"I've never come across any indication that GMO was anything other than knocking genes out or adding them. But for all of the "scary" things people say, I'm not aware of an instance where something could be proven true."
What GMO is... can be a lot of different things. That you're not aware of any instances of GMO creating problems, would only be a function of two things.
The first is that when there have been problems in product development, so that a modification expected to be benign has caused a problem... say, making a food poisonous... those things have been identified and successfully removed from product development efforts. Of course, at some point, there will be some subtle influence arising from a variant that causes a subtle problem that will be missed. That's both inevitable, and not necessarily the point.
The second is that the problems that have been occurring... have been contested in the media through the power of the corporations trying to prevent it. The most obvious instance is in GMO corn with the bacillus thuringiensis (BT) gene... that makes the plant itself produce BT toxins that kill bugs that eat the leaves. The BT toxins aren't the worst toxin applied to plants, or the worst possible to have in a systemic. Very unlikely that anyone will die from it. However, there are at least three (3) problems that matter a lot. One is that the gene, once it is the corn, (1) can't be contained. The pollen will be transmitted to other corn plants and the gene will be transmitted into other seeds. If you don't want the BT gene, you might not be able to prevent it. And, if you get it by accident... (2) the patent holder might sue you... because pollen he contaminated with his gene was trespassing on your property... so his corn was having sex with your corn, without your permission. And, then, as that has already begun to happen, the entire genetic base in the population of corn plants is being influenced. That matters because (3) some people ARE more sensitive to BT than others. I'm one of them, unfortunately... and, sad to say, I used to eat a lot of corn flakes, and I can't now... because they make me ill. They also taste like cardboard, now. I miss them... or, miss them they way they were. Although, I'm probably better off making better choices anyway... and don't have a shortage of choices. But, in rural Mexico where the corn they grow themselves to feed themselves is major component of their diet ? There, the people are poor, and they don't have the choices I do ? If they don't eat the corn, they'll starve. It's a problem that hasn't been well addressed, yet... that is likely to have more significant implications, sometime.
The mosquito issue in Brazil might well be another instance of the same (1) problem... as once the modifications are turned loose in the wild... there's no telling what the influence of them in nature will be... in subsequent populations. It is unlikely that the modified mosquitoes that were released were direct causes of changes in the virus. What is likely is that once the genes were set free... in the instances where they failed to kill their intended populations... the influence of natural selection ensured adaptations were selected... that made the "killer" genes not as lethal to the mosquitoes... while altering other things in their physiology... that might have made them better and more efficient hosts of particular viruses... which also had natural selection working on them in conjunction with the genes in the modified mosquito population.
"Isn't a plausible that with the exposure of them were a larger population, these effects can now be seen ?"
Not really. The virus is already present in a lot of other places with much higher population densities. It may be that all of those places have intrinsically better sanitation and have better controlled their mosquitoes. But, then, there would also be similar parallels in the numbers seen in the other diseases the mosquitoes carry, and that's not happening. There is "something" that is more unique about Brazil. The proximity of the outbreak to the release of the GMO mosquitoes, in both space and time, is HIGHLY suggestive that there is a link. I've seen other suggestions it may be some other environmental variable... and, it may be that, interacting with the modified mosquito populations, and/or a modified virus. We should find out pretty quickly if the virus itself has changed... or if it is just being transmitted more effectively by change in the mosquito vectors.
It may even be an issue in the genetics of the population of Brazil, and the Americas, and not of the mosquitoes or the virus. Native Americans were largely wiped out by white man's diseases after Columbus. Some isolated tribes still are at risk as they have no immunity to things the anthropologists studying them might infect them with. That's also another cautionary tale for GMO's... as you can't be sure that something is safe for everyone... just because it didn't kill any of the college sophomores you tested it on.
More on yours: "But for all of the "scary" things people say, I'm not aware of an instance where something could be proven true."
That's only because you're thinking about the risks wrong. The bigger issues are likely to occur in "accidents" that can't be anticipated... or, in those that are purposeful. The random element, first, is simply uncontrollable. You can't plan for or anticipate the scope of the result of an unanticipatable random occurrence of a problem... by definition. You only hope it's minor when it does happen (as is also true with natural variation of things like Ebola... which might naturally mutate to become dramatically more virulent on its own.) What happens when one modification escapes control... and then interacts with another ? Who can answer that ? The non-random issue is another thing, of course. Ebola, again, might mutate to become more virulent naturally... or, it might be engineered for that purpose and then be released, or escape, from a biowarfare lab and wipe out everyone. As the tech matures... its a bigger risk. So, for instance... if you were an radical anti-BT gene activist who hated Monsanto ? You could engineer your own modification of corn... with something like the mosquito gene in question now... and let it loose in the population... and have it kill any corn plant with a BT modification ? Or, thinking more darkly... modify the toxin. Assuming everyone working on the tech will catch every risk before its out there... of that they'll only work on things that have no risk ? Yeah. I wouldn't worry. It's not like if the government wanted to develop nuclear weapons, that they could find anyone willing to work on developing them... because people are better than that.
The rest of yours... needs to be considered in the context of how diverse and inefficient biology often is now. The "instance where something could be proven true"... is the fact in the natural existence of disease. Things often enough go wrong in biology naturally, already... so that it doesn't really need much help trying to invent new ways of enabling things in going wrong. Odds are, that the population of GMO thing increases, and gene escape containment... weird stuff will happen. Genetics ensures they will. It's supposed to work that way. We're just talking about Darwin's natural selection process becoming contaminated with non-natural inputs.
Of course, the flip side probably outweighs that risk... as we figure out more about genetics, we'll see more and more genetic modification being used successfully in curing disease.
I'm not an anti GMO activist. I do think the scope of the risks, being socialized, relative to a narrow profit based incentive that isn't... requires exercising great caution... and, the scope of the potential benefits aren't worth taking excessive risks. We should take it slow. A century from now... the risk of accidents will be a lot lower... we'll understand the risks a lot better... perhaps will know better how to contain risks that aren't being contained now... and we will have more tools to enable better choices than we have now.
At the same time, a century from now, the risks of non-accidental employment intending to cause harm, only grow more dangerous as the risks of accidentally created problems becomes less.
"But I don't believe that knocking out a gene that allows a viable offspring from a mosquito population could somehow change a virus that can infect said mosquito to cause brain deformities in fetuses".
Yes. That can happen. A gene whose presence or absence ensures the mosquito will die without being able to transmit a disease, if it is there... will kill the mosquito. But, if it only works a limited percentage of the time... or in specific conditions that aren't always met... then the "killer modification" isn't killing the mosquitoes... but is only MODIFYING them in OTHER, non-lethal ways ? So, as Genetics 101... if the modification kills 95% of the mosquitoes... you have nothing to worry about from the 95%... but, next season, almost 100% of the mosquitoes will be ones that survived your genetic assault without being killed. The gene is still in them... but it doesn't kill them... because... ??? What else is different in that population, now, because of the culling of the prior generation ? There's NO TELLING what OTHER impacts will result from the changes you imposed in that population... which changes they adapted to... rather than dying. Once the gene escapes... it no longer has the function you intended... but then MAY have some other that you don't understand...
We'll find out, of course. And, it will be an important bit of learning... whatever it is that proves to be the causal factor... or factors... driving this sudden emergence of a more pernicious viral problem than has emerged from this virus population before. It might also just be that the virus did this all on its own by mutating. That will be studied quickly. My guess is that the modified mosquitoes MAY well have mattered. Non-resistant Native American genetics in Brazil may well have mattered, too. It would be very useful to QUICKLY do comparative genetic studies on the victims... as well as on the modified mosquito survivor populations... to see how the genes in the infected population relate to the virus, and how the virus interacts with them...
Tom |
