Malaysia Releases 6,000 Genetically Modified Mosquitoes into the Wild

Well here is another crazy which is probably another nothing to see here folks move along. For f sake, wth?

Snip:

Over the protests of environmental groups and NGOs, Malaysia has released 6,000 genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild, hoping to drive down incidents of mosquito-borne dengue fever. It’s the first experiment of its kind in Asia, but naturally everyone isn’t thrilled with the idea of releasing altered DNA into the ecosystem. Dengue fever is a particularly nasty bug found in tropical and subtropical climes like Malaysia’s, causing nausea, muscle and joint pain, fever, headaches, rashes, and sometimes death if left untreated (in Malaysia it killed 134 people last year). The experimental mosquitoes, all male, were engineered to produce offspring that quickly die in hopes that shortening life spans will thin the population of Aedes species (dengue fever is carried by females).

FULL ARTICLE

Ok, I can understand trying to fix a situation, but isnt this how many other situations before this have gone horribly array?

I personally feel that altering the DNA of species in order to cause their decedents to have an early die-off is absurd. I realize the benefits of life-saving from this potentially harmful disease but at what cost? What risk? Mother nature made mosquito's (as annoying as they are) they serve a purpose in the eco-system... and to those who contract the disease, as terrible as it sounds, its just natural selection.

Mother nature will not let you kill them off like that. We modified them, they'll adapt. Then what kind of a disease are we going to have. Greeeaaaat!

What did that professor say in the movie "Jurassic parc"?

Life will find a way...

i think we should startb making genetically modified catholic preists that dont have any balls

The above comment is completely irrelevant.


As for the topic: I think it safer to play GM with mammals than with insects. Insects are still complex in their own ways when compared and this really sounds like a bad excuse to release anything GM into the wild. Makes you wonder if it was actually an accident that they got released in the first place. Hope nothing serious happens b/c of this.

Mosquitos take a miniscule amount of blood from bigger animals and leave relatively little damage to show for it, then they are eaten as a food source for birds and bats and small reptiles, and those things are eaten by bigger predators all the way back up to humans.

It is the circle of life. So, we break the circle seeking a more comfortable environment, but the repercussions will circle around and bite us!

So, we ease the sting of a small mosquito bite, but we create a much more profound sting of an altered ecosystem, more extinctions, and eventually less humans. Yes, less mosquitos eventually equals less humans.

What could possibly go wrong...?!

The have been some pretty evil stories involving the eugenics crowd and mosquitoes. From past releases of specially bread mosquitoes there have been massive disease breakouts. I have not looked into the science behind this release but it sounds like a scam. It would not be the first time they promise a good benefit but deliver a bad one.