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What problems will this bring????

2K views 13 replies 5 participants last post by  Alice Walsh 
#1 ·
here we go again with man messing with nature, in the end I think more trouble than good will come from this...


https://www.aol.com/article/news/20...neered-mosquitoes-to-combat-disease/23271048/

EPA approves bio-engineered mosquitoes to combat disease


Katelyn Newman
Nov 8th 2017 1:59PM
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The federal government has approved a new bio-engineered "assassin mosquito" that could help diminish the wild mosquito populations that carry infectious diseases like Zika, Dengue fever and yellow fever by targeting reproduction, according to a recent report in the science journal Nature.

MoqutioMate, a biotechnology startup based in Lexington, Ky., infects male mosquitoes with the common, natural bacterium Wolbachia pipientis that specifically targets the reproduction of mosquitoes but does not harm animals, humans or other insects, according to the company's website. The hope is that these infected mosquitoes will diminish wild Asian tiger mosquito populations, which are prone to carry infectious diseases.

The lab-grown Asian tiger male mosquitoes, which don't bite, will be released into wild mosquito populations to mate with Asian tiger mosquito females, according to MosquitoMate. Their fertilized eggs won't hatch, though, as the bacterium in the infected males keeps paternal chromosomes from fully forming, stopping population growth.

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Though not yet formally announced, the EPA approved on Nov. 3 MosquitoMate's release of the infected mosquitoes in 20 states and Washington, D.C. starting next summer, according to Nature. The federal agency did not approve their release in much of the southeastern United States, which suffers from large populations of mosquitoes and a long mosquito season, because MosquitoMate has not yet performed field trials there.

Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate, told Nature that his company plans to submit an application to the EPA for a nationwide release after a recent successful trial period in the Florida Keys.

Similar lab-grown mosquito projects are underway in both Brazil – where the 2015 Zika outbreak led to large-scale releases of bioengineered mosquitoes – and China, which has a pilot program in Guangzhou that releases 5 million Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes each week.
 
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#2 ·
I like the idea of severely reducing the mosquito population, but what is the big picture? Mosquitos provide an abundant food supply (though not the only one) to predators such as fish and bats, take away that food source and wont those populations will be threatened? I dont know. Whenever we mess with nature there are always repricussions. Hopefully it doesnt come back to bite us. Literally!
 
#3 ·
my issue is that the bacterium that sterilizes the mosquito eggs so they dont hatch, get eaten by other insects or reptiles, will it sterilize them too? and end up killing off multiple species...how much research has really gone into this ?
 
#4 ·
More than likely the bacterium would die from digestion. Animals typically have different and multiple digestive enzymes so they can eat raw food without becoming ill. But still a possibility. I hope they have extensive research on the effects on other species, could be catastrophic.
 
#5 ·
The nice thing about this approach is that is presents little risk to other species. Wolbachia pipientis is sexually transmitted between mosquitoes, and the strain used by this company is mosquito-specific, so risk to other species is minimal. They are targeting only one species of mosquito (a non-native species), so there is unlikely to be concerns regarding the food chain/etc. Wolbachia pipientis is also a normal part of the environment, so its not like something is new is being introduced.

The mosquito nor the bacteria are not GMO'd; the article posted by the OP appears to confuse what this company is doing with another company in brazil which is using GMO'd male mosquitoes to pass on a gene that results in sterility (but producing still mating-competent adults) in their offspring.

B
 
#6 ·
I didnt know there were gmod mosquitos in brazil, but with all the fast air travel around the world, we are seeing more evasive species end up here by mistake as they stay alive for the short trip...but nature hates when we mess with it and many times what seems full proof isnt...I like to play devils advocate and question " what if", because many times the what ifs show up on our door step, you confuse me questioning something to either get the facts straight or to clarify something, with thinking it is bad, not so, but to blindly accept what a government agency wants to do is not good, so better many eyes watching and questioning whats going on than to let it go and end up in possible disaster.. like most of what the government does..
 
#7 ·
The GMO mosquitoes are sterile, so their ability to spread is nil. AFAIK, they're not doing field trials yet.

EDIT: the part of the equation you are missing is the cost of not acting. Mosquito-transmitted diseases kill millions of people each year - and that's with modern vector-control methods (pesticides, etc). That's a lot of human suffering and death that you're willing to tolerate over fears which have been largely addressed by prior research.
 
#9 ·
There is no evidence that hormones given to cows have resulted in human health issues. Canada has almost the exact same distribution of disease as the US, and no hormones are allowed to be used in our meat or milk production systems.
 
#10 ·
well when I went to school way before hormones in cows and beef, girls were flat chested and now..wowza I wish I was back in high school, along with a host of enlarged organs and cant forget cancer..you use to die with many cancers at the same age now that many die from them, so something is making all these things grow much faster now than in the past...
 
#11 ·
The cause of early development in girls is well known (breast development starts ~2 years earlier than historical norms), and the cause isn't the hormones given to animals; in fact, the ones commonly used (growth hormone and steroids) are inhibitory to sexual development - meaning if they were the issue, they'd slow/prolong puberty, not make it occur earlier. This is an issue for children being treated with HGH, and dosing needs to be carefully controlled to ensure they complete puberty normally.

What is causing early puberty in girls is much less "sexy" - excess calories. And its not even early puberty that is occurring - the average age of first menses has remained stable for well over 150 years. What is occurring earlier is breast development, which is (largely) driven by body size and fat content. Poverty is also linked to earlier breast development (as is early age obesity), again due to cheap diets "enriched" in fats and sugars; the sorts of nutritional factors that drive body size and deposition of fats. Basically, body development and growth is nutritionally driven - girls grow breasts earlier for the same reason why kids are so much taller these days - more food.

I think you mis-wrote your cancer statement, or its too early in the morning (I cannot make sense of it), but age-matched cancer rates today and age-matched cancer moralities, are at historical lows. Never before, at any time in human history, has cancer had a lesser effect on any age group than today:


Bryan
 
#13 ·
true, the spraying for pests has done more damage than good, here on long island they sprayed years ago for west nile disease and wiped out the lobster population in the Long Island sound along with countless fish in small ponds in peoples backyards and then all the runoff continued to do damage to wildlife....and they then played it wasnt the spraying that did it game game..politics at its best..I just see all the times man has messed with mother nature and it turns into a giant fiasco that goes wrong...and there are plenty of flops in the past to worry me now...if it works great, but we wont know for years or decades what the final outcome will be, as nature takes its time to reveal the damage done by meddling ...
 
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