
Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil - enqk
https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-in-brazil/a-50414340
======
noname120
The linked article (edit: it has been changed) is rather confusing so I'd like
to highlight the fact that the underlying study[1] hints at two very specific
observations:

1) The effectiveness started to decrease after 18 months: the population of
_Ae. aegypti_ progressively returned back to its normal levels—and this
despite the continued release every week of 450 thousand males of the modified
strain.

2) Some hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina
population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature. Even
though it was thought previously that they would be too weak to reproduce and
thus not pass the modified genes to their offspring.

The first observation is concerning because this means that this technique
might only work in the short-term. This is probably not a silver bullet to
eradicate mosquito-borne diseases.

The second observation is probably much more worrying because it hints at
unwanted side effects. We don't know yet the exact consequences of having
these hybrid strains roaming free in nature. The most likely explanation
however is that since they are weaker, they'll be progressively selected out
and disappear.

[1]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6.pdf)

~~~
rebuilder
More generally, and IMO the most important point: an assumption was made that
the modified animals would not be able to reproduce. This turns out not to be
the case, and therefore the genetic modifications made are now in the wild.

In this case, as far as I can tell, there's little cause for alarm. But with a
different alteration, things might be worse, and one wonders about the
robustness of the decision making process at play here.

~~~
devoply
Did no one watch Jurassic Park? You can't put genetic alterations in the
environment and expect them not to propagate. The idea that this is possible
has been proven multiple times to be utterly and completely false. No matter
what the level of care or control. You put it out there, and there is any
possibility for it to proliferate... it will proliferate. Period. People don't
learn they still think they are in control, you know that they are crazy. Just
like you think anyone saying something like this is.

~~~
cwp
The only lessons to be learned from Jurassic Park are

a) Michael Crichton is a better writer than people think b) Wow, this CGI
thing is going to be huge!

It's fiction. It did well because it tapped into the zeitgeist and gave form
to people's fears. It is not evidence that those fears are justified.

~~~
moron4hire
The original Jurassic Park only used CG for the weird animated DNA stand.
There dinosaurs were animatronic.

~~~
Robotbeat
No: [https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-
pa...](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cgi-works-in-jurassic-park-2014-7)

------
phyzome
« However, it was already known from previous laboratory experiments that a
small proportion of about three to four percent of OX513A descendants can
reach adulthood; the scientists had assumed that those would be too weak to
reproduce. »

Ugh! This release should never have passed review.

~~~
ImaCake
I agree. Any biologist worth their salt would see that result and imagine the
outcome that we got. Unlike physics and chemistry, where a set of trials will
behave in a mathematically nice way, biology experiments are notoriously
variable. You will get outliers, and they will be weirder than you can
imagine.

------
tomp
How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that
GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as
creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now
inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-
producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit?

That's my knee-jerk conclusion, I'd be really interested in hearing
counterarguments.

~~~
wetpaws
Life by definition is a process of genetic modification

~~~
anigbrowl
Truisms don't make for productive discussions. Picture yourself receiving a
cancer diagnosis followed by your statement above.

~~~
wetpaws
How is cancer related to gmo? You know what is also bad? Traffic jam and rain.
And flu. And clowns, I hate them.

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh, you're just trolling. Bye.

------
cameronbrown
Enough people said this was a bad idea to expect this outcome.

~~~
magashna
There was a thread the other day with outright anger that we should be doing
anything to curb Malaria, including these kind of tests.

~~~
corodra
That's the problem. A lot of people thought that saying "This won't work and
could make things potentially worse" was equivalent to "I think people should
die of Malaria".

I remember this experiment coming out on HN (different account) and voiced
that it's would more than likely not work and if we're lucky, won't have an
adverse affect. I got ripped as a flat out racist because I wanted black
people to die of malaria.

We're better off trying to increase dragonfly populations to consume
mosquitoes (which they do). But then we risk increase sparrow and other bird
populations with the increase in food supply, which could then migrate to
consuming more grain crops.

Currently larvacide using 2 different hormones (depending on targeted breeds),
not found in any other animal or insect thus far seems to be the best route in
curbing mosquito populations with, after 20 years of field use, have no to
little impact on the ecosystem.

~~~
bayesian_horse
The problem with those arguments is that no potential harm through such
genetic modifications has been demonstrated yet.

Even those mosquitoes surviving has done no harm.

A downside to Hormones is that you need to find the breeding grounds.
Potentially every puddle or container of water. However, the modified male
mosquitoes are like homing missiles.

~~~
corodra
And again, just like the others in the past who I argued with, you read
nothing I put down. You saw hormone and knee jerked.

The hormones in question are not found in other animals, and has been widely
tested for a decade prior to field use in Florida. Working off my memory from
diving into this a few years ago, the hormones are what regulate the dissolve
rate of the shell pupa to adult stage. It's introduced at a seasonal time for
the larva to be in bodies of water, after certain storms. The hormone they put
in, stop the shell/casing from softening so the adult mosquito is essentially
buried alive.

The reason why the gm wasn't going to work was the low affected rate of
mosquitoes. In rainy areas, the breeding cycle and amount is high enough so
about a few months later, they're either resistant due to evolution or the
affected pools were just absolutely meaningless to begin with. Let's add in,
Ae. aegypti eggs, and most aedes, for example, are recorded to survive 8-14
months dry and hatch around a week after first moisture. The whole
"experiment" was already a complete waste of time from day 1. The mosquito is
a resistant SOB survivor to begin with. These "homing missiles", which failed,
equates to using a single shot pellet rifle against a swarm of yellow jackets.
Aedes is not a genus to take lightly. And actual field scientists who deal
with it on a serious basis and do actual real useful work, know that. The
breeding grounds are typical too. It's only after heavy storms where people
have buckets out are real problems. And new developments that displace land.
But they're normally figured out in a few months and thrown on the list.

My fear with gm in anything in the animalia kingdom comes to what genes become
expressed more with the lack of expression in another. Especially over time if
the sterilization factor didn't pane out as well as hoped. A 0.01% fail rate
in sterilization to a creature like Ae. Aegypti (150-300 egg lay rate, 2-3 lay
cycles, 10 day egg to adult) can be disastrous. Look, if the prior articles
about the research went "We have evidence that it works, but we're afraid of
unexpected fallout, thus we're testing for any potential adverse effects..."
I'm chill with that. I want to see that succeed. They understand the risks and
work to minimize those risks as best as possible. Cool. But every god damn
time I see gene manipulators do anything with a wide scale insect like
mosquitoes, they just Silicon Valley rush into it "Yea, we did it for 2 months
and it works and we're going to release it into the wild". Like a Cali group
wanted to do a few months ago, I want to scream. It's Mao's dumbass 4 pest
crusade all fucking over again. Without a shred of thought into such a complex
system that is the environment. Yea, break things fast. Who cares about
consequences. Not like we have enough environmental fucking problems as is.
Let's play Life on Earth on hardcore mode some more.

But oh no, a program that was in lab research for a decade before actual use.
University oversight and testing to make sure only minimal amounts are used so
any type of kickback can be contained quickly. And after 2 decades of use.
That bad. Real bad. We should do shitty testing for a few months and consider
it golden. Let's not forget, there's a group of assholes doing the same by
genetically modifying a fungus to produce a type of venom to kill mosquitoes.
I'd laugh at that stupid idea if it was left to hollywood. But there's a
research group literally trying to do that, and they're having some initial
success.

I am just absolutely sick and tired of people thinking 2+2+I want to save the
world=22. And that's all I see in this garbage. While these red herring
dumbass ideas have large sums of money thrown at them, people ARE FUCKING
DYING because of this instead of that money going into either using proven
methods or policies to minimize breeding rates or even just medical aid. I'm
all for finding new ways. I wouldn't visit a tech news aggregate if I wasn't.
But "new" doesn't automatically mean it's better. Without that respect to
reality, it's doomed to fail.

~~~
salawat
Hey. In the poster's defense, they stated specifically the downside of
hormones was you had to treat every breeding location, which consists of every
puddle or stagnant body of water, which includes the necessity of synthesizing
and delivering the hormone to every candidate breeding ground.

The idea behind the gene manipulation circumvented that logistical challenge
since the males would do that job anyway.

My major issue was the lack of equivalently extensive testing w.r.t the gene
therapy and whether the first crossing offspring were guaranteed to be
unviable in the lab that the hormones did.

He did address your argument. I'm not one of the ones downvoting you, and I
understand your irritation/frustration. Mucking around with the genome,
without any proven capacity to calculate some reasonable simulation of
potential ecological side effects seems fraught with danger to me as well.
Whether people are dying or not doesn't detract from the fact we are trying to
do something. Reality is just a real wench when she won't play ball with
(elegant solution of the week).

Chin up. We learned something. We regroup, reconsider the route forward, and
try again.

 _And have yet another problem created by our own hand to keep a finger on..._

~~~
corodra
It's a touchy subject for me because I try working on it in my spare time.

My point is this, in Florida, there's a shitload of policy, gov action and
procedure to keep mosquito populations at a minimum. It use to be spray trucks
were a weekly thing when I was a kid in the summer (90s). It's not that way
anymore. In most cases, mosquito populations are no where near as bad compared
to when I was a kid. Mostly. It can still be bad if you go outside city
limits. There's a long line of procedures that can be taught to other
countries, which are cheap, that can already put a good dent in excessive
mosquito population sizes. The hormones does another really big dent. Then
there's the last resort spray trucks. The spray trucks come out when the
commissioner acknowledges that failures in the chain have occurred. That's
what I'm trying to get at. Different counties here consider a disease outbreak
from mosquitoes at around 5-15 cases in a 2-5 mile radius within a week time
span. The rest of the world does not have those numbers. They wait till the
hundreds because they can't do anything. That's where we should start at
before we look for miracle cures. And a lot of these are education and light
field work that can be implemented cheaply. Either funded by local economies
or aid. Which, we already do a fuckton of aid as it is. The one they really
can't do is waterworks control which does play a major factor for us in FL.
But there's still a lot that can be done before looking for unicorn farts. The
disease transfer rate sort of works out like viral herd immunity (loosely).
Because zika, malaria, dengue, etc, don't have a 100% incubation rate in the
specific species of mosquito. However, there is a 100% transfer from mosquito
to human (from what I know). But if you decrease mosquito populations around
humans so the likelihood of incubation diminishes, you can see a good sized
decrease in disease cases. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better
than what's going on now.

I just wish that spreading current, effective and efficient knowledge would be
the one getting funding.

~~~
salawat
The issue is there is a big difference between Florida and Africa.

Think about it. That hormone spray gets synthesized somewhere(on the same
continent), loaded onto trucks (which are fueled, from gas reserves that are
themselves kept constantly supplied and properly mixed, (by power generated
somewhere else and delivered by reconstructed and maintained
infrastructure(kept working by so on, and so forth, and so on...))),

There is a LOT of advantages that the U.S. has in regard to that sort of
logistics. Not all of that may necessarily apply in Africa such that fleets of
large capacity tanker/sprayer trucks filled with hormone solution can be
trivially mobilized.

That's why this genetic shtick was so attractive. No trucks needed, no fuel or
solution airlifted. Just a bunch skeeters that do all the hard work of getting
the fix where it needed to go.

It was honestly looking too good to be true but also suffered from being too
good not to try.

~~~
corodra
I can't find the papers, but larvacides are not normally field used in trucks.
They're usage is 1-2 gallon per ground acre with a dude wearing a hand pump
backpack sprayer and when used in water, are dispersed by small row boats.
Each area of the water is tested for concentration of larva and given the body
of water and amount of larva found, a dosage is implemented. Now, that's not
to say they aren't used in airplane dusters and in trucks as well. But that's
not the main method of delivery. There are people in small outboard motor
boats going through the Florida swamps putting this stuff in.

And yes, we do have a lot of great infrastructure in comparison. Fully aware
of this. This doesn't mean that Africa is full of invalids that cannot adapt
and overcome. Plus, don't think Africa is just some paleolithic continent.
They do have industry and infrastructure. Not to western levels. But it's not
all mud huts. But if aid money is going to be spent on combating mosquito
borne diseases in third world countries, I want to see that money actually
working for long term results. I'm fine with testing new methods. There's
nothing wrong with that. But people keep jumping into these silver bullet
schemes and ignore the tried and true methods because it's "antiquated". What
I hate seeing is the public seeing these unicorn fart projects and thinking
"There's the solution, no need to do anything else we've been doing." Because
then policy makers think the same bullshit. And sadly, I'm not exaggerating.
Whenever these pop up, comment boards always ring up "Why aren't we shoving
all the money at this?". Because it's fucking stupid. That's why. The basic
math doesn't even work in their best case scenario. And, I've said it
elsewhere, I'm no mosquito expert. This is a side project/passion of mine. And
I predicted the exact outcome after most of my knowledge stemming from a
weekend reading papers and gov based mosquito control history (it's actually a
~100 year old scientific endeavor with a really rich and fascinating history,
to me at least). But if a total dumbass like me is able to know what's going
to happen and why it won't work, come on, seriously? I'm the first one to say,
I'm a moron. But if I'm smarter at this topic than these "long time
researchers", wtf? Caveat, not to say there aren't a lot of amazing
entomologists out there doing great work. There's plenty. But I don't want to
see half-ass-shitheads getting the money and glory compared to the real
entomologists who are legit in making a real effort to leaving this world in a
better way than how they came into it.

The genetic shtick is so attractive because it's sexy and lazy. That's why.
Take a million bucks and you get to pick work in an A/C lab to make
genetically modified mosquitoes that have a slim chance (at best) of working
or buy half a million dollars worth of larvacide, go out into the heat of
Africa/Asia/S. America to teach people how to test and apply it, and if any
money is leftover from travel/manpower/etc, spend time in a hot and dangerous
3rd world countries to setup either small scale infrastructure projects or edu
facilities for long term results. It's not hard too figure out which most
people will gravitate to.

~~~
salawat
Ya know, I've really go nothing further to say to challenge what you've said.

As far as I can figure, you're absolutely right. Or at least in the right
ballpark.

------
daxfohl
I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their
extinction would have little to no ecological effect.

However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked
would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable
due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some
ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this potential outcome
thoroughly.

~~~
daddylonglegs
The claim I've heard is that any one (or a few) species of mosquito is not
important. There are thousands of species of mosquito and plenty of other
biting insects. A few species are responsible for almost all of the mosquito-
borne transmission of deadly human diseases. Eliminating those species should
hugely reduce malaria but have little to no impact on wildlife that feed on
insects (and you would still get bitten by plenty of insects in the tropics).

Tsetse flies and the diseases they transmit have a major effect on keeping
livestock in Africa; and hence the ecology and landscape of the affected
areas. Removing the burden of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes will probably
have indirect effects on a similar scale. Worth it.

~~~
jschwartzi
Correct me off I'm wrong but wouldn't livestock grazing in previously
uninhabitable regions have effects like reducing foliage and attendant
erosion? This is the same reason the state parks where I live require you to
stay on trail when the trail is maintained. The tens of thousands of people
walking wherever have destroyed some hillsides by damaging foliage and causing
erosion.

------
JackFr
At a macro level, one would expect that the 'baseline' mosquito population
represents an equilibrium level due to competing factors within in the local
environment.

While it seems very clear that releasing the GM mosquitos would never
permanently alter this equilibrium, it's not obvious to me (not a biologist)
that it would even work with continuing release of the GM mosquitos. It seems
to assume that the limiting factor on population is the number of offspring.
If the limiting factor were competition for food or some other resource it
seems like other mosquitos would fill in to replace the GM ones who died
early.

~~~
bayesian_horse
As far as I know they only release males, so the males will inevitably
impregnate a certain number of normal females, which will have weaker
offspring.

So no, it's not a permanent fix, because the survivors will repopulate the
ecosystem over time. But there was a significant collapse of the population
for a time. And that's a win, in terms of Malaria prevention.

~~~
bencollier49
And a loss, for all their predators?

~~~
bayesian_horse
They can cope.

There is nothing natural about any population size in the mosquitoes we are
concerned about. They don't procreate in natural ponds, most of the times, but
in whatever bodies of water the Humans provided them through one way or
another.

And even then, those populations boom and bust all the time, without further
intervention. We'd just rather like them to go more bust than boom, in
general.

------
ianai
Despite this failure, I still think the species should be targeted for
extinction. What are our options?

~~~
bencollier49
And presumably all the birds will have plenty of other things to eat, right?

~~~
robbrown451
There is no species of bird for which mosquitos are particularly important to
their diet.

Even if the number of certain birds or bats were somewhat reduced, I'd accept
that tradeoff.

------
inciampati
Life finds a way, and more so when populations are huge and genomes are
diverse. Not exactly a surprising result.

Maybe with another ten or twenty years of experience and technique in genome
sequencing and interpretation we will be able to engineer a reliable gene
drive.

~~~
shiyoon
the risk in making a mistake doing these trial runs could be huge
though......they still don't know the impact this will have on the local
ecosystem there across generations....Gene driving is a pandoras box that has
the potential to decimate entire ecosystems by accident with irreversible
consequences.

I keep thinking this is how the zombie apocalypse will happen lol

~~~
WalterBright
> I keep thinking this is how the zombie apocalypse will happen lol

Since zombies violate the laws of physics, there's no need to worry about
that.

------
markbnj
I really didn't get this idea when it was first proposed, and I still don't.
I'm about as far from an expert as you can get, but it seems to me that if you
modify the genes of a wild population such that they produce less viable
offspring you've just reduced their evolutionary fitness. That would leave a
gap to be exploited by the members of the species whose genes you did not
modify. On the surface anyway it seems like that might be what happened here.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I remember Oxitec or a related entity mentioning at the time that it was not a
permanent solution, but would need to be repeated every year to re-suppress
the population.

------
crawfordcomeaux
When will we stop pretending like silver bullet solutions exist and that we
can tamper with natural systems like this without introducing impactful
unintended consequences?

We've repeatedly observed that what happens in the lab has little to do with
what happens in nature, yet we ignore this lesson routinely and dangerously.

Does science have a learning disorder? Could it be, in part, a lack of
humility?

~~~
Nasrudith
Science can no more have a learning disorder than binary numbering systems can
have a color, books can think. To blame science is a hopeless reification and
insane as a murderer trying to claim innocence because it was crime that
killed the victim and not them.

We have in fact solved mosquitoes before but I suspect you would like the side
effects even less because everyone would. Filling in swamps and wetlands
completely, and mass less than selective insecticide sprayings were how it was
done before. They did in fact sicken and kill people through side effects via
reduced water quality and exposure to toxins but far fewer than malaria even
in the short term. Humanity is frankly terrifying when they are angered enough
to cause extinctions deliberately instead of through callousness or accident.
Genetic engineering /is/ trying the less harmful option.

------
seba_dos1
Discussion from year ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083755)
and half a year ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224865)

------
blondie9x
This is the biggest problem with gene modification. In regards to food and
animals. If the experiment or area the modification is used is not very very
carefully controlled the risk of spread globally in a closed planetary
ecosystem is very high. You therefore have insane risk of introducing the
modification to the entire population.

------
fnordsensei
Radiolab did an episode on this effort a while back:
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/kill-em-
all](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/kill-em-all)

------
bayesian_horse
For me this is an indication that such modified organisms should have
independent fail-safes.

Overall I think the modified genes will be extinguished rather than fixate, as
most low-frequency alleles do.

------
benj111
How are these mosquitoes being bred/modified?

As I understand it, current gene editing is less scalpel and more hammer. Is
there therefore a risk of more mutations?

------
ganitarashid
Life, uh, finds a way

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjQ3hA9mEA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjQ3hA9mEA)

------
jnnrz
I'm really disappointed in some of these comments. They're borderline anti-
science.

------
anigbrowl
Maybe we should pay Jeff Goldblum to stop doing movies and just visit research
departments in character.

------
awinter-py
need some DRM in there so those pirate wild mosquitoes can't misuse our
proprietary genes

------
rhacker
Is this part of the debug.com project? Or something else?

------
WMCRUN
Original article also had a phishing virus attached...

------
twodave
Haven’t they seen the movie Mimic?! _Shudders_

------
foobarbecue
I like this word "experminet."

------
jaequery
Hope scientists had a plan B and plan C in place.

------
beefman
Instead of this editorialized garbage, why not link directly to the paper?

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6)

Or at least to better newscopy

[https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-
breed-...](https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-in-
brazil/a-50414340)

------
learc83
The title is very misleading. "Strengthened" had nothing to do with the
genetically modified genes. They released non-local mosquitoes that had been
genetically modified, and because those mosquitoes bred with local mosquitoes
(same species, just from a different location), the local mosquitoes now have
a wider gene pool.

The wider gene pool is what the article is referring to as being
"strengthened", not any observable difference.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
I’m ignorant on this topic, but aren’t animals with a wider gene pool usually
more robust?

~~~
AstralStorm
We're not talking wider gene pool, were higher generation crosses with a
modified subspecies. This is somewhat different as original sterile flies were
designed to produce low viability first crosses.

It remains to be seen if they're more or less robust. Any outcome is possible.
They could also be more or less fecund.

They will be harder to kill off via an engineered program like a disease or
maybe sooner insecticides.

------
fenwick67
This page has some malicious ads on it that keep redirecting me to phishing
sites (only on mobile Firefox apparently)

~~~
CryptoBanker
If you're using mobile FF why wouldn't you take advantage of its ability to
use ad blockers?

~~~
ianai
That’s really not important. Redirecting anyone to malicious sites should be
an immediate red line.

~~~
ndidi
And going online without an ad blocker is simply irresponsible.

~~~
recursive
Also posting such a link to HN is simply irresponsible.

~~~
ianai
People on HN should know better. Your average person though won’t.

~~~
recursive
I'm an average person on HN. I specifically don't use ad blockers. You might
need to adjust some of your assumptions.

~~~
ianai
I was agreeing with you...

------
test1997
Danger to humanity

------
pvirgiliu
i accidentally the mosquito.

------
dr_dshiv
If at first you don't succeed, you might want to watch Jurassic Park again

