so yeah. genociding species tends not to end well. That being said we actually just need to eliminate the disease spreading mosquitos and don’t need to get rid of them all so. maybe.
It shouldn’t have to take fifteen years to deploy effective products that can save lives
this is such a reductionist view.
it should absolutely take decades to make a sweeping decision to fundamentally alter an ecosystem. nobody likes disease or even getting a random bite. i grew up in the swamps of the US, i know. but we should absolutely know what we’re doing to release a genetically engineered or bacterial sterilizing agent into a naturally evolved ecosystem.
Ok. You can take decades if you have a systematic plan with data collection, time lines, expanded test beds, and reviews of emerging relevant science. But sitting on your hands for 15yrs isn’t very productive.
People have been more than happy to do this with the food we eat under accelerated time lines (I’m not defending that, but it’s not like there isn’t precedent for genetic meddling at scale.
they did mention doing harmonization studies, which is my biggest worry: cascading ecological effects.
the impetus can’t be “oh well they haven’t done the full studies so i guess we just full send and see what happens”.
Wouldn’t that reduce the dragon fly population as well (who eats mosquito larva)?
Only like 3 species out of the something of 3500 mosquito species drink human blood/ carry diesease this way, and they only do this during the females pregnancy not as a primary food source.
And of those 3 species, I think one makes up the majority of mosquitos that are found worldwide and this is the one that would be targeted
