GM Mosquito Could Fight Malaria 281
qw0ntum writes "The BBC is reporting that a genetically modified (GM) variety of mosquitoes could be effective in combating the spread of malaria to humans. These GM insects carry a gene that prevents them from being infected by the malaria parasite and has the added benefit of providing a fitness advantage to the mosquitoes. From the article: 'In the laboratory, equal numbers of genetically modified and ordinary wild-type mosquitoes were allowed to feed on malaria-infected mice. As they reproduced, more of the GM, or transgenic, mosquitoes survived. According to the researchers, whose results appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, after nine generations, 70% of the insects belonged to the malaria-resistant strain. [...] The modified mosquitoes had a higher survival rate and laid more eggs.' This has major implications for the billions of people living in areas with endemic malaria. The question in my mind, though, is what effects on the ecosystems of these areas will replacing an organism low on the food chain with a GM version? Between the news we saw last week and biomagnification, could this wind up substituting one problem for another?"
Great, just great (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one... (Score:2, Insightful)
Building a better mosquito (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would have thought that we would build a better mosquito rather than continuing to try and control/eradicate them. I am concerned about unintended consequences, but this is fundamentally a new approach to modifying our environment... rather than trying to kill them off and ending up hurting food chains, we just "tweak" them to keep millions of people from dying from them...
I think it is a good thing.
//now, let the killer bee comparison commence
Setting up for disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:Great, just great (Score:3, Insightful)
Just use DDT (Score:2, Insightful)
A good thing? depends.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is "what about the other major mosquito-transmitted illnesses carried by the same type(s)? AKA yellow fever, west nile, etc.?" as I assume there is a limit to how many disease vectors could be prevented by this technique without introducing unintended and perhaps unstoppable effects later on.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Malaria kills millions of people each year. You're wrong, present methods of controlling malaria are expensive and unknown for the people that actually require them. I'm not sure that GM is the way to go, but I'm sure that something needs to be done, not for us holiday makers, but for those people that live in areas where malaria is rampant and the average wage is practically nothing a day.
And I'm a little worried that someone modded you as funny.
Re:Just use DDT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not Quite ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This would do more than just prevent it, though: It has the potential to erradicate it: Malaria only spreads via mosquitos, and it needs a certain 'resident infected population' to remain viable in an area. If a large enough percentage of mosquitos don't transmit it, less people will be infected, and the desease could just die out from being unable to spread.
From what I see they are being careful: testing in contained environments the new mosquitos' reaction to various situations. This could be a very good thing...
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:What about evolution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:Building a better mosquito (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm posting this AC for obvious reasons (not very PC and all that...)
But I'm wondering - malaria mostly affects poor 3rd world populations - birth control in said populations is somewhat "problematic" (i.e. those poor people often breed far beyond their means) - but death rate is also higher, due to malaria and other circumstances - now, some do-gooder westener comes and upsets the natural balance dramatically..... Might cause some indirect, but unpleasant side-effects (famine, deforestation, war...)
Might it not be more prudent to let nature run its own, less hasty, course?
Re:Great, just great (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, this kind of "scare", "precautionary principle" actually led to DDT being banned in the world, while it had almost crushed malaria in Africa.
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Malaria isn't feasible to handle through immunization and treatment, because malaria occurs in wet, nasty, remote, impoverished, quarrelsome places. You may now argue that such problems can be handled with a sufficient application of dumptruck loads of money, but again, the dumptruck loads of money are not interested in being applied to those areas of the world.
Indeed, malaria has probably killed more humans than anything else in history. And now you sound like Marie Antoinette -- "Let them get treatment!"
The unintended consequences of these GM mosquitoes would have to be severe in order to outweigh such a colossal improvement in lifespan and quality-of-life as this would bring to all the unfashionable places in the world.
Re:Just use DDT (Score:3, Insightful)
Or we could leave the ad homenim attacks aside, and take a look at the evidence.
Re:Just use DDT (Score:1, Insightful)
well, normally you would be correct, but DDT is the nuclear weapon of insecticide. There is a certain level where you do not end up with toxin-resistant mosquitos, and this is pretty much it. You can't say, "if we nuke China we'll just end up with nuke-resistant Chinese."
Re:Just use DDT (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do we have to create mutant mosquitos when we can use good old DDT? All we have to do is get rich, white people to get off their high horses at cocktail parties so the rest of the world can be saved from this horrible disease.
Wow, you paint an impressive caricature of anyone who could possibly disagree with you. However, your suggested solution (and the accompanying ad hominem) is just as simplistic as the opposing view that DDT is an unmitigated evil.
For someone who is not rich, white and at a cocktail party and yet still disagrees with you, I'd point to my wife, who is Nigerian and, like most of her family, has actually had malaria. She still thinks unrestrained use of DDT is a bad idea -- partly because, though much of Silent Spring was discredited, it is still a toxin that builds up substantially over the very long term, and it's a good idea to avoid that if you don't know the effects over the course of a lifetime, but especially because of the point that other responses have made, that if we did that then soon DDT would become useless, even in cases where we really did need it.
It would clearly be a stupid idea to recommend that every human being continuously take antibiotics. It is a similarly bad idea to say that entire ecosystems should be covered with DDT. Right now, use of DDT in moderation can handle particularly bad infestations. Heavy DDT use would lower malaria rates for a few years, before bringing it back up above todays levels because there would be no easy fix at all.
Your caricature of rich white people on high horses perpetuating disease among the poor and powerless is only at all legitimate if you yourself are not also essentially an armchair philosopher on this issue. If you are insulting other people for having opinions on how to effectively protect people, because they have no personal stake and are somewhat removed from the issue, then you'd better have some personal stake or be close to the issue before going on about your own opinions on the issue. Obviously I don't know your personal stake, if any -- but a lot of people who seem to feel the way you do are no closer to the issue than your hypothetical rich white people.
It would also be good to accept that people who oppose heavy DDT use are genuinely trying to protect people's lives, and have reasons for their opinions (even if you disagree with them), and it's not just that all of them freaked out after reading Silent Spring.
Man plays god again? (Score:2, Insightful)
On top of that, there is no mention of yellow fever, dengue fever, epidemic polyarthritis, Rift Valley fever, Ross River Fever, and West Nile virus that mosquitos are also known to carry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito [wikipedia.org]
There is no way of predicting how these GM mosquitos will interact in the wild. There is the distinct possibility that they may breed hybrids with wild species and regain their malaria carrying capability, effectively becoming supercarriers of the disease.
Personally I think this is another silly attempt of man trying to play God. We don't understand the entire DNA sequence, yet we are chopping and changing the very few known genes with the vauge hope that a desired effect will be acheieved, instead of being able to accurately predict what will happen. While it is a nice exercise in a lab, and helps us understand more about genetics, it has no place in the real world until we can do it accurately.
Surely, instead of spending millions developing a new mosquito (that could potentially carry other diseases if not malaria), a better solution to the malaria problem would be to develop some kind of vaccine. [malariavaccine.org]
Re:2-3 million deaths a year is a lark to you, is (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course you do. This new treatment is not a new pill and does not necessarily have the same accessibility problems.
It may be more accessible because we don't need to distribute the cure to each individual person (you underestimate this cost). It may be a good idea and it may not be, but this development is exciting because it provides a new way to save the lives of millions of people from a horrible disease.
Your argument is no different from saying that cheaper clean water and food aren't necessary because we already have those things. Surely you wouldn't deny a clean water system and better agricultural methods to a poor region? You might as well tell them to hold their breath, because you're working on ending world poverty (clearly, you're working against ending world poverty).
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:1, Insightful)
if your child was one of the three million that are going to die this year from malaria you might see the problem differently
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no expert in this sort of thing by any stretch of the imagination, but if it was all as easy and as cheap as you say, don't you think someone else would have also come up with the same idea?
I can just see some research scientist checking the front page of
Re:Building a better mosquito (Score:3, Insightful)
You're afraid to have your name -- excuse me, your Slashdot nick -- associated with your ideas?
GM Malaria (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great, just great/bring back DDT (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see this as the same kind of debate, but I'm with you on DDT. The quintessential case of reactionary emotional responses overwhelming a logical cost-benefit analysis. For a while it was "DDT=good" so everybody decided they should use it to bathe their children and spray a 4" deep layer on every square inch of farmland. Then we discover that the stuff is having major environmental repurcussions and it's suddenly "DDT=bad" so it must be totally banned. Forget a pragmatic approach that might balance the incredible usefulness of the stuff with the potential for environmental damage.
Spraying it over hundreds of acres of farmland? Not a good idea.
Applying a light solution to indoor living spaces for mosquito control? Totally sensible with unparalleled effectiveness and = risk to humans vs. other pesticides.
Bringing back DDT for targeted applications is orders of magnitude more intelligent than releasing a GM insect into the environment.
A novel idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm only being partially sarcastic, too.
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:1, Insightful)
If anything, they should do a test using a specially designed mosquito. This breed must be sexually incompatible with natural mosquitos and they should lack some critical non-natural nutrient in order to survive. By releasing them into an area and only providing this nutrient source in that one area, it's possible to safely test to see how an ecosystem would react to a GM mosquito. Of course this will still not eliminate the possibility of a mutation that could disable the "death gene" and cause a dangerous spreading of the GM mosquito...
Re:Setting up for disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I don't think the FUD is warranted. Oddly enough though, I thought of this same solution several years ago. Seemed like a pretty good thing to do. Just fix the genes and improve the bug and you have yourself a solution after a few years. I wonder if the religious right will get pissed that people are solving the world's problems using natural selection.
In theory the carrying capacity should be stable in the mosquito population (not suddenly over-run with bugs). Really all the improvement seems to do is make those mosquitoes immune to the parasite. So the new gene protects the mosquito and by proxy us. Basically they would be introducing a new gene into the population rather than a new bug. This improved gene should increase in frequency and as a result destroy the population of Malaria.
The article is wrong that the mosquito need compete better even in a malaria free environment. Why the hell would that be the case? We should only care about them in the malaria environment. In fact, it would be the best if they competed worse in areas without malaria. That way the gene population would drop very low when Malaria does. When the gene solves the problem, having it die out would be the best solution.