What are the consequences of genetically altering ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes to control their populations?

[KLiKzg]

yeah true, from what I understand a phase 3 trial of a vaccine is just finishing in Finland

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-valneva-initiate-phase-3-study-lyme-disease#:~:text=The%20randomized%2C%20placebo%2Dcontrolled%2C,Sweden%20and%20the%20United%20States.

from the link:

The randomized, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 VALOR study is planned to enroll approximately 6,000 participants 5 years of age and older. The study is being conducted at up to 50 sites located in areas where Lyme disease is highly endemic, including Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United States.

and an updated article:

Valneva's Lyme disease vaccine candidate yields promising early results

The vaccine candidate was safe and produced a strong but waning immune response against the six most common strains of the Borrelia burgdorferi.

www.cidrap.umn.edu

although annual VLA15 boosters would be required to maintain protection against Lyme disease, the vaccine

so the vaccine works, but not a slam dunk as you will need a booster every year. damn that sucks, but if i lived in the NorthEast USA I would 100% be trying to get this vaccine.

lyme disease is different than other diseases ticks give though... so seems like you might need multiple shots...

I guess they would make it for dogs next...very soon & for yearly vaccinations.

 

[remixedcat]

I'd say leave em alone you never know if they can carrier to diseases that can wipe put the natural population causing the food chain disruptions!! It's allready happening!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I'm sure the 600,000+ people that die every year from Malaria won't miss the mosquito.

Ultimately the goal of something like this will really be population control, anyone that has seen mosquito larva almost magically appear in any standing body of water without ever seeing or being bitten by an adult mosquito knows those things aren't going to get wiped out anytime soon.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'm sure the 600,000+ people that die every year from Malaria won't miss the mosquito.

Ultimately the goal of something like this will really be population control, anyone that has seen mosquito larva almost magically appear in any standing body of water without ever seeing or being bitten by an adult mosquito knows those things aren't going to get wiped out anytime soon.

I'm really surprised the number is that high still. Wild. I just read 96% of all malaria deaths occur in Africa, very interesting. I wonder if shifting climate patterns will make it so the malaria mosquito makes its to way to many other areas on Earth and that 600k number quadruples within the next decade or two (its easy to say the medicine will be there for those other countries, but with climate change will come catastrophe in industries and supply chains) I find it very strange the world came together on Covid and helped African countries get vaccines for covid and other diseases, but the rest of the world doesn't seem to come together to get malaria medicine to Africa in sufficient number, as the death rate seems pretty stable year over year. Humans make no sense to me.

 

[the54thvoid]

There's a lot of science and info on that here:

https://www.science.org/content/article/malaria-cases-could-ebb-even-hotter-world-other-diseases-will-get-worse

It's not as simple as shifting climates spreading malaria. There is evidence it goes both ways. As for why has the world not bothered with Africa? Apart from private individuals and charities, it's all about the investment and lack of return, as well as the fact it's not likely to be globally impacting. But billions have been spent over the years.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I'm really surprised the number is that high still. Wild. I just read 96% of all malaria deaths occur in Africa, very interesting. I wonder if shifting climate patterns will make it so the malaria mosquito makes its to way to many other areas on Earth and that 600k number quadruples within the next decade or two (its easy to say the medicine will be there for those other countries, but with climate change will come catastrophe in industries and supply chains) I find it very strange the world came together on Covid and helped African countries get vaccines for covid and other diseases, but the rest of the world doesn't seem to come together to get malaria medicine to Africa in sufficient number, as the death rate seems pretty stable year over year. Humans make no sense to me.

Many effort shave been made to eliminate Malaria over the last 50 years; considering the WHO first attempted to wipe it out in the 1960s, it's ignorant to claim the world doesnt care. Hundreds of billions have been spent to try and wipe it out. I remember the drives we had to buy malaria nets for africa in school over 20 years ago.

The reality is that malaria is REALLY hard to eradicate. Not because of the parasite itself, it can only host in humans and can be treated with medication. The single largest issue with africa is......well, its africa. Huge portions of that continent still resemble life 300 years ago. Poverty is rampant. You need modern waste containment systems, road infrastructure, and medical facilities to both treat patients and limit the spread. In the west, we treat mosquitos. We have sprays, and chemicals, that limit their spread. We remove standing water so they cant breed, ece. Even then, we still have cases and deaths. Mostly carried from international travel, but not always. The argument goes that, if we modernize africa, much of this could be done. Of course, that hasnt worked out well, one can look at the collapse of countries like zimbabwe, the slow collapse of south africa, or the coup in Libya. All the positive emotions and construction wont help if war and destruction keep following.

This is why the genetic modification of mosquitos is being considered. The species that carry diseases like malaria and west nile are considered "pests", they are not a part of any major food chain for any other animal. The spread of genetically modified skeeters can be done without the constant follow up that malaria treatments require.

I'd say leave em alone you never know if they can carrier to diseases that can wipe put the natural population causing the food chain disruptions!! It's allready happening!

We DO know they carry diseases that can wipe out natural populations, thats why we want to get rid of them.

 

[Space Lynx]

Many effort shave been made to eliminate Malaria over the last 50 years; considering the WHO first attempted to wipe it out in the 1960s, it's ignorant to claim the world doesnt care. Hundreds of billions have been spent to try and wipe it out.

Africa to my knowledge gets plenty of HIV medication to cover everyone. I see no reason why malaria couldn't be included in that. The same logic applies, HIV medicine isn't profitable, but to my knowledge all of Africa, even the poorest of the poor can get it. I just went down the list of several Africa countries, and they all offer free HIV medication. Maleria can be cured with medicine. Big pharma is obviously helping/allowing these countries in Africa to make HIV medicine dirt cheap, so same could be done for maleria... I don't understand... maybe WHO is stupid? Cause they seem to have HIV medication supply chain figured out, if they can do it for one, why not the other...

 

[remixedcat]

Many effort shave been made to eliminate Malaria over the last 50 years; considering the WHO first attempted to wipe it out in the 1960s, it's ignorant to claim the world doesnt care. Hundreds of billions have been spent to try and wipe it out. I remember the drives we had to buy malaria nets for africa in school over 20 years ago.

The reality is that malaria is REALLY hard to eradicate. Not because of the parasite itself, it can only host in humans and can be treated with medication. The single largest issue with africa is......well, its africa. Huge portions of that continent still resemble life 300 years ago. Poverty is rampant. You need modern waste containment systems, road infrastructure, and medical facilities to both treat patients and limit the spread. In the west, we treat mosquitos. We have sprays, and chemicals, that limit their spread. We remove standing water so they cant breed, ece. Even then, we still have cases and deaths. Mostly carried from international travel, but not always. The argument goes that, if we modernize africa, much of this could be done. Of course, that hasnt worked out well, one can look at the collapse of countries like zimbabwe, the slow collapse of south africa, or the coup in Libya. All the positive emotions and construction wont help if war and destruction keep following.

This is why the genetic modification of mosquitos is being considered. The species that carry diseases like malaria and west nile are considered "pests", they are not a part of any major food chain for any other animal. The spread of genetically modified skeeters can be done without the constant follow up that malaria treatments require.


We DO know they carry diseases that can wipe out natural populations, thats why we want to get rid of them.

genetically altered bees can possibly kill off native bees...

 

[Aquinus]

There's a lot of science and info on that here:

https://www.science.org/content/article/malaria-cases-could-ebb-even-hotter-world-other-diseases-will-get-worse

It's not as simple as shifting climates spreading malaria. There is evidence it goes both ways. As for why has the world not bothered with Africa? Apart from private individuals and charities, it's all about the investment and lack of return, as well as the fact it's not likely to be globally impacting. But billions have been spent over the years.

Why invest in Africa when you have Americans with private insurance who can be convinced to pay $1,000 for a single monthly dose of a medication? The sad reality is that Africa isn't where the money is at, unless you start talking about natural resources and rare earth metals, in which case the world is more than happy to exploit them. Places like the DRC might not realize it, but their natural resources are a huge point of leverage that they're not taking advantage of. It's a pity that they fight amongst themselves so often and also tend to fall into corruption.

Africa to my knowledge gets plenty of HIV medication to cover everyone. I see no reason why malaria couldn't be included in that. The same logic applies, HIV medicine isn't profitable, but to my knowledge all of Africa, even the poorest of the poor can get it. I just went down the list of several Africa countries, and they all offer free HIV medication. Maleria can be cured with medicine. Big pharma is obviously helping/allowing these countries in Africa to make HIV medicine dirt cheap, so same could be done for maleria... I don't understand... maybe WHO is stupid? Cause they seem to have HIV medication supply chain figured out, if they can do it for one, why not the other...

Cost. HIV medication became cheap when it became a western problem and produced at scale. A valid argument can be made that Europe and North America and Australia don't have to deal with it (malaria,) so the resources haven't been invested in ramping up production and improving cost like it had been with HIV/AIDS.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

We were actually quite close to eradicating malaria by using DDT, but it was banned due to concerns over environmental effects.

This is a difficult subject, because there is no clear-cut solution there, only tradeoffs:

DDT and Malaria Prevention: Addressing the Paradox

The debate regarding dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in malaria prevention and human health is polarized and can be classified into three positions: anti-DDT, centrist-DDT, pro-DDT.We attempted to arrive at a synthesis by matching a series of questions ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[DavidC1]

It's absolutely a crazy idea to mess with something so fundamental.

Analyzing the Japanese Apple farmer that managed to get his Apple trees to grow successfully without pesticides or herbicides shows that they ALL play a part. Most fruit trees are extremely sensitive to conditions of the soil and will not even flower, nevermind fruit until it is good and then the roots will become larger.

With bad quality soil,

The "pests" come such as mosquitoes and other insects, and weeds grow. Most so-called weeds are very resilient to adverse conditions so they grow in soil that farmers would call useless. By offering shade over the ground away from Sun's heat and UV rays, it starts to get moist and creates bacteria. The interaction among countless bacteria, worms, insects, plants, and animals is what eventually creates a healthy ecosystem.

Essentially insects such as mosquitoes and flies are responsible for cleaning up the environment, and establishing a base for other animals to come in.

One guy who knows about this jokingly calls mosquitoes a defense against humans that come to mess up the land. While weeding and flipping the contents of the soil upside down as done in modern mass farming practices helps in the short term and maximize yield, long term it degrades the soil exactly because the Sun comes in and kills all the unseen ecosystem(bacteria). Then herbicide and pesticides start becoming mandatory. I'm pretty sure any genetic modifications will bring even worse pests to clean up the mess immoral scientists have made.

You are essentially babying the plants you are trying to grow, so eventually like babies they become susceptible to any bit of adverse conditions and become weak and frail.

 

[Space Lynx]

It's absolutely a crazy idea to mess with something so fundamental.

That's partially why I made this thread, because they are already doing it with genetically modified mosquitoes. So it presents an interesting moral dilemma, I thought it would be neat to discuss. It has been so far.

 

[DavidC1]

That's partially why I made this thread, because they are already doing it with genetically modified mosquitoes. So it presents an interesting moral dilemma, I thought it would be neat to discuss. It has been so far.

Most scientists doing this must either believe a) Nature is fixed b) They have no morals.

Chernobyl has mushrooms that hasn't been seen in any other place in the world. They live off of radiation. So again they act as cleaners that pave the way for more complex organisms that isn't as resilient.

Gene modification will likely result in further mutation resulting in unknown, more "bothersome" pests to clean up after irresponsible humans again. Even us humans are adaptable immediately(behavior-wise), short-term(like adapting to different weather), and likely long term(multiple generations).

 

[Lew Zealand]

Most scientists doing this must either believe a) Nature is fixed b) They have no morals.

c) Neither of these. How did you come up with that opinion?

Chernobyl has mushrooms that hasn't been seen in any other place in the world. They live off of radiation. So again they act as cleaners that pave the way for more complex organisms that isn't as resilient.

They may tolerate radiation well, which some organisms do better than others. Radiosynthesis is only a claim and not well supported by experimental data. They still obtain nourishment from typical sources in the soil. Details are important and again they're missing from your claims.

Gene modification will likely result in further mutation resulting in unknown, more "bothersome" pests to clean up after irresponsible humans again. Even us humans are adaptable immediately(behavior-wise), short-term(like adapting to different weather), and likely long term(multiple generations).

How will they "likely result" in further mutation? This demonstrates a lack of understanding of how gene modification works, similar to the claim above it.

 

[R-T-B]

mosquitoes

Are literally blood-sucking parasites, and as such, a pretty major vector for bloodborne disease. They are certainly not "cleaning up" jack shit.

immoral scientists

Scientists have ethics too, you know.

Chernobyl has mushrooms that hasn't been seen in any other place in the world.

Not only are they also in other places in the world, but they weren't even ever claimed to only be discovered at Chernobyl:

Radiotrophic fungus - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

c) Neither of these. How did you come up with that opinion?

Yeah, that is quite the bold claim he's making. How about: Nature isn't perfect? It's more chaos in action and without guidance, couldn't give two shits about us?

 

[Space Lynx]

I watched this recently, how they control the fruit fly with radiation to damage reproduction similar to mosquitoes without the genetic editing, interesting. It seems to solve their problems anyway.