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.
“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.