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Now is the time to eliminate mosquitoes
“In 2015, there were roughly 214 million malaria cases and an estimated 438 000 malaria deaths.” While we don’t know how many humans malaria has killed, an estimate of half of everyone who has ever died isn’t absurd. Because few people in rich countries get malaria, pharmaceutical companies put relatively few resources into combating it.
The best way to eliminate malaria is probably to use gene drives to completely eradicate the species of mosquitoes that bite humans, but until recently rich countries haven’t been motivated to such xenocide. The Zika virus, which is in mosquitoes in the United States, provides effective altruists with an opportunity to advocate for exterminating all species of mosquitoes that spread disease to humans because the horrifying and disgusting pictures of babies with Zika might make the American public receptive to our arguments. A leading short-term goal of effective altruists, I propose, should be advocating for mosquito eradication in the short window before rich people get acclimated to pictures of Zika babies.
Personally, I have (unsuccessfully) pitched articles on mosquito eradication to two magazines and (with a bit more success) emailed someone who knows someone who knows someone in the Trump campaign to attempt to get the candidate to come out in favor of mosquito eradication. What have you done? Given the enormous harm mosquitoes inflict on mankind, doing just a little (such as writing a blog post) could have a high expected payoff.
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Comments (75)
I got https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4vhqoc/should_we_wipe_mosquitoes_off_the_face_of_the/ to the front page of Reddit, which probably got somewhere on the order of magnitude of 50,000 people to read it or at least think about the idea, which can only help in terms of moving it into the Overton Window.
I know at one point it was number 6 for logged out users.
Great! How did you get it to the front page of Reddit?
I just submitted it and was lucky. It's the kind of thing that sub likes. I've had around three posts hit the front page out of probably thousands since I started, there's definitely a large luck factor that goes in.
We're consequentialists here, so I get all the credit for it even if it wasn't much effort, right?
^^
By the way, looking at https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/duplicates/4vhqoc/should_we_wipe_mosquitoes_off_the_face_of_the/ there are another couple submissions in other subs right after mine which were presumably inspired by my post (the article is from February), one in TIL which also hit the frontpage.
I don't think that gene drives are the best technology when you account for the politics and indeed the post by Luke that you link doesn't use the term. SIT seems to be effective enough from a cost-benefit analysis and can be used in a very controlled way.
I look a while ago into the issue and wrote an LW post about it. I think there's a fair chance that pushing for gene drives mosquitos to be released will mean that mosquito elemintion will happen later rather than sooner.
Oxitec has today the technology that produes "sterile mosquitio" sterile for them means that the mosquitos die when they are larves. That means they compete in the early larve stage against other mosquito larves. Oxitec also inserts color coding genes to be able to proof that all of the offspring of the mosquitos they produce really dies and the genes that they produce really die.
It would be worthwhile if people think of mosquito erradication as being about release sterile mosquitos and not about releasing mutant GMO mosquitos.
If you actively want to do something on the PR front I think it would be worthwhile to contact someone at Oxitec and ask them what they think would be helpful. Maybe invite someone from Oxitec for your podcast and have a discussion with them about the strategic implications?
It's worthwhile to remember that the Obama administration was very effective about reducing Mercury pollution but not very effective about reducing CO2 pollution. More publish attention isn't always worthwhile to getting policy passed. Especially the scenario where a Republican Trump advocates a gene drive might mean that you get opposition from liberals who are currently against GMO's on the topic that prevents real action from happening.
I wonder if Trump advocating gene drive might push liberals to counter with a less drastic proposal such as what you suggest. I don't have a good model of how liberals think, but if Trump did advocate using gene drive to exterminate mosquitoes would liberals really be capable of countering with the status quo given liberals current support for "black lives matter."
I think the idea of actually exterminating mosquitos is already extrem for many liberals who would rather prefer handing out bet nets.
My honest response to this comment would involve observations on liberals that violate LW norms.
The sterile insect approach is, at best, a population control measure, rather than an extinction measure. Some may hope that if you do population control long enough, they eventually go extinct, but I think the evidence for that is pretty low. (Cynically, the sterile insect approach is something that has to be done repeatedly to be effective, which makes it more of a utility than a one-off project.)
I think it's worth giving this the smallpox treatment--that is, there's a heroic scientific project involving the permanent elimination of a scourge on the human race, and stressing the importance of permanent solutions to the problem. Yes, smallpox required vaccination approaches that are similar to the sterile insect approach, but that doesn't work well with mosquitoes, so we'll use the tool that works well.
We already eliminated Malaria carrying Mosquitos from large parts of the West with DDT and related techniques. Those mosquitos didn't manage to easily recolonize the areas from which they were driven away.
Louie Helm article suggest that SIT is enough to drive mosquito species to extinction. Do you think there a reason he's wrong? His numbers might be on the low end but spending a few billions would very much be worth it to eliminate all human biting mosquitos.
No, the extent of mosquitoes was reduced by draining swamps. Other methods, such as DDT did not reduce the extent of mosquitoes, but eliminated malaria from them.
My understanding is that this isn't the case where Oxitec has done its tests, but this may be a feature of the size of the area where Oxitec is doing its tests rather than a feature of the method itself. (I suspect we did DDT everywhere at once, which would reduce the ability of mosquitoes to recolonize relative to a single test area.)
I think my main objection is that it's a few billions to do the sterile insect approach, and a few millions to do the gene drive approach, if that much. Insisting on a 1000x increase in cost to maybe please the public more rankles.
Oxitec has already PR problem with it's current approach where they can prove that all mosquitos don't leave ancestors and where they focus on disease carrying mosquitos that are invading species.
See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3425381/Are-scientists-blame-Zika-virus-Researchers-released-genetically-modified-mosquitos-Brazil-three-years-ago.html http://naturalsociety.com/outrage-oxitecs-gm-moths-are-released-in-new-york/
According to Oxitec:
Spending a few billions on eliminating disease carrying mosquitos would be okay.
Even if over the long-term using the gene drive technology is the best way to go, I don't think it's the best way to have the discussion at the beginning when they idea of eliminating mosquito species enters public consciousness.
Oh my god those articles are stupid.
If only there was some way to physically scream "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!" at the author. The whole point is to spread the "kill switch" to the wild mosquitoes.To kill them.
The Daily mail article appears to be referring to this:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987024/pandoras_box_how_gm_mosquitos_could_have_caused_brazils_microcephaly_diasaster.html
where people started pointing to GM mosquitos having been released in areas where zika has been spreading.
never mind that areas where mosquito's are the biggest problem are the areas where you try mosquito control, in a similar vein it's suspicious that most malaria deaths are in areas where bednets have previously been distributed. There can be only one conclusion: bednets cause malaria.
Agreed! What would be the best approach (I'm a PhD student and vector-borne disease epidemiologist)?
For you I suggest something that also advances your career so that you can devote more time to the project. If the answer to this isn't clear I suggest talking to your professors asking what they suggest. Another approach is to become a literal superhero. Assemble a group of scientists who on their own could eradicate mosquitoes and just do it. Don't wait for official approval.
The appeal of this route is obvious, but I don't think it should be discussed on a public forum.
Certainly, no one seriously considering implementing such a policy should advocate it in a public forum. I think lots of scientists would consider breaking existing ethical standards to do a massive amount of good to be non-obvious.
That's an excellent way to end up in jail on bioterrorism charges.
I don't think what I'm advocating can by any reasonable or standard definition be classified as terrorism. I'm not seeking to harm or scare anyone.
You would, at the very least, be in violation of several acts regarding approval of GMOs: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/restrictions-on-gmos/usa.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_the_release_of_genetically_modified_organisms#United_States Specifically, you'd be violating FDA requirements by releasing '“new animal drugs” (NADs)' without approval. Depending on whether mosquitoes are considered plant pests, it looks like you'd also be violating Department of Agriculture laws. I assume you'd probably also be violating a number of EPA laws but didn't see anything specifically about that.
Couldn't you get around these laws by either (a) releasing the mosquitoes outside of the U.S. or (b) creating and releasing them outside of the U.S.?
Maybe not. At least one bioterrorism provision has extraterritoriality.
Do you know that a pipe bomb is legally classified as a weapon of mass destruction?
Yes it is (with emphasis on the word "excellent"). That's part of why doing it would make one a superhero.
Edit: I wonder if you could do this without breaking any laws if you only release the mosquitoes in international waters?
Actually, ending up in jail is a good option. I suspect that there are certain government agencies which, on learning that you secretly plan to release genetically-engineered insects into the wild, would just disappear you. Notably such agencies give zero shits about concepts like "international waters".
Should we worry that if Trump supports eradicating mosquitoes, that will cause Trump opponents to oppose it?
Yes, this does reduce the benefit of getting Trump to support mosquito eradication.
More to the point, PZ Myers has already come out against it on ecological grounds (though that was probably some years ago.) This would solidify him in that position if he hasn't already changed his mind. Now, if it's Trump vs scientists, what will happen?
We perhaps shouldn't give much weight to PZ Myers' viewpoint. See this Slatestarcodex article.
How is that a response? Is it what you plan to tell the media?
No, as I doubt the media would give the same amount of weight to Scott A. as readers here do. I doubt the media would ever ask me to respond to PZ Myer's opinion on this.
Make it obvious that we are targeting male mosquitoes, then the idea will also be acceptable for the other side.
And specifically cis het male mosquitos!
Consider reposting this on the EA Forum, might get more hits that way.
I tried. I guess it wasn't accepted.
That's disappointing.
:-(
Is it a good idea to leave alive mosquitos that don't bite humans? How long would it take them to mutate and fill the "human bloodsucking" niche that is suddenly vacant?
Perhaps a more comprehensive program of disease vector eradication is in order. Any organism that acts as a flying hypodermic needle poses the risk of moving pathogens around between species. For that matter, there are a lot of parasites in the world that parasitise mammals. If they were all to be eradicated, predators could take up the slack, but predators such as foxes, wolves or lions are trivially easy for us to control in comparison.
Natural ecosystems are de facto bioterrorist labs that occasionally output horrors like AIDS and ebola and zika. Maybe human beings need to start a serious and far-reaching effort to shut them down.
Killing all mosquitoes would be way too likely to have seriously bad unintended consequences IMO.
It would be something that I'd like to ask an expert about, but I think it's worth considering.
More generally: the ecosystem we have today is almost certainly not the best one we could possibly have. Therefore there may be feasible positive changes we can make to it.
Define "best".
Good point.
I don't think "human bloodsucking" is the niche in which most of the competition happens. Human from which blood can be sucked aren't the scarce resource. Competition among larves looks to me like it's a stronger barrier.
I am not a biologist so I cannot comment on this. It is apparently the case that larvae compete with each other for microbes and algae as a food source.
This is probably a good idea. My take is that most of resistance I'm culturally aware of would come from people concerned about an irreversible change to the ecosystem, whether or not this concern is warranted. Potentially worth investigating/getting some experts on your side/proposing a contained preservation of a mosquito population (the way we preserve rare diseases)
Well yes, I am very concerned, because you're talking about convincing people that it won't collapse ecosystems, and not about figuring out whether it'll actually collapse ecosystems in the real world that doesn't care how persuasive you sound.
I agree figuring out whether this might collapse ecosystems is important, (and what this collapse would entail, it would probably go beyond mosquitos and lead to some species rebalancing, but pretty darn sure not "destroy everything" either)
There are mosquito populations that you shouldn't try to exterminate, because they are important to their ecosystem. If you get rid of them a bunch of birds have no food and so they are gone too etc. But they are up here in the arctic. Getting rid of all the tropical mosquitoes is good for everyone and does not have any great effects on any ecosystem. Everyone that eats mosquitoes there also has other insects that they prefer to eat.
There's about 3200 species of mosquito. < 200 bite humans and perhaps a dozen are major disease vectors for humans.
We extinct about 150 species per day without really trying. Increasing the number of species we push to extinction by 10% for a single day would save half a million lives per year.
These are important comparisons.
Yes, you want to keep a viable population because they may be a gene modification delivery system. In warm countries, it is the cheapest and broadest way to "infect" a population. If you do find a way to do RNA insertions from injectables, this would be an ideal system.
Perhaps that is why we have them. My friends had a similar discussion on HIV a long time ago, that it may turn out to be the ultimate cellular insertion tool we ever come across. As i recall, if you have HIVb, you body doesn't develop AIDS, so a de-weaponized HIV virus may become a tool down the line. The same may be said about malaria and the other apicomplexans. They have little organs at the front of the parasite that allow them to easily slide into cells, videos make em look like they just swim up to a cell, and nose into it. Pretty amazing biology
So another reason to exterminate "wild" mosquitoes is that otherwise they are a convenient vector for bio-terrorism.
another group working on mosquito reduction.
https://debugproject.com/faqs/
According to Technology Review Gates is targeting 2029 for releasing gene drive mosquitoes.
Imagine after defeating the Nazis we decided to wait 13 years before closing their death camps.
I didn't know there was even a group out there taking the discussion to it's limits, Interesting read.
"What principle(s) should govern our stewardship of the rest of the living world? How many of the traditional horrors of "Nature, red in tooth and claw" should we promote and perpetuate? Alternatively, insofar we want to preserve traditional forms of Darwinian life, should we aim for an ethic of compassionate stewardship instead. Cognitively, nonhuman animals are akin to small children. They need caring for as such."
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963
"I look forward to a future where all sentient beings enjoy life animated by gradients of bliss"
If it is possible to drive mosquitoes to extinction, it is a good idea, but it sounds difficult to me. It would be easier to to use gene drive to spread antimalarial drugs. This sounds complicated, but people have done it in the lab. By aligning the gene drive with the fitness of the mosquitoes, it is more likely to work. It does not preclude future extermination. But this is a complicated mechanism, not easily adaptable to, say, Zika.
Not that it's relevant, but the claim that malaria has killed half of humans who have lived is completely absurd. Falciparum malaria is nasty because it has only recently jumped to humans. With time, it would adapt to be less deadly, to better spread, and humans would adapt to be less vulnerable. This is exactly what happened to vivax ("benign") malaria. Vivax jumped to humans 35k years ago, while falciparum only 5k years ago. The genus Homo was free of malaria for millions of years. If you define humans as starting 50k years ago, then some form of malaria was present for most of that time, although how deadly it was varied a lot over the millennia.
Given population growth, it's not obvious to me that more people lived until 5k years ago than since then.
That's true, the population estimates used in the models James cites are dominated by the agricultural era. But the claim that half of deaths are due to malaria is based on the contrary assumption that most humans lived in subsaharan Africa.
Here is some commentary on the two most popular models.
Go and look at the estimates. They have already been made and are easily found with the usual method.
Note that with a goal to eliminate a species completely, the longer you wait to get experience and perfected technology, the better.
A major screw up in such a case would be some random factor, mutation etc. preventing us from wiping all mosquitoes, and leaving a group that would be resistant to current gene-drive technology.
I don't know enough about gene-drives to suggest how it might happen - but the point is that there are always "unknown unknowns".
That smaller group would then quickly spread and replace the previous population, and would be harder to deal with.
Repeat a few times, and you have gradually nudged the population of mosquitoes to be resistant to our attempts to eliminate it.
It's possible that waiting longer and using a better technology in the first strike, would have solved the problem cleanly.
True if gene drive is like antibiotics, but is it? Every day we wait 1,200 people die of malaria because of delay, a price worth paying if, but only if, you get some significant benefit from waiting. Another big "unknown unknown" is what other viruses mosquitoes will put in us if we don't quickly eliminate them.
I remember having a similar discussion about HIV and anti-retroviral drugs.
In short, it's an easy position to take if you and the people you care about aren't currently in the firing line and making policy choices on assumptions about future discoveries that we can't guarantee is ethically problematic.
I agree with you 100%, and I'm not really advocating to put anything off based on my argument. I am merely bringing it up to address it properly, i.e. be aware when a trade-off is being made on this scale.
Most prediction markets give Hillary Clinton an advantage over Donald Trump. In general, if one candidate comes out in favor of something, the supporters of the other candidate will be more likely to oppose that thing (all else equal). Doesn't this suggest attempting to get Clinton to come out in favor of eradicating mosquitos is the better strategy?
I think eradication would appeal more to Trump than Clinton so there is a higher marginal value in attempting to persuade him. Trump supporting eradication would at least put the issue in serious political play. Finally, I'm a Republican and if somehow I managed to contact someone on team Hillary she would likely Google me and quickly determine I was a political enemy and so would at best ignore my proposal.
Have you already tried getting the idea through to Trump via a backchannel like Scott Adams (some of Trump's staffers pay attention to him), who takes cost-benefit style arguments seriously?
No. Adams says he has no contact with the Trump campaign.
Is there a possibility that those diseases will move to a different animal?
CDC
CDC
Excellent!
I haven't done anything, but I applaud you for doing stuff. Good luck saving all those people.