
Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever - ojosilva
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-04-25/brazilians-welcome-genetically-modified-mosquito-help-fight-dengue-fever
======
icegreentea
A common fear when deploying systems like this is that we are somehow
tampering with nature, and that given our inability to predict outcomes, we
should therefore err to the side of caution.

I typically agree with this line of thought. However, in this particular
context, something to strongly consider is that Aedes aegypti isn't native to
South America. As implied by its name, it's native to Africa. We (humans)
brought them over to New World as part of the Columbia Exchange (likely in a
slave ship... along with malaria, and yellow fever, and the disease in
question Dengue fever).

~~~
hrktb
As mosquito related problems are just plain hard and in this context ther is
no other viable solution, I also think the usual fear is less important in
this context.

But for the sake of the argument, the fact that this mosquito comes from
Africa doesn't really matter so much, as the consequences of this operation
could go from making it immune to this gene, make it mutate in a
different/worse direction, or have the engineered mosquitoes affect the
environmenr in other unknown and not measurable ways.

~~~
eqdw
Where I'm from, the city routinely carpet-bombs the city with pesticides
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malathion)).
This is pretty contentious, especially since it's primarily for pest control
and not actually for health reasons.

GMO tech that lets us stop breathing in all that delicious malathion is a good
thing, in my books

~~~
qeorge
I agree with you, and its hard for me to view carpet bombing a city with
pesticides as somehow interfering _less_ with the environment.

------
rjtavares
Recent rabiolab episode on this subject: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-
em-all/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/)

~~~
Myztiq
I came here just to post that link. Cheers.

------
jimworm
I've recently been thinking about the possibility of a genetic disease for
mosquitoes, transmitted down male lines but killing only females of the same
brood, with the intended result that a relatively small release of males can
cause an extreme imbalance in the sex ratio and possibly the elimination of
mosquitoes from an area.

The different mechanisms of mosquito sex determination aside, I haven't been
able to work out something that might be feasible. Wondering if anybody else
had similar ruminations, and if you'd share some of your thoughts?

~~~
robmcm
This would only work for a while, and then, "nature would find a way".

Sometimes I think no one even bothered paying attention to Jurassic Park.

~~~
has2k1
Nature does not always find a way, look at the fossil record for evidence.

~~~
finnomenon
Birds are still around. Nature found a way in that specific case.

~~~
cornholio
Nature will find a way if it has enough room for trial and error. Say,
millions of germs mutating inside millions of hosts using antibiotics,
trillions of mutations trying to beat a single molecule. By the time the
Cretaceous environment recovered, birdosaurs could not regain their place on
the top of the food chain because that space was taken over by mammals.

So if the extinction is swift and massive enough, the ecosystem will shift and
there will not be a way to be found. So you should always ask: what dreadful
bloodsucking beasts will replace the mosquito ?

I would much rather prefer they breed a transgenic mosquito unable to spread
dengue than try to wipe all mosquitoes off the face of the planet.

------
rdl
I wish the GMO developers had initially focused on products which were end-
user or publicly beneficial like this, vs. just raising yields or reducing
pesticide use (which are end user and societally beneficial, but can be cast
by opponents as economic arguments). Without the existing anti-GMO movement,
GMO would have a much easier time getting adoption in cases where it's
essentially unambiguously a win (like this one).

~~~
jrkelly
The very first commercial application of GMOs was recombinant insulin for
diabetics. Followed by a slew of other drugs - GMOs now make 50% of drugs (all
the protein ones). The agriculture applications came 5-10 years later as
plants were harder to engineer than microbes.

~~~
a_bonobo
Other examples: The enzymes in washing powders are generally produced by GM
bacteria, too, together with the chymosin needed for cheese production.

There used to be a GM-tomato called FLAVR SAVR about 15 years ago, which had
direct benefits to end customers = the tomatoes stayed fresh longer. Public
opposition out of fear killed it (also a good lesson: don't give flashy,
technical names to food).

[http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu/landingpage.cfm?artic...](http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu/landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v054n04p6&fulltext=yes)

~~~
wprl
Also, GMO tomatoes have poor flavor and too taut a texture…

~~~
a_bonobo
I'd like to see the citation on that (there are no GM tomatoes on the market),
I'd also like to add that the 'watery', huge, flavour-poor tomatoes you often
get in Europe have been created by traditional non-GM breeding:
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/06/2...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/06/28/why-
supermarket-tomatoes-look-great-but-taste-bland/#.U13Ty_iLelM)

There have been efforts to create GM-tomatoes with better taste, here's one
example from 2007: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gm-tomato-
tastes-b...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gm-tomato-tastes-
better/)

~~~
wprl
Citation: my taste buds.

~~~
YokoZar
So where are you getting the GM tomatoes?

~~~
wprl
Shockingly, I was alive in the mid-90s :) It's also a given that any GMO
tomato would be a hybrid, a.k.a. a cardboard-esque rubber ball. A little
experience and common sense can go a long way in determining something's
flavor (lol)!

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

------
jrkelly
One of the best new applications of GMOs. Interestingly, Rachel Carson
mentioned this approach in Silent Spring:
[https://twitter.com/mem_somerville/status/457876443586760704...](https://twitter.com/mem_somerville/status/457876443586760704/photo/1)

Oxitec is making the mosquitoes via GM rather than mutation but approach is
the same.

------
brianbreslin
A similar trial was done in the Florida Keys 2 years ago. The genetically
modified mosquitos (same company I believe), were able to reduce the mosquito
population immensely. Key West if they didn't carpet bomb it with insecticides
from the sky would be miserable.

[1][http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/9/genetically-...](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/9/genetically-
modifiedmosquitoessetoffuproarinfloridakeys.html)

------
PauloManrique
Lack of education and government actions on this route is the biggest cause of
dengue here in Brazil.

People know they shouldn't keep water in old tyres, food plants, box of waters
opened and stuff but they still do it.

------
riffraff
some time ago I read about a similar approach (used for malaria, I think)
basically the GM mosquitoes have a "beak" too small for the plasmodium to get
through and infect people.

Once they interbreed with the anopheles the mosquitoes basically stop being
transmitters of malaria.

It seems slightly less likely to be something that comes back and bite us in
the ass than eradicating a species from the ecosystem.

------
jostmey
The approach may work a while. But then I am sure some mutant gene will
eventually emerge in the wild-type populations that will inhibit the synthetic
kill gene. That's how Nature works.

~~~
fixermark
That's a pretty good prediction. Were I a betting man, my money would be on an
explosion of females who can use some form of detection to suss out the
defective gene based on some secondary characteristic. If those females can
then evade mating with the altered males, their offspring would rapidly expand
through the ecosystem (given that their niche would be cleared of in-species
competitors).

Jury's out on whether this change could happen before the mosquito population
falls below sustainable levels, though. Mosquitos breed rapidly, but they
don't hold a candle to bacteria breeding rates and it takes a lot of
generations for those to evolve resistance to each generation of
antibacterials.

------
emeidi
Unintended consequences, anyone?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences)

E.g. Rabbits in Australia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Biological...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Biological_measures)

~~~
danielweber
Simply saying "unintended consequences" means doing nothing, ever.

WHO says "severe dengue is a leading cause of serious illness and death among
children in some Asian and Latin American countries." After we don't have so
many dead kids, some of them can grow up, and you can ask them how they feel
about whatever unintended consequences there are.

~~~
fractallyte
Anthropocentrism does not answer the question...

------
ekianjo
Note that the article makes it seem that the Dengue fever is fatal in most
cases, but it certainly is NOT. Most of the time people who get it will
recover within 10 days, even though they will be severely incapacitated during
that period. Most people who actually die from Dengue are people who were
already weakened by something else or older populations.

~~~
erkkie
One of the problems with dengue is that once you've been infected with one
strain, getting infected with another one is much more likely to have serious
consequences. That's a problem for people who travel for example.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever)
It is not entirely clear why secondary infection with a different strain of
dengue virus places people at risk of dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue
shock syndrome. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that of antibody-
dependent enhancement (ADE). The exact mechanism behind ADE is unclear.

------
argc
I am not afraid of GM stuff, but does anyone else think this idea is
potentially really dumb? What about everything that relies on these mosquitoes
as a food source? I am not an expert... but trying to just kill off an entire
species sounds like a TERRIBLE idea...

~~~
ggreer
The people behind this program aren't fools. They're experts who have given a
lot of thought to this problem. Some basic points should alleviate your fears.
First, the mosquito they're trying to eradicate is a non-native species.
Second, said mosquito is the primary vector for Dengue fever, which infects
hundreds of thousands and kills hundreds in Brazil every year. Even if this
mosquito was native to South America, eradicating it would almost certainly
help people.

It's interesting how support for this program decreases with distance from it.
If this outbreak was happening in _your_ country, hurting _your_ family,
killing _your_ friends, I doubt you'd be so loath to support GM solutions.

A side note: 99.9% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct.
Nature is not some carefully-balanced system. It is chaos and suffering on a
scale we cannot imagine. The majority of wild animals live in a state of
constant hunger, pain, and disease. Those with sufficiently complex brains
live in fear of predators. Speaking of predators: We would be horrified to
watch a man vivisect an antelope, but we pay to watch documentaries of lions
doing the same thing. Apparently animal cruelty is fine when it's done by
other animals.

~~~
rdl
Scientists studied getting rid of _all_ mosquitoes globally, and came to the
conclusion it wouldn't have much of a negative impact (and a huge net positive
for due ending malaria, dengue, etc.) Nothing eats exclusively mosquitoes, and
those animals (birds) which do eat them could just switch to other insects,
which generally are not in short supply.

[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html)

I'd do it in a second.

~~~
hrjet
> those animals (birds) which do eat them could just switch to other insects

If those animals can switch, so can bacteria and virii switch their carriers.

~~~
Pxtl
Other carriers aren't shared flying hypodermic needles.

~~~
hrjet
If they are _carriers_ , they would have a way of _carrying_.

------
gcb0
no they dont welcome it. it happens under they ignorant apathy. the region
where that happens in brazil is our red neck equivalent.

some politician just choose to spend a few millions on a british company (and
recive the usual 10% back under the table as consultancy in the next year or
so) instead of spending half of that in social programs that would have a
permanent outcome instead of this joke.

but since politics in those states are viewed like something magical and out
of reach of the common folk, nobody cares

~~~
windsurfer
Do you have any sources? I, for one, welcome our new self-destructing mosquito
overlords.

~~~
gcb0
No i don't have any source because those policies are not discussed BEFORE.
they are ADVERTISED AFTER the fact.

which proves my point. ...but i'm sure Veja will write a piece saying how nice
that solution is. Even though every single person studying it already
commented that trying to kill the mosquito is idiotic.

------
hoodoof
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad)

------
johlindenbaum
Somethine something, Hunger Games Tracker Jacker wasps.

------
kimonos
Brilliant idea!

