"I suppose I can't say that there is zero chance that these problems were caused by a survived population of mosquitoes, although I'm not yet sure that a precautionary principle approach applies here. What if it did just appear on its own? Then rapidly reducing the existing mosquito population would be in everybody's best interest rather than not doing so."
The first answer to that is... when you've already begun tinkering with genetics... and the genes are let loose in the wild... how do you define "on its own"... when it isn't on its own any more ? That's not just a semantic point.
There's still potential validity, of course. Maybe it did appear, not "on its own" but as a result of some other combination of things that had nothing much to do with the genetics experiment... the presence of which might have been a total coincidence. The logic of causality doesn't really allow you to believe that coincidence absolves any potential liability as a first answer... particularly when people's lives are being put at risk. But, then, you are right about the rest. If there is more benefit in killing mosquitoes than anything else... then we should do that... by the best means available. The best means available for that is not altering genetics... but reducing the numbers of old tin cans (etc., etc.) out there with water standing in them. Spraying DDT also works... but has issues... etc.
So, the most correct answer from where we are... is to figure out where we are better than we know now, before making any more stupid decisions. The first need is to do what we can that minimizes the problem without imposing any known or new risks... They're doing that already. The second need is to solve the problems we're discussing with a lack of knowledge, by doing the genetic work on ALL OF THE ABOVE... the virus, the mosquitoes, and the people.
"I read through the zero hedge article which was interesting. It doesn't appear that tetracycline was the best antibiotic for them to breed in resistance to the death gene. Antibiotics in animal feed is I think a pretty huge public health emergency which nobody yet seems to pay attention to. But that's a different story."
Agree with the assessment except for the part about "that's a different story". Genetics, as we've been discussing, don't exist in a vacuum... so when you turn a gene loose in the environment, you're assuming responsibility for MANY things in the environment that the gene will interact with... that you don't control.
Antibiotics are an example... proving that many of the problems we induce are a result of our own tendency to create boundaries in our thinking, where they don't belong... where there are none in reality. Antibiotics are an instance of something that functions because of genetics... but, we just don't think of them that way, as operating through or using, including altering, genetics... rather than as some other thing that exists on its own.
Neither the antibiotics, nor the modified gene, are out there "on their own". They're both made a part of the environment by us, and they are both out there only because of us. ASSUME... purely for the sake of argument... that we end up learning that the problem is an interaction between the new gene and the antibiotics out there already. Who is responsible for the outbreak ? The people putting the antibiotics out there ? Or the people putting the new gene out there ? There are lots of reasons to accept that increasing knowledge of genetics is going to allow us to improve our lives. There are also lots of reasons to accept that we should be careful, and move slowly, as we begin using what we already know... while accepting that we don't know everything... and that what we don't know, might be as important, or more important, than what we do.
"Antibiotics in animal feed is I think a pretty huge public health emergency which nobody yet seems to pay attention to. But that's a different story."
Just want to point out, again, you just provided an answer re antibiotics... which I agree with.. but which seems to conflict with your prior answer in relation to "genetics" as opposed to "chemistry" ? Antibiotics are a bit of chemistry that both "works with" and then manipulates the genetics of populations by how it works, and the use of antibiotics does alter population genetics. It is a genetic tool. In the human population antibiotics keep people alive that wouldn't be alive to reproduce otherwise. In the pathogen population, at first, it kills pathogens that would be alive otherwise... and allows others to survive instead. Later, it selects for resistance and makes pathogens that can ignore the antibiotic chemistry rather than be killed by it. Then, the use of the antibiotic helps them by removing their competition. By selecting for resistant strains... you are also selecting for other things... which you have no idea about... and no idea how those things will interact in other ways in the future, once you've tipped the scales a particular way, and biased the population you selected for in the way you did.
The problem you are defining is one resulting from the changes in the genetics of the population of pathogens resulting from excess in the use of antibiotics. The only difference between antibiotic use causing problems, and problems resulting from gene insertion issues when you let genes loose in the environment... are, 1.) a difference in the point of disturbance where you create a new interaction between the environment, the chemicals in the environment, and the genes in the environment... and, 2.) in the unknown in how the gene variation might change other things in the course of gene dilution, transfer and recombination, not to mention mutation.
The final point... is that nature is complex... there are lot of inter-relations we don't know about... while we have a tendency to only look at the immediate impacts of our choices, and the linear in the benefits more than the things that aren't short term and extractable values... while not paying attention to downstream artifacts.
We like to pretend we're so much better than people were 150 years ago... when they were using hydraulic mining in California to get the gold... or doing other things in mining that we are still paying for, today, in many ways... because they didn't think ahead... about how mercury outflows might create problems for people downstream. Reality is... we're no different than people before us, save in how we view ourselves as superior for recognizing the obvious today... that wasn't obvious then. A hundred years from now... in many things... people will look at us and ask... how could they have been that stupid, to not see that X would do Y ?
Fukushima ? Oh.... that's not us... that was caused by the people BEFORE us... ??? LOL!!
|
