OPINION
DOCTORS' Lounge
ed with a Wolbachia bacteria then mate with
wild females, producing defective offspring
which do not survive to adulthood. How the
bacteria does this is disputed, and how well
it does this is also disputed, with various tri-
als ongoing in tropical countries to see if this
technique is safe in the wild (not triggering
changes in other species), and to see if the
mosquitoes will remain susceptible. The
Miami-Dade mosquito control authority
released over half a billion Aedes Aegypti
mosquitoes that were engineered in Lexing-
ton, Ky., by MosquitoMate, to combat the
spread of Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya.
The company website said its products were
safe for people and pets and mammals. It
claims a more than 80 percent reduction in
mosquito populations in treated areas. Ac-
cording to the Orlando Sentinel, in 2016 the
Florida Health Department had confirmed
1,456 cases of Zika in the whole state. But as
of February 2018, only two cases had been
confirmed for all of 2017.
The deadliest mosquito-borne disease
is malaria. Dr. Michael Bonsall, Professor
of Mathematical Biology at Oxford, stated
a year ago that “A child dies from malaria
somewhere in the world every minute of
every day.” Combating malaria has become
much more complicated since the Southeast
Asian strains are showing resistance to our
most used medications, the Artemisinin
Combination Therapy (ACT). That means
the insects that survive the ACT will pass
on that trait while the other insects will die.
In the first years of this century, more than
3,000 children died per day; if worldwide
resistance to ACT is established we will sur-
pass those numbers rapidly, including huge
numbers of adult deaths. We no longer ever
use any drug as monotherapy and the World
Health Organization constantly monitors
for resistance.
The essential questions remain: What
species depend on mosquitoes to live? And,
which species depend on those species?
And, when will we start gene-splicing our
future children? The researcher in China,
He Jiankui, claims he has done so with ba-
bies already, to make them resistant to HIV.
But when we know how, will we insist on
producing some ideal of the species? That
is another order of ethical struggle entirely.
Birds eat mosquitoes, and lots of other
insects. So do turtles, fish (particularly the
mosquito fish), bats, dragonflies, damsel-
flies, frogs, tadpoles, beetles and spiders.
Dragonflies in particular eat primarily
mosquitoes.
If there were too few birds, crops would
wither and die from the hordes of pests.
Even now, up to 10 percent of industrial-
ized nations’ crops and up to 25 percent of
developing nations’ crops are lost to insect
pests. Many animals eat birds; many species
of plants depend on birds for pollination
and for the spread of seed and for the pro-
tection from pests.
disease. That’s basically three species. The
other 3,500 or so, we must leave alone. I
never ever thought I would even think this
sentence: “Save Our Mosquitoes.” But if we
get good enough to kill only the bad guys,
I am go for green, pedal to the metal, flank
speed, all hands on deck!
Dr. Barry practices Internal Medicine with
Norton Community Medical Associates-Bar-
ret. She is a clinical associate professor at the
University of Louisville School of Medicine,
Department of Medicine.
In sum, if we remove a huge majority
of mosquitoes – if something goes wrong
and mosquitoes mate with similar
but 2018
not Harding Shymanski quarter page ad GLMS.ai 1 11/1/2018 2:45:39 PM
December
identical species –
we will, potentially,
kill off our crops.
That’s a doomsday
scenario, but look
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David Braun
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
Even though
there are wonder-
ful and lifesaving
applications of the
CRISPR technique,
I believe that we
should proceed in
a surgical manner
with the gene-aided
eradication of mos-
quitoes that carry
Braun’s Nursing Home
CMY
K
Contact Michele R. Graham, CPA, MST
800.880.7800 • www.hsccpa.com
Louisville, KY • Evansville, KY
Parent of HSC Medical Billing & Consulting, LLC
JANUARY 2019
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