3 ms·
Antibiotics are used to treat a specific infection. You don't take a pill of antibiotics every morning with your coffee.[1] Insecticides are usually applied pr
by esarbe 7y ago
Antibiotics are used to treat a specific infection. You don't take a pill of antibiotics every morning with your coffee.[1]
Insecticides are usually applied pretty indiscriminately.
I think that's quite a difference.
[1] At least that's how they are supposed to be used. In agriculture (again agriculture, is this a pattern?) they are used indiscriminately in many parts of the world because it enables animals to be kept in insanely crowded conditions.
- gravelc 7y agoExactly my point. A (properly designed) dsRNA only targets a single organism. It's not like an insecticide that kills everything, so is sprayed all the time. Other insects don't build up resistance, as it has no impact on them. If resistance builds up in the target insect, well, we're back where we started using toxic insecticides. Given the sequence is easy to change, resistance on a sequence basis at least is unlikely in the target itself.