
Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives - sohkamyung
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02087-5
======
jddj
There are a lot of comments here declaring various versions of "slippery
slope!".

Looking at history, one would have to conclude that employing science-based
methods to improve the natural environment by reversing problems which we have
_unintelligently_ created in the past (mosquitoes, rodents, antibiotic
resistant bacteria, etc) through our own carelessness isn't _necessarily_
directly linked by a slippery slope to something like eugenics or ecosystem
collapse.

We have the potential to do good as well as evil, even capable of implementing
laws and international treaties which (for example) prohibit CRISPRing
embryos.

Many ideas are worthy of at least being assessed on their merits and not being
discarded purely because they belong to a certain class. If there is a genuine
slippery slope (which is somewhat ironically claimed with some measure of
certainty in the same breath that says we're incapable of foreseeing
consequences), but the idea is good, perhaps we could leverage our legal
frameworks and social structures to limit that.

It seems crazy that we should be expected to accept the consequences of any
negative effects which we have had on the planet to date through our
carelessness because approaching them with a scientific method and anything
but the crudest tools (pesticides, etc) is labelled "playing god" and totally
off limits.

~~~
nightwing
Why do you think CRISPRing embryos is a bad thing?

Eugenics in 20th century was evil because government was trying to decide
which people could have children together. The normal eugenics where people
decide for themselves, worked well for all species so far. So with CRISPR a
law that prohibits using it, dooming people to have ill, or not very smart
children is the same kind of evil, as the laws prohibiting interracial
marriage in 20th century.

~~~
jjwhitaker
Theoreteically the capacity to have smart, healthier, longer living children
is amazing and a victory for all mankind.

But it won't be for all mankind, just those in wealthy nations and even then
only to those who can afford it similar to In Vitro fertilization. The worry
becomes further inequality but at a genetic level over just wealth.

If we can eradicate a genetic disease in a few generations, we probably
should. But if only the wealthy and powerful are able to then we head toward
even more ethical and moral questions.

~~~
nightwing
The world where some people are smarter or healthier is always better than the
world where everyone is in equally bad state. Inequality by itself is not a
bad thing, it's like climbing over a high wall, one needs to push the the
other, then the other will pull the first up.

By the time treatments like this are tested and proven to work, everyone will
get them for free, because it will be much cheaper to apply required
treatments, and not deal with unproductive member of society later.

------
nisten
At this point it's nearly becoming unethical not to use a gene drive.

Warming climate is spreading more and more diseases via insects. West nile,
malaria, zika, chagas, lyme are all very much alive and kicking with no quick
effective cure or management method in sight.

It's already ruined outdoor camping for example, I would not want my family
members to be at risk of an infected tick bite, and the problem is getting
worse every year. Lyme disease would mean a lifetime of medication and
discomfort. By not using a gene drive and just arguing on the hypothetical
dangers of it, we are letting more and more people suffer and inevitably use
much harsher chemical methods to manage the problem.

~~~
est31
You mean warming climate is bringing diseases that were plaguing humans since
centuries to the place _you_ live and now it's suddenly a problem because it
could affect you, too.

The west where most of medical research is located hasn't been caring about
these diseases for a long time, that's where the _neglected_ in "neglected
tropical diseases" comes from. It's really sad that solutions are only being
figured out once the west is affected as well, but I guess it's better than
not figuring out solutions at all.

~~~
jddj
This projection of what OP _meant_ doesn't speak to the reality.

Malaria was an issue in the US [1] and southern Europe [2] prior to the 1940s,
and Australia has always had and continues to have issues with the Dengue and
Ross River viruses.

If the claim is instead that CRISPR was sitting there waiting to be
implemented for decades, if only some rich people could finally see a use for
it in the face of global warming, a charitable take on that idea would be to
call it far-fetched.

[1]
[https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/index.html)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547919/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547919/)

~~~
est31
There are possibly many remedies against NTDs, without needing any gene drives
or CRISPR or anything. We don't know because we haven't tried. Sure, to some
degree you can blame developing contries for e.g. not deploying rabies
prevention well enough (which were deployed in the west decades ago, making
rabies in the west irrelevant while it still persists in developing nations),
but mostly it's the west's fault for not researching cures.

~~~
jddj
I think it probably has a number of factors, none of which excuse us on a
whole for allowing these diseases to earn the adjective "neglected".

But it's not hard for me to imagine that many of the people working on this
would like to eliminate malaria today for reasons which are at least partially
altruistic. It could be that we've reached a point where the economics, social
factors and technology of the present day mean that people have identified
that CRISPR provides a more efficient and effective means of relieving the
issue than anything we've tried (and people have) before, and in my eyes the
fact that this method would use CRISPR instead of spraying and widely-
distributed pesticide-coated nets, for example, doesn't make it morally or
environmentally _worse_ in any definite way which doesn't need constant
reassessment as our technology and understanding improves.

Besides all of that though, and you touched on it in your first comment, it's
just not particularly valuable for us to sit and criticize ourselves for not
doing better in the past when faced with new technologies which may help us
start to make up for our mistakes.

------
keiru
>Will X even work?

Why is this so often a question for things that are clearly possible? If this
or that particular method doesn't work, well, ok, but I'd find it hard to
believe that never in history would people be able to spread genes through a
population. Computer viruses, cloning, facial recognition, atomic bombs,
genetic engineering, cryptocurrencies. These are things there were weakly (or
un-) regulated until they came into existence. Now, you might ask yourself if
jetpacks might be a socially viable for of mass-transportation, not if they
are technically _possible_.

Years are wasted asking if something is possible before preparing for it, and
precautions and regulations are created post-hoc by lawmakers for stuff that
was sure to come. Does anybody know of a good "turned out to be impossible"
situation?

------
alltakendamned
Look, I hate mosquitos with a vengeance, I'm quite allergic to them and each
bite results in multiple days to weeks of misery.

That said, I remain very skeptical of this approach as other species are
dependent on these little nasty ones, and I don't believe we have a good grasp
on what the second-order effects will be when we start eradicating species
with such a large presence.

~~~
godelski
They're really only talking about eradicating the mosquitoes that bite humans.
Which is an extremely small subset. There's a comment further up that has more
detail.

------
sadmann1
And of course the elephant in the room, the sterilization of undesirables as
decided by the powers that be. Imagine using all that 23andme data to target
certain genotypes with diseases.

~~~
ailideex
What room are you in? Because I'm not in any room where that is even close to
be a thing.

~~~
wil421
Sounds like the underlying plot to X Files.

------
FerretFred
> _self-destructing mosquito_

The mind boggles at what that might look like, but _if_ the mosquito is just
going to disappear, that will negatively impact on a whole host of other
species.

[https://www.orkin.com/other/mosquitoes/mosquito-
predators](https://www.orkin.com/other/mosquitoes/mosquito-predators)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
My understanding is that, while many species will happily eat mosquitoes,
there's no species where mosquitoes are their _primary_ food source.

That doesn't mean that eliminating mosquitoes would be consequence-free, of
course. It could definitely cause problems for the species who lose a part of
their diet, and/or the other prey they eat more of to compensate. But they're
not a keystone of the ecosystem like, say, bees are.

Also, apparently all of the really dangerous, disease-carrying mosquitoes are
invasive.

~~~
godelski
The other question is: those predators that (might) actually depend on
mosquito, do they depend on the ones were talking about eradicating (which is
only a small subset)?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Also true. I'm not sure.

------
pvaldes
The only valuable reason for having a few sterilized rodents would be to grab
and monopolize the laboratory rat/mice market. Rodents have short lives and
there is an unlimited supply of wild specimens in the nature.

~~~
cf141q5325
I know its a joke, but you are never testing stuff on wild specimens. Labrats
are standardized inbred strains like BALB/c.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BALB/c](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BALB/c)

------
coldtea
Food shortages, ecosystem mayhem, huge disease toll: the promise of gene
drives from an improvising rush-it-for-profit "science" that still e.g. can't
eradicate the common cold and misses tons of basics (until recently they
thought "junk dna" was useless) but is confident to play the sorcerer's
apprentice...

~~~
thrownaway954
Thanos did nothing wrong. our population needs to be cut in half. it's
simple... get a vasectomy (or your tubes ties) and don't have kids. in 20
years the problem will correct itself.

~~~
Communitivity
I don't think this will result in a good effect.

The people who are conscientious will not have kids, while the others will
have kids. As a result the next generation will be more likely to be less
conscientious due to nature, and nurture.

I think the solution is education, and specifically, education about ethics
and conservation. If we make the next generation feel obligated to be stewards
of the earth, and smart enough to act on that obligation, then the human race
has a chance. But it has to happen with this generation being born now, or we
won't have the time to save Earth without leaving it first - one way or
another.

~~~
coldtea
> _The people who are conscientious will not have kids, while the others will
> have kids._

That's easy to solve (technically):

a) enforce a "max 1 child per couple" policy for all couples (for as long as
needed).

b) or force-sterilize half of the population but randomly (not by their own
choice).

------
lm28469
First they came for the mosquitoes, and I did not speak out because I was not
a mosquito.

Then they came for the rodents, and I did not speak out because I was not a
rodent.

...

Then they came for the me.

I wouldn't be surprised if our gene editing ego trip blows back. Playing god
with things we barely understand the impact of.

~~~
nosianu
> _Playing god with things we barely understand the impact of._

Doesn't matter - god doesn't either. That's why _it_ is running this
experiment :-)

Seriously, since when did anyone ever understood the impact of anything? What
the long-term impact of any new development or invention would be? Apart from
running the experiment. Unless it is something very specific I don't see how
this ever is a valid argument. Had we stayed in the trees we would have to
deal with other issues and felt no better.

~~~
coldtea
> _Seriously, since when did anyone ever understood the impact of anything?_

When the impact was low and localized, and the methods to affect change crude.
I.e. for the most part of human history.

Now we have surgical methods to edit genes etc, but combined with the
knowledge and understanding of a Wild West quack doctor (and their profit
motive).

~~~
nosianu
It never was, with increasing numbers of humans. Things like agriculture and
animal husbandry were spread together with the population across vast
distances and changed the landscape, the flora and the fauna.

> _Now we have surgical methods to edit genes etc_

I refer back to the comment you replied to... in any case., I don't see how
_understanding_ is the main point. We actually understand quite a bit, far
more important are the incentive systems that often force us to do stuff
against what we actually know. I'm pretty sure companies in the past and
present that used landscape (rivers etc.) as garbage dumps knew that that
wasn't good, so understanding does not seem to help nearly as much as some
think.

~~~
coldtea
The "vast distances" were just some places humans could establish cities. 90%
of the planet country was untouched for the better part of history, or had
very minor alterations (a village and some crops in an area of 100s of square
kilometers). Heck, most of the "most advanced" populations didn't even know
about other huge continents (Australia, Asia, Americas).

Today a modified plant or insect can travel all over the globe, take plane
rides, and so on...

~~~
nosianu
> _The "vast distances" were just some places humans could establish cities._

The "vast distances" were _the whole planet_ and an ever increasing
population, even before the explosion in numbers later. See the reports about
the impact the Mongols or the plague, both killing large parts of the
populations back then, with great impact on the environment. Humans always had
a large impact on their environment especially after inventing agriculture.

~~~
jacobush
And before on the (now extinct) mega-fauna.

------
thrownaway954
Someone mark this comment so that when I'm gone, in 20 years, you can look
back I know that I called it... 5 years after this is implemented you will
have these genes passed over to humans. people will start to become sterilized
and dropping dead in the streets. watch... seems like whatever we do to
another species comes back on us 5 fold.

