14 ms·

People do not take issue with doing something against malaria but with the proposed method. How could it be stopped if something went wrong? It's not like a ch

People do not take issue with doing something against malaria but with the proposed method. How could it be stopped if something went wrong? It's not like a chemical agent that you just stop applying when you notice adverse effects. This is a living thing. Living things can procreate, mutate, enter new niches and the only deciding factor is the rate of reproduction. Life doesn't optimize for killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes, it optimizes for rate of reproduction and survival. As soon as there is a mutation that can extend the niche to another target, this will happen. And getting such a match doesn't have to be via a mutation on the fungus either, it can also be one of the target, making it susceptible to it. How do you make sure these things don't happen? I'm worried that the answer is that you can't. (Edit: I'm not even talking about engineered organisms, just have a look at a list of invasive species)

maxerickson 7y ago
The limiting factor ends up being competition much more than it ends up being rate of reproduction. For example, we'd get sick a lot more if we weren't teeming with more or less symbiotic organisms. A fungus that specializes in infecting Anopheles and also destroys the resource that it is optimized to consume isn't just going to up and start dissolving rubber.
- jakemcgraw 7y ago
  excellent andromeda strain reference
- pvaldes 7y ago
  > A fungus that specializes in infecting Anopheles Research was made in the nine species known of the genus Metarhizum. Some of them are known to science since only 10 years ago when some of the species were better studied and split and hidden species appeared. Some species seem to be specialist, like M. acridi, that target grasshoppers. Other are generalist, like M. anisopliae that can attack insects of seven different orders. Some spores can be diseminated by water and target aquatic larvae, other spread by the air. Surprisingly, M. anisopliae is sold since a few years and used with the purpose to kill beetles of several species, and planned to use it to kill ticks and mosquitoes. Source: Journal of Funghi 2017, 3 (30). So first doubt, are the species used in research really specialist and selective? "A transgenic, broad host-range M. anisopliae strain expressing an insect neurotoxin (AaIT) from Androctonus australis reduced mobility and blood feeding interest of adult Aedes aegypti mosquitoes" "broad-host range" looks the opposite term to "specialist" to me Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128571/ More things: Mosquitoes die quickly "Since M. pingshaense spores take 2–3 days to penetrate host cuticle, RFP and Met-Hybrid do not cause mortality 24 hours post-infection ... Met-Hybrid achieved >80% mortality within one week with LT80’s of 5.18±0.482 days, 5.54±0.326 days and 5.25±0.269 days for Anopheles coluzzii, An. gambiae and An. Kisumu, respectively". So when it says "fungus rapidly kills mosquitoes", maybe should say, "fungus kills mosquitoes between 2 and five days" "The fungus has been given genes to produce an insecticide, known as a “hybrid”, first extracted from the Australian funnel-web spider and already approved in the US for treating crops." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/malaria-mosquitoes-wiped-out-with-gm-fungus-in-first-controlled-real-world-tests-a8937146.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/malaria-mosquitoes... This is what the independent says. I haven't found an official source for this claim but if true, I don't have words for this fact, only expletives. Has somebody asked american citizens if they agreed to participate in this experiment?
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    Here's the product based on the spider venom: http://vestaron.com/products.html http://vestaron.com/products.html It's a spray on insecticide and has gone through EPA approval.
DanCarvajal 7y ago
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes.
Kalium 7y ago
Perhaps there might be a higher level question at hand here. What level of caution is appropriate when the deliberate choice of inaction has a price tag of six digits of lives attached? What level of risk and potentially unforeseen consequences are we willing to accept? This is not an idle question. It's a critical question for informing a decision-making framework that rests on calculation. Which we need here - I think we can all agree that personal ick-factor is a bad approach to large-scale public policy. Which is to say you're right. We cannot be certain that won't happen with this approach. Indeed, we cannot be certain of all consequences with any approach. With that in mind, what level of certainty should we require?
- tw04 7y ago
  For something like this? An extreme amount. There are other options (a vaccine is already being tested) that can't mutate into a pathogen that kills off more people than the thing it was supposed to cure. Let's finish vetting those out completely before we move to what can only be described as the unstable nuclear option.
  - Kalium 7y ago
    To be clearer, the question of what level of caution is appropriate is one that cannot depend on the approach being considered. It needs to to be one that can be applied evenly across the whole of the solution-space. Approaches like insisting on fully and completely explore all the ideas that are readily palateable before we try to understand the potentials and risks of others seems like making policy primarily based around personal ick-factor. Which is great when choosing what to have for dinner, but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people. Also, vaccines can run horribly off the rails. One cannot mutate into a pathogen, as you say, but tainted vaccines are a known risk. There may be unknown long-term risks or other things that haven't been fully studied. No approach is risk-free in this arena, and we do a disservice to humanity when we pretend otherwise.
    - tw04 7y ago
      >but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people. You literally just defeated your own logic. The reason we do medical trials and "delay" is to ensure the vaccines aren't "tainted" as you put it, and to ensure that there are no delayed side effects. But... you want to rush an alternative option that could kill literally millions, because waiting could mean thousands die??
jfoster 7y ago
Couldn't this argument be applied to any living thing, not just the ones that humans have engineered? As soon as anything can mutate to enter a new niche, it will work the same way as this would.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  Usually we breed organisms for weekness. Many of our farm animals and plants wouldnt survive without our protection. Also mutations, often have to overcome obsticles to conquer a new niche. They have to reach a specific habitat or deploy seeds at a distribution system (cars driving dirt roads e.g.). Lets take a nice little SciFi Example- NASA breeds in its lab a terraformer for venus, a sort of airborn spirondella. This could potentially wipeout all live below, by covering a planet with green "living" clouds. Now this organism could escape the lab, bot as long as it does not reach a warm, wet climate it is dormant. So even if this dangerous organism was out there- it could potentially deteriorate before it reaches the equatorial belt and starts to bloom. Nothing is certain in nature, but one thing- if its a success - it trys to be a exponential success.
  - jfoster 7y ago
    I'm not talking about the things we breed. I'm talking about everything we don't exercise control over.

maxerickson 7y ago

The limiting factor ends up being competition much more than it ends up being rate of reproduction. For example, we'd get sick a lot more if we weren't teeming with more or less symbiotic organisms. A fungus that specializes in infecting Anopheles and also destroys the resource that it is optimized to consume isn't just going to up and start dissolving rubber.

jakemcgraw 7y ago
excellent andromeda strain reference
pvaldes 7y ago
> A fungus that specializes in infecting Anopheles Research was made in the nine species known of the genus Metarhizum. Some of them are known to science since only 10 years ago when some of the species were better studied and split and hidden species appeared. Some species seem to be specialist, like M. acridi, that target grasshoppers. Other are generalist, like M. anisopliae that can attack insects of seven different orders. Some spores can be diseminated by water and target aquatic larvae, other spread by the air. Surprisingly, M. anisopliae is sold since a few years and used with the purpose to kill beetles of several species, and planned to use it to kill ticks and mosquitoes. Source: Journal of Funghi 2017, 3 (30). So first doubt, are the species used in research really specialist and selective? "A transgenic, broad host-range M. anisopliae strain expressing an insect neurotoxin (AaIT) from Androctonus australis reduced mobility and blood feeding interest of adult Aedes aegypti mosquitoes" "broad-host range" looks the opposite term to "specialist" to me Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128571/ More things: Mosquitoes die quickly "Since M. pingshaense spores take 2–3 days to penetrate host cuticle, RFP and Met-Hybrid do not cause mortality 24 hours post-infection ... Met-Hybrid achieved >80% mortality within one week with LT80’s of 5.18±0.482 days, 5.54±0.326 days and 5.25±0.269 days for Anopheles coluzzii, An. gambiae and An. Kisumu, respectively". So when it says "fungus rapidly kills mosquitoes", maybe should say, "fungus kills mosquitoes between 2 and five days" "The fungus has been given genes to produce an insecticide, known as a “hybrid”, first extracted from the Australian funnel-web spider and already approved in the US for treating crops." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/malaria-mosquitoes-wiped-out-with-gm-fungus-in-first-controlled-real-world-tests-a8937146.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/malaria-mosquitoes... This is what the independent says. I haven't found an official source for this claim but if true, I don't have words for this fact, only expletives. Has somebody asked american citizens if they agreed to participate in this experiment?
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Here's the product based on the spider venom: http://vestaron.com/products.html http://vestaron.com/products.html It's a spray on insecticide and has gone through EPA approval.

DanCarvajal 7y ago

No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes.

Kalium 7y ago

Perhaps there might be a higher level question at hand here. What level of caution is appropriate when the deliberate choice of inaction has a price tag of six digits of lives attached? What level of risk and potentially unforeseen consequences are we willing to accept? This is not an idle question. It's a critical question for informing a decision-making framework that rests on calculation. Which we need here - I think we can all agree that personal ick-factor is a bad approach to large-scale public policy. Which is to say you're right. We cannot be certain that won't happen with this approach. Indeed, we cannot be certain of all consequences with any approach. With that in mind, what level of certainty should we require?

tw04 7y ago
For something like this? An extreme amount. There are other options (a vaccine is already being tested) that can't mutate into a pathogen that kills off more people than the thing it was supposed to cure. Let's finish vetting those out completely before we move to what can only be described as the unstable nuclear option.
- Kalium 7y ago
  To be clearer, the question of what level of caution is appropriate is one that cannot depend on the approach being considered. It needs to to be one that can be applied evenly across the whole of the solution-space. Approaches like insisting on fully and completely explore all the ideas that are readily palateable before we try to understand the potentials and risks of others seems like making policy primarily based around personal ick-factor. Which is great when choosing what to have for dinner, but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people. Also, vaccines can run horribly off the rails. One cannot mutate into a pathogen, as you say, but tainted vaccines are a known risk. There may be unknown long-term risks or other things that haven't been fully studied. No approach is risk-free in this arena, and we do a disservice to humanity when we pretend otherwise.
  - tw04 7y ago
    >but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people. You literally just defeated your own logic. The reason we do medical trials and "delay" is to ensure the vaccines aren't "tainted" as you put it, and to ensure that there are no delayed side effects. But... you want to rush an alternative option that could kill literally millions, because waiting could mean thousands die??

jfoster 7y ago

Couldn't this argument be applied to any living thing, not just the ones that humans have engineered? As soon as anything can mutate to enter a new niche, it will work the same way as this would.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Usually we breed organisms for weekness. Many of our farm animals and plants wouldnt survive without our protection. Also mutations, often have to overcome obsticles to conquer a new niche. They have to reach a specific habitat or deploy seeds at a distribution system (cars driving dirt roads e.g.). Lets take a nice little SciFi Example- NASA breeds in its lab a terraformer for venus, a sort of airborn spirondella. This could potentially wipeout all live below, by covering a planet with green "living" clouds. Now this organism could escape the lab, bot as long as it does not reach a warm, wet climate it is dormant. So even if this dangerous organism was out there- it could potentially deteriorate before it reaches the equatorial belt and starts to bloom. Nothing is certain in nature, but one thing- if its a success - it trys to be a exponential success.
- jfoster 7y ago
  I'm not talking about the things we breed. I'm talking about everything we don't exercise control over.