From what I've been able to tell, conspiracy theorists are hosts unto themselves. If you have the chance to talk to one deep in the weeds in person, it's fascinating how you can throw out literally any assertion, back it up with negative evidence ("can't really go into that"), and see the pick up. (It's best to do this outside your own context. As an American, it's easier to see the nonsense abroad.)
I just don't see how injecting people with genetically modified parasites without their consent is "great".
Right now you can consent to get a malaria vaccine, no covert parasite needed.
If the counter that it is for poorer populations, I'd still say you may want to ask them if they want to be injected with a genetically modified parasite. If one single person doesn't want to be in the area, you shouldn't do it. Would you support them dropping these in your neighborhood?
Oh, and this already happens with the attenuated polio vaccine. People can catch the vaccine from those who have been immunised, in a similar way to how they could catch the virus. Delivering the vaccine the same way the pathogen spreads also allows people to opt out by following the same techniques they would to avoid the actual disease. You can use mosquito nets, mosquito sprays, etc., to help avoid both malaria and the mosquito-delivered vaccine.
I'd much prefer we got rid of Mr. Mosquito, but if we won't (or can't) we can at least make sure that what's in that jerk's needle stops killing people every day.
You can modify them to not reproduce if you're modifying them already for this instance.
If it's a matter of "won't" then we should ask "why not", instead of allowing someone to do this.
Curious to know where I can find no mosquitoes, other than Iceland and Antarctica.
The US has also had great success in their eradication and mitigation programs.
The point is not to get rid of all mosquitos, just the disease-carrying ones.
Thailand has also done it with great success.
We're also not doing it from a position of "mosquitos couldn't be used to spread human selectable things to kill humans before and now people suddenly can spread genetically modified killer parasites".
The one thing this research does is add the ability to spread immunity to malaria through mosquito population it doesn't change anything else about what could be spread by mosquitos before. People have been using animals to spread disease as a weapon of war since medieval times this is not a new vector that will suddenly be exploited.
This can only be a good thing unless you view the vaccines as a danger worse than the disease (which with such a widespread and deadly disease would be rather unlikely in any objective sense) or to be simplistic you believe in the inalienable right to be a vector to spread diseases to those around you.
from https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/about/about-mosquito-bites.ht...
- Female mosquitoes bite people and animals to get a blood meal.
- Most female mosquitoes cannot produce eggs without a blood meal.
- Male mosquitoes do not bite people and animals.