The World Is Closer Than Ever to Eradicating Guinea Worm

As a contrarian in these topics, without being able to prove it, i assume that nothing terribly Bad can come from exterminating a species, even if it were bees, and their connections to the ecosystem are well understood. Nature is a rough place as niches tend to fill up extremely fast.

So if we were to exterminate mosquitos, my gut says we'd survive it. But luckily my gut doesnt make Policy.

I agree with the idea of the unknown consequences of eliminating pieces of ecosystems. We've seen the impact of the removal of apex predators like wolves, and movements like rewilding champion the idea of reintroduction, rebalancing of the ecosystem through brining such animals back. So we seem to think that maintaining ecosystems is important now. Complexity theory and modeling could be very useful to "estimating" the impact of eradication, I'm not sure how the impact is being evaluated though. (In the future can man-made animals step in and play vital positions in ecosystems, like biological shims when we realize the importance or primary role a species played within that ecosystem?)

Rewilding References:

1. Reintroducing Wolves in Scotland: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33017511

2. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_(conservation_biolog...

3. Rewilding Institute: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/

With mosquitos the discussion does tend to meander around what I see as the core issue: the wisdom of developing and field testing a technology capable of eradicating a target species.

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v34/n1/full/nbt.3439.html

One factor is that there is a lot less "we" involved with the Guinea Worm.

I mean, good luck suppressing the knowledge that filtering your drinking water through a cloth prevents a devastating episode where a 3 foot worm crawls out of your body.

The proposed programs for eradicating mosquitoes involve things like releasing millions of dollars of genetically modified mosquitoes and putting larvicides and insecticides in all known bodies of standing water.

The fact that we've unintentionally wiped out so many species lends credence to the idea that, on average, very few individual specie are all that important. Of course, just leave it to us to find the exception someday...

Mosquitoes are an essential part of the diet of many species: birds, spiders, toads, small rodents. The assumption is that those species could find replacements, but it is still a major change.

The Guinea worm presumably does not represent a significant ecological step.

Unlike the Guinea worm, mosquitos are non-specific predators. Guinea worm can be eliminated by having a season without any humans infected, the only way to get rid of mosquitoes is to kill, every single one.

I'm absolutely ok with eliminating most (or all, really) species of mosquitoes.

I'm optimistic that in the (very near) future the ability to do this rests with a few people who decide it is worth doing, and worth spending single digit millions of dollars to do it, vs. any organization with a deliberative, democratic process.

It would be hilarious to successfully wipe out mosquitoes and then have people try to sue (or governments attempt criminal charges).

Erradicating a parasite like the the guinea worm is a bit like erradicating Smallpox or Polio. The ecossystem impact that you would expect is a change in human population due to the improved health.

However, we consider it more ethical to control the size of the human population with voluntary birth control instead of terrible diseases :)

Wrapping it on a stick is the traditional treatment for Guinea Worm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius#Theories

I was not aware of this before a long trip through wikipedia (triggered because I'd never seen that word before), but there's apparently some controversy over use of the Caduceus vs the Rod of Asclepius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus_as_a_symbol_of_medici...

Basically, the US Army used it by mistake and so it's taken over in the United States, but people think that the one-snake version (RoA) is more correct. The RoA is thought to be perhaps rooted in the treatment for Guinea Worm (or else based on a magical healing snake kept by Moses).

I would suggest that you not google image search that, as I did. There are many modern results, and it's quite awful.

Little danger, I guess. The eradication program introduces no new evolutionary pressure on worms' lavae living in water. Those filtered out or killed in their hosts are removed from the gene pool anyway.

On the other hand, we may discover more such preexisting hosts, as dogs. A parasitic relationship that evolved over a much longer period than a few mere decades and evolving from a much larger population than the few individuals thought to remain in the wild.

Haha, that's kinda cute. Does the author of this piece volunteer as a host for the worms?

The reference to Swift at the bottom suggests this is satire.

I imagine the backlash against trying to eradicate mosquitos - the disappearance of which had all but proven to have a minuscule (if at all measurable) impact on the planet, and would save an insane number of human lives - as being thunderous. So it's cute that there's someone pulling for the Guinea Worm - even if it is satirical.

It would be a great business card to be an agent of the Guinea Worm Destruction Cartel.