of mosquito species, most of which don't transmit diseases.

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#52

Post by stubish »

somenameforme wrote: post #11

I find these sort of things somewhat odd. Dengue is extremely unpleasant, but as the article mentions it has a 99.98% survival rate in spite of being predominantly spread in some of the most impoverished areas in the world. Wiki [1] gives even better figures than the article which yield a 99.99% survival rate, and a total hospitalization rate of 0.13%. Unforeseen consequences are a thing, and nature can evolve in dif…

Dengue has a huge emotional and economic cost beyond the dry survival rate statistics.

The article quotes a researcher flat out stating "the virus will probably find a way to overcome the Wolbachia effect". They still think their work to ease the agony and suffering of millions is worthwhile, despite it not being a magic bullet.

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#53

Post by ethanbond »

bradleybuda wrote: post #24
vGPU wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t help but feel like I’ve heard this before.

The great thing about technology is that it's possible to have new things or ways of life that are strictly better than the ones they replace! We can move beyond the efficient frontier; progress is non-zero-sum. * Golden Rice * Unleaded gas * HCFCs (over CFCs) * etc

Yes it's possible, but we really need to be cautious.

In general it's a bad idea to underestimate adaptive systems. It's especially foolish to underestimate the ultimate adaptive system: natural ecosystems. We should be extremely humble and careful when we're toying with the unfathomably complex system that we depend on. We understand very, very, very little about these things except that they're hard to predict and we really need them to continue working well enough to maintain the parameters we need for survival.

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#54

Post by ethanbond »

dan-robertson wrote: post #29
vGPU wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t help but feel like I’ve heard this before.

How often do you hear about the downsides of malaria eradication in the United States (probably spraying most of Florida with DDT would be one…)? What about screwworm fly elimination in the United States and parts of Central America? That program is much more similar to the thing described in this article than spraying every puddle with insecticide.

DDT doesn't run the risk of "running away" out of control the way biological/bacterial/viral interventions do. This is my first time hearing about screwworm and 1) wow what a nasty looking infection, and 2) boy am I glad it looks like the eradication campaign is going well! And yes the screwworm program does seem really similar to this, so especially thrilled it seems to be going well!

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#55

Post by smt88 »

Smoosh wrote: post #40
smt88 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosquitoes aren't affected by dengue. It's a human disease. Even if they were affected by it, they don't feel pain or have emotions, so they'd "choose" to live longer.

> they don't feel pain Really? > We found “strong evidence” for pain experiences in adults of two orders, Diptera (flies and mosquitoes) and Blattodea (cockroaches and termites). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00652...

Reacting to harm is not the same as suffering. As far as we know, suffering requires nerves and cognition that mosquitoes don't have (not even close).

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#56

Post by earthboundkid »

somenameforme wrote: post #19
bedobi wrote: post #12

This is hardly the place for this kind of discussion but I can't help but comment on this. Countless species are already going extinct all the time, both known to us and completely unknown to us, and both "naturally" and from human impact, and no one really cares. Here's a rare case of a species that there is very good reason to deliberately get rid of, and suddenly people care and object, a lot!? Of course there's j…

It's the means. If people wanted to look for ways to help reduce stagnant water, as a means of reducing mosquito populations, I suspect exactly 0 people would object. But releasing billions of mosquitos with a bacteria and hoping there's no natural evolution to it, and everything continues to work as planned indefinitely...? There's more than sufficient reason for skepticism there. Beyond this, I would also consider…

I'm pretty sure when they introduced the mongoose to eat rats in Hawaii, it was knowable that this was an idiotic idea because they don't eat rats. :-P

But yes, introducing new species or new variants of a species is basically a big box labelled "unintended consequences."

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#58

Post by avar »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #17

This is great news. Dengue was a constant problem in my home country of Malaysia, and remains a problem to this day. I still remember all the public education campaigns about it that I saw when I was young (random ads on TV about making sure there's no stagnant water, seeking medical help if you notice , etc), I'm very glad that there are easily implementable solutions to these problems. As a side note, I wonder why…

    > making sure there's no stagnant water[...]
A couple of months ago I found mosquito larva in some stagnant water in a parking garage, and made sure to pore some bleach into that stagnant puddle when I returned.

I've wondered if the opposite of the "no stagnant water" advice wouldn't be more effective in countries that suffer more from mosquitos. I.e. intentionally create ideal breeding ponds for mosquitos, then kill the eggs/larva/pupa before they emerge from the water as adults.

Edit: Searching some more there's commercial products which allow for the DIY creation of cheap mosquito larva traps: https://www.audubonva.org/news/how-to-set-up-a-mosquito-larv... & https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#59

Post by nicd »

avar wrote: post #58
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #17

This is great news. Dengue was a constant problem in my home country of Malaysia, and remains a problem to this day. I still remember all the public education campaigns about it that I saw when I was young (random ads on TV about making sure there's no stagnant water, seeking medical help if you notice , etc), I'm very glad that there are easily implementable solutions to these problems. As a side note, I wonder why…

> making sure there's no stagnant water[...] A couple of months ago I found mosquito larva in some stagnant water in a parking garage, and made sure to pore some bleach into that stagnant puddle when I returned. I've wondered if the opposite of the "no stagnant water" advice wouldn't be more effective in countries that suffer more from mosquitos. I.e. intentionally create ideal breeding ponds for mosquitos, then kill…

This assumes that the new ponds will pull mosquitoes away from existing ponds. Is this true? (Maybe mosquitoes are limited by suitable breeding grounds, and introducing decoys could have no effect.)

Re: Dengue rates plunged after release of lab-altered mosquitoes

#60

Post by pkaye »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #17

This is great news. Dengue was a constant problem in my home country of Malaysia, and remains a problem to this day. I still remember all the public education campaigns about it that I saw when I was young (random ads on TV about making sure there's no stagnant water, seeking medical help if you notice , etc), I'm very glad that there are easily implementable solutions to these problems. As a side note, I wonder why…

US CDC was originally created to deal with mosquitos causing malaria in the US. The US FDA also had a priority review voucher program to incentivize development a prevention or treatment for various tropical diseases including Dengue.

https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-res...

Also there have been an number of locally acquired dengue causes in the US. Maybe with climate change it might increase.

https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/statistics-maps/historic-data.htm...

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