5 ms·

For those interested, I would suggest checking out Spillover by David Quammen. It goes into detail on why eradicating/eliminating zoonotic diseases isn't really

by acyou 2y ago

For those interested, I would suggest checking out Spillover by David Quammen. It goes into detail on why eradicating/eliminating zoonotic diseases isn't really feasible without also eradicating the host populations. I stumbled onto it and read it early on during SARS-CoV-2, it will give you a new perspective on the management of disease in general. As for eradicating host populations/mosquitoes, it's not the greatest idea. Ecosystems are complicated and don't generally benefit from that sort of interference. Maybe if it's a recently invasive species, sure, as long as other species don't get inadvertently by-caught. Drastically simplifying - birds need to eat too, and they tried to do this style of ecosystem management in the past and it has had brutally adverse effects for ecosystem stability. I think that this is an incredible development, but also seems kind of destabilizing. It's hard to say without seeming or being callous, that it seems good now, but we need to try to predict outcomes far into the future. That is to say - people think they are smart to have done it, and yeah it's doable, but is it really such a great idea to throw such a series of proverbial monkey wrenches into our proverbial biological engines?

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> As for eradicating host populations/mosquitoes, it's not the greatest idea...birds need to eat too This is a false dichotomy. Malaria is transmitted by only specific and very small subset of mosquitoes. There would still be plenty of mosquitoes if you eliminate the ones that cause unimaginably massive population harm.
- blastro 2y ago
  False equivalency, perhaps? Big assumption that all mosquito sub-species affect their environment in the same way.
  - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
    We know that they share predators. We know that they share environments. We know that they share impact patterns. We also know that more than half a million people die from malaria every year.
    - blastro 2y ago
      Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis
      - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
        > Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis, because there might be some unknown harm that we haven't yet identified from it because we aren't looking in the right places. And yet we have collectively decided that taking medicine when we are sick is actually a good thing to do, because being sick in known catastrophic ways is objective and true while the unknown unknown is purely hypothetical and unfounded. Well millions upon millions of people are dying, objectively and truly, and we can stop it. And what you have to say against a proposal that has had substantial risk analysis already done, where the harms have been determined to be nil, is something completely unfounded without a basis in any known mechanism in the real world. It has been analyzed to death. At some point it becomes important to recognize that further objection on the same basis that has already been rebutted time and again is no longer clever and is just obstructionism with a willfully catastrophic cost.
        danparsonson 2y ago
        > This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with. We're clever monkeys but we should remember that however hard we think, we can always miss something important, especially when we're talking about large complex biological systems. If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with People have been constantly arguing against all kinds of medicine, including antibiotics. And we have solutions to resistant bacteria. It's a social problem of developing expensive new antibiotics while restricting their market to the last line of defence. And finally, the analogy breaks down: we did develop and deploy antibiotics, and have been able to see the consequences and adapt as a result. We're mindlessly eradicting species all the time. There might be a trolley problem in intentionally nuking one. But that's, again, socio-philosophical. If the first ecosystem we eradicate in collapses, against the predictions of practically every expert in the field, we can stop. In the meantime, we avoid a useless debate that costs millions their lives. > If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones Again, a social problem. It's easier to get rid of the diseasse by taking out mosquitoes than it is to continuously convince populations to get vaccinated into perpetuity. (To say nothing of vaccines' adverse effects.)
mannanj 2y ago
[flagged]
bryanlarsen 2y ago
> birds need to eat too There's a big difference between eliminating all mosquitoes and eliminating just malaria-carrying mosquito species. IIRC studies show that if you eliminate malaria-carrying mosquito species that other mosquito species very quickly take over this ecological niche.
exabrial 2y ago
I don't believe mosquitoes are a keystone species in any ecosystem... I remember hearing this, not sure if it's true.
zamalek 2y ago
As I understand the situation with mosquito eradication, there are highly specific places where mosquitos are a critical source of biomass (I think the Arctic tundra was one example). In all other places they are completely and utterly worthless. Blood-eating (never mind species that are parasite vectors) are also a tiny percentage of the overall biodiversity, the nectar species could easily fill the gap.
- soperj 2y ago
  Female mosquitoes bite to produce eggs, male mosquitoes feed on nectar and pollinate plants. Some orchids can only be pollinated by mosquitoes.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    Fair trade.
  - Modified3019 2y ago
    So no one misunderstands, there are over 3000 species of mosquitos, but most biting species of mosquitos only go after birds/amphibians. Only a small number of species (single digit percentage) go after mammals. And even less than have been found to be vectors for disease. The basic point is that yes, we can wipe out selected mosquito species via eradication programs (like sterile mate release) with zero consequence outside of healthier people, because human hazardous mosquitos aren’t unique to the ecological niche they fill.
    - smegger001 2y ago
      better than sterile male we could release fertile ones genetically modified to only have male offspring that in turn only have male offspring inside handful of generations there are no female mosquitos left. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795774/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795774/
      - Modified3019 2y ago
equestria 2y ago
We have already thrown and will throw a lot of wrenches into the works. We have extensively reshaped the planet to the benefit of some species and the detriment of many others. It's a risk, but it's not worse than the thousands of other risks we've already taken. Given the absolutely insane amount of death and suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases, it's probably also a justifiable one.
waveBidder 2y ago
I've yet to hear a single ecologist equivocate on eliminating aedes aegypti, the primary vector for the worst vector borne diseases, and have heard many endorse the idea. Even so, things like Wolbachia give a means of effectively inoculating the vector.
- taosx 2y ago
  I also endorse that, they've somehow made way in Europe. They are active during the day and are very aggressive.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  The sheer amount of human and animal* suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases speaks strongly in favor of mosquito eradication. Over half a million people died of malaria in 2022 alone, over three quarters of them children - even if there are ecological risks, they need to be weighed against allowing that suffering to continue. *: e.g. heartworm in dogs
  - dietr1ch 2y ago
    It's crazy that eradicating missiles would do way better. It could even fund vaccination against mosquito-borne diseases without /figuring/ around and finding out if the chain reaction started by killing all the mosquitoes has big consequences or not.
    - waveBidder 2y ago
      why are you bringing this up? It's irrelevant to the topic at hand
      - dietr1ch 2y ago
        I agree it's sort of unrelated, but I think that people are getting nerd-snipped into thinking/discussing about a complicated improvement while there's easier ones right in front of us and it's kind of sad that while easy on theory, everyone seems already defeated by our apparent inability to do something about it. --- I guess the political turn is what seems it be off place, but if people were discussing how to make a program 0.5µs faster it'd be ok to discuss a way to shave 3s out of it, even if it was a completely different approach on a different part of the program. It'd mean that the effort is maybe being made in the wrong place.
lifeformed 2y ago
But could the potential disruption to the ecosystem be as bad as the 600,000 deaths per year from malaria?
directevolve 2y ago
In response to that, I say “600,000 deaths per year, mostly of African children.”

by acyou 2y ago

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago

> As for eradicating host populations/mosquitoes, it's not the greatest idea...birds need to eat too This is a false dichotomy. Malaria is transmitted by only specific and very small subset of mosquitoes. There would still be plenty of mosquitoes if you eliminate the ones that cause unimaginably massive population harm.

blastro 2y ago
False equivalency, perhaps? Big assumption that all mosquito sub-species affect their environment in the same way.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  We know that they share predators. We know that they share environments. We know that they share impact patterns. We also know that more than half a million people die from malaria every year.
  - blastro 2y ago
    Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis
    - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
      > Certainly we must be missing some factor from this analysis This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis, because there might be some unknown harm that we haven't yet identified from it because we aren't looking in the right places. And yet we have collectively decided that taking medicine when we are sick is actually a good thing to do, because being sick in known catastrophic ways is objective and true while the unknown unknown is purely hypothetical and unfounded. Well millions upon millions of people are dying, objectively and truly, and we can stop it. And what you have to say against a proposal that has had substantial risk analysis already done, where the harms have been determined to be nil, is something completely unfounded without a basis in any known mechanism in the real world. It has been analyzed to death. At some point it becomes important to recognize that further objection on the same basis that has already been rebutted time and again is no longer clever and is just obstructionism with a willfully catastrophic cost.
      - danparsonson 2y ago
        > This is like saying nobody should ever take any medicine ever, even after years of study and analysis Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with. We're clever monkeys but we should remember that however hard we think, we can always miss something important, especially when we're talking about large complex biological systems. If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Surely no-one would argue against the benefits of antibiotics, and yet after decades of successful use we're only now discovering that in using them, we're breeding resistant bacteria that we have no way to deal with People have been constantly arguing against all kinds of medicine, including antibiotics. And we have solutions to resistant bacteria. It's a social problem of developing expensive new antibiotics while restricting their market to the last line of defence. And finally, the analogy breaks down: we did develop and deploy antibiotics, and have been able to see the consequences and adapt as a result. We're mindlessly eradicting species all the time. There might be a trolley problem in intentionally nuking one. But that's, again, socio-philosophical. If the first ecosystem we eradicate in collapses, against the predictions of practically every expert in the field, we can stop. In the meantime, we avoid a useless debate that costs millions their lives. > If we can develop effective vaccines then I personally don't see the need to start deliberately exterminating species, even the truly loathesome ones Again, a social problem. It's easier to get rid of the diseasse by taking out mosquitoes than it is to continuously convince populations to get vaccinated into perpetuity. (To say nothing of vaccines' adverse effects.)

mannanj 2y ago

[flagged]

bryanlarsen 2y ago

> birds need to eat too There's a big difference between eliminating all mosquitoes and eliminating just malaria-carrying mosquito species. IIRC studies show that if you eliminate malaria-carrying mosquito species that other mosquito species very quickly take over this ecological niche.

exabrial 2y ago

I don't believe mosquitoes are a keystone species in any ecosystem... I remember hearing this, not sure if it's true.

zamalek 2y ago

As I understand the situation with mosquito eradication, there are highly specific places where mosquitos are a critical source of biomass (I think the Arctic tundra was one example). In all other places they are completely and utterly worthless. Blood-eating (never mind species that are parasite vectors) are also a tiny percentage of the overall biodiversity, the nectar species could easily fill the gap.

soperj 2y ago
Female mosquitoes bite to produce eggs, male mosquitoes feed on nectar and pollinate plants. Some orchids can only be pollinated by mosquitoes.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Fair trade.
- Modified3019 2y ago
  So no one misunderstands, there are over 3000 species of mosquitos, but most biting species of mosquitos only go after birds/amphibians. Only a small number of species (single digit percentage) go after mammals. And even less than have been found to be vectors for disease. The basic point is that yes, we can wipe out selected mosquito species via eradication programs (like sterile mate release) with zero consequence outside of healthier people, because human hazardous mosquitos aren’t unique to the ecological niche they fill.
  - smegger001 2y ago
    better than sterile male we could release fertile ones genetically modified to only have male offspring that in turn only have male offspring inside handful of generations there are no female mosquitos left. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795774/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795774/
    - Modified3019 2y ago

equestria 2y ago

We have already thrown and will throw a lot of wrenches into the works. We have extensively reshaped the planet to the benefit of some species and the detriment of many others. It's a risk, but it's not worse than the thousands of other risks we've already taken. Given the absolutely insane amount of death and suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases, it's probably also a justifiable one.

waveBidder 2y ago

I've yet to hear a single ecologist equivocate on eliminating aedes aegypti, the primary vector for the worst vector borne diseases, and have heard many endorse the idea. Even so, things like Wolbachia give a means of effectively inoculating the vector.

taosx 2y ago
I also endorse that, they've somehow made way in Europe. They are active during the day and are very aggressive.
duskwuff 2y ago
The sheer amount of human and animal* suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases speaks strongly in favor of mosquito eradication. Over half a million people died of malaria in 2022 alone, over three quarters of them children - even if there are ecological risks, they need to be weighed against allowing that suffering to continue. *: e.g. heartworm in dogs
- dietr1ch 2y ago
  It's crazy that eradicating missiles would do way better. It could even fund vaccination against mosquito-borne diseases without /figuring/ around and finding out if the chain reaction started by killing all the mosquitoes has big consequences or not.
  - waveBidder 2y ago
    why are you bringing this up? It's irrelevant to the topic at hand
    - dietr1ch 2y ago
      I agree it's sort of unrelated, but I think that people are getting nerd-snipped into thinking/discussing about a complicated improvement while there's easier ones right in front of us and it's kind of sad that while easy on theory, everyone seems already defeated by our apparent inability to do something about it. --- I guess the political turn is what seems it be off place, but if people were discussing how to make a program 0.5µs faster it'd be ok to discuss a way to shave 3s out of it, even if it was a completely different approach on a different part of the program. It'd mean that the effort is maybe being made in the wrong place.

lifeformed 2y ago

But could the potential disruption to the ecosystem be as bad as the 600,000 deaths per year from malaria?

directevolve 2y ago

In response to that, I say “600,000 deaths per year, mostly of African children.”