I am very in favor of gene drives for eliminating or altering disease carrying pests, and upset that society is irrational enough not to have seized the opportunity. I have heard of people trying to talk to locals about this, and having trouble with communicating the ideas and getting approval. I wonder if it might be worth exploring a more subtle change rather than a gene drive focused on infertility?
For instance, the plan to modify the mosquitos so that they are resistant to becoming carriers of malaria. If this was done in such a way as to give the mosquitos receiving this gene also a resistance to a particular pesticide, then you could spread the pesticide (and not other pesticides) in the region, selecting for the non-malaria-carrying mosquitos. Then you just have to consider the risk of malaria itself becoming resistant to the anti-malaria mosquito genes, as your footnote mentions. The best way to prevent this would to have the effort be done thoroughly enough across the world to cause malaria to go extinct without having a chance to develop resistance. And preparing multiple different methods of making mosquitos resistant, so that the malaria would have to have multiple lucky mutations to get around it rather than just one.
I think it’s worth exploring to see if a plan like this was an easier sell, politically.
It depends on whether the main political objection is that “GMO’s are scary” or that “killing mosquitoes will disrupt ecosystems”. (I’ve heard both objections, but strongly disagree with them).
If you made malaria-resistant mosquitoes, you’d actually have GMO mosquitoes biting people. With a gene drive that prevents female mosquito development, no transgenic mosquitoes would bite people since they would all be male.
Who is making the “GMOs are scary” and “killing mosquitoes will disrupt ecosystems” argument? The African public? African government officials? Or Westerners who have no skin in the game? If the latter, then why should we care about what they think? The important thing is public sentiment in Africa. If that goes well, then things should be fine.
Consider, for instance, George W. Bush. A fairly mixed reputation in the West, reviled in the Middle-East and beloved by Africans. Wait, what? Bush championed an anti-Aids initiative in Africa which saved the lives of millions. Westerner’s, and people form the Middle East don’t hear about this, but the people whom the initiative affected sure do and they approve.
then you could spread the pesticide (and not other pesticides) in the region
This would affect other insects in addition to the targeted mosquitoes, right? This seems strictly worse than the original gene drive proposition to me.
You could use a more targeted pesticide. Also, people are already spraying pesticides to kill disease carrying mosquitos. I’m not saying it’s a better option from a scientific/engineering/logic perspective, just that it should be something to do market research on to see if the target populations are less irrationally creeped out by it.
I am very in favor of gene drives for eliminating or altering disease carrying pests, and upset that society is irrational enough not to have seized the opportunity. I have heard of people trying to talk to locals about this, and having trouble with communicating the ideas and getting approval. I wonder if it might be worth exploring a more subtle change rather than a gene drive focused on infertility?
For instance, the plan to modify the mosquitos so that they are resistant to becoming carriers of malaria. If this was done in such a way as to give the mosquitos receiving this gene also a resistance to a particular pesticide, then you could spread the pesticide (and not other pesticides) in the region, selecting for the non-malaria-carrying mosquitos. Then you just have to consider the risk of malaria itself becoming resistant to the anti-malaria mosquito genes, as your footnote mentions. The best way to prevent this would to have the effort be done thoroughly enough across the world to cause malaria to go extinct without having a chance to develop resistance. And preparing multiple different methods of making mosquitos resistant, so that the malaria would have to have multiple lucky mutations to get around it rather than just one.
I think it’s worth exploring to see if a plan like this was an easier sell, politically.
It depends on whether the main political objection is that “GMO’s are scary” or that “killing mosquitoes will disrupt ecosystems”. (I’ve heard both objections, but strongly disagree with them).
If you made malaria-resistant mosquitoes, you’d actually have GMO mosquitoes biting people. With a gene drive that prevents female mosquito development, no transgenic mosquitoes would bite people since they would all be male.
Who is making the “GMOs are scary” and “killing mosquitoes will disrupt ecosystems” argument? The African public? African government officials? Or Westerners who have no skin in the game? If the latter, then why should we care about what they think? The important thing is public sentiment in Africa. If that goes well, then things should be fine.
Consider, for instance, George W. Bush. A fairly mixed reputation in the West, reviled in the Middle-East and beloved by Africans. Wait, what? Bush championed an anti-Aids initiative in Africa which saved the lives of millions. Westerner’s, and people form the Middle East don’t hear about this, but the people whom the initiative affected sure do and they approve.
This would affect other insects in addition to the targeted mosquitoes, right? This seems strictly worse than the original gene drive proposition to me.
You could use a more targeted pesticide. Also, people are already spraying pesticides to kill disease carrying mosquitos. I’m not saying it’s a better option from a scientific/engineering/logic perspective, just that it should be something to do market research on to see if the target populations are less irrationally creeped out by it.