

Scientists: Go ahead, kill all the mosquitoes. - ygd
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2010/07/scientists_go_ahead_kill_all_the_mosquitoes_the_wo.html

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ams6110
Considering that most of the species that have ever lived on Earth are now
extinct, it is not surprising to discover that the demise of one more would
not have any catastrophic consequences in the grand scheme of things.

We were well on our way to getting rid of mosquitoes, incidentally, until we
banned DDT. Millions of dead humans are the very real consequence of that
decision.

~~~
mtviewdave
DDT has never been banned for vector control. It's been banned for
agricultural use, but only after it was so overused that most agricultural
pests had already become resistant to it.

The idea that there exists a worldwide ban on DDT for vector control, and that
out-of-control malaria and "millions of dead humans" were the "real
consequence" is a complete fantasy. And a rather disgusting one, as well.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT>

~~~
hristov
Good point. I should add that some countries still use DDT for malaria control
and any country that wishes to use it to fight malaria is free to do so, there
is no treaty banning its use for malaria control.

However, many mosquito species are becoming resistant to DDT, so it is not
really useful any longer. For example, India has greatly reduced the use of
DDT because most of its malaria bearing mosquitoes are resistant to it.

DDT kills mosqito predators too and the mosquito predators are usually bigger
more complex creatures with longer lifespans so it is much harder for them to
evolve a resistance to DDT. Thus the idea that you could wipe out mosquitoes
with DDT is ridiculous. Mosquitoes just evolve resistances to it. However, you
could wipe out many bird species with it.

Here is a good fact sheet on the issue:

[http://www.ipen.org/ipenweb/documents/work%20documents/ddt_i...](http://www.ipen.org/ipenweb/documents/work%20documents/ddt_ipenreport_english.pdf)

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JacobAldridge
Here's the actual Nature article - longer and with more detail -
<http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html>

Edit: And a different take on the 'No' conclusion from the original link.
Turns out 'Yes, in these situations, though maybe not and does that matter?'
is the more accurate analysis of 3500 responses.

~~~
jimmyjim
And the accompanying discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1538329>

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wglb
I don't particularly like mosquitoes either. But I wonder, despite the claim
of no downside, if there isn't some co-evolutionary relationship between
mosquitoes and those that they draw blood from.

Just wondering.

~~~
brc
My main fear was that removal of mosquitoes would give rise to another blood-
sucking, biting insect to fill it's place. One that wasn't so slow, noisy and
easy to repel with nets, repellant and clothing. A smaller, silent, insect
would be far worse. Mosquitoes are the b52 bombers of the flying insect world
- slow and easy to hit.

I get bad reaction to sandflies. If sandflies replaced mosquitoes, _my_ world
would be severely negatively impacted.

~~~
code_duck
The large biting flies are a crazy phenomenon. They'll actually chase you,
persistently. And they're HUGE. I was attacked by one a couple of years ago on
Lake Michigan, and it just wouldn't leave me alone! I was diving, splashing it
with water, running on the beach (it could fly about as fast as I could run)
and no luck. I finally had to swat the vile beast.

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presidentender
Color me skeptical. The article is correct; other species would rise to fill
the niche emptied by mosquitoes, and the world would achieve a stable
equilibrium, but the same could be said for eliminating eagles or horseshoe
crabs or wheat. Just because we'd be less itchy and never catch malaria
doesn't mean our lives wouldn't be negatively impacted in unforeseen ways.

~~~
nimai
Why not extend that logic to malaria itself? Or cholera, HIV, or any other
pathogen? Perhaps start selling "Save the plague!" bumper stickers?

~~~
Qz
If we exterminate the plague, how will we know when the end times are upon us?

~~~
alanh
The End Times are why True Believers are not only Pro-Life but also
Pro-’liferation (of nukes). At least, according to that Maher movie, and the
Left Behind series.

~~~
Qz
Don't forget the christian organizations that pay to send Jews to Israel since
that's also a pre-requisite for the End Times...

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pigbucket
Engineering the extinction of this kind of hugely prolific and adaptive
species looks to me like a mind-bogglingly hard problem, which the smart
people linked to in the post are not directly working on (they're doing local
control with superfancy lasers and possibly poisonous bait, so will probably
only be offering sexy alternatives to mosquito nets and sprays). A possible
approach would be to introduce mosquitoes that have a big competitive
advantage over their peers initially but are ultimately (a few generations
down) fucked, but to date I think humans have only figured out how to do that
kind of thing with investment banks. (A hematologist friend once told me of
another possible approach he thought might well work, but I was a bit drunk
and he was speaking Greek, and in any case Gates said no.) A promising
alternative that would render moot concerns about the eco-dangers of wiping
out the mosquito would be to genetically engineer mosquitoes incapable of
transmitting the parasite. That's apparently been done, but without the new
safe mosquito having the survival advantage needed to dominate the species.
See following, with footnote link to original paper:
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100715172002.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100715172002.htm)

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geedee77
The thing that worries me, and the thing that I think no-one has mentioned
(apologies if you have) is that when did we have the right to exterminate a
whole species just because it makes our lives uncomfortable?

I'm well aware that malaria and other diseases carried by mosquitoes are a
very large killer in parts of the world but why aren't we trying to cure these
diseases rather than wipe out a whole species?

It just seems as if we, as a species, think we rule this planet so can do
whatever we want with regard to the other species that exist on it.

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frobozz
"it's difficult to see what the downside would be to removal, except for
collateral damage"

Isn't collateral damage the entire problem with removing things from complex
systems?

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metamemetics
Oh man. The solution to the problem according to his last link
<http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=563> is [scroll down...] LASERS.

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jasonkester
Didn't they do that once already?

I seem to remember that back in the days of DDT, mosquitos were killed back to
the point where malaria was no longer a big deal. Then the 70's happened, DDT
went away, mosquitos and malaria came back big time, and farmers in Southeast
Asia started dying in large numbers because the insecticides they used to
replace DDT were actually harmful _right now_ instead of 'probably
carcinogenic over 20 years'.

Anybody know what the insecticide of choice is today, and whether it's as safe
as (or safer than) DDT?

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danbmil99
beware the law of unintended consequences. This warning will not be repeated

~~~
sliverstorm
The difficulty is while we are well aware of this law, we don't know if it
will apply. Did the world miss polio when it was gone? Or the bubonic plague?

There are always consequences of everything- hell, it's one of Newton's laws.
But it's entirely possible there are no terrible awful consequences.

~~~
_delirium
Well, we've mostly eradicated very human-specific diseases. Some do also
infect other animals, but we've generally targeted very specific strains and
species that are pathogenic to humans. We haven't completely eradicated an
entire family of bacteria, or large class of viruses, which seems like it
would be more comparable to eradicating _all_ mosquitoes of every genus and
species. It doesn't seem that hard to imagine unintended consequences if we
eradicated not only the plague bacterium (probably _Yersinia pestis_ ), but
the entire family _Enterobacteriaceae_ , for example.

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kujawa
This is the way the world ends. Because, who knows?, malaria just might be the
thing that's keeping the zombie virus suppressed.

But hell, who doesn't like a good a good genocide?

