The Ethics Of Eradicating A Species

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Go to fetchpet dot com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet dot com slash save Mosquitoes are definitely One of the most frustrating parts of summer, I went camping for a weekend and came back with two hundred mosquito bites. Mosquitoes love me. Whatever it is that they're into, I've got it unfortunately I want you to close your eyes and imagine a perfect summer girls night out. You assemble your crew and you head up the ultimate cookout. You avoid the grill, you don't really want all that smoke in your face. But the food really starts calling your name And what a spread. You gorge yourself on a delicious meal and then hate to dight and dash, but hey, you got what you needed and you are off to the next spot That is the perfect Saturday night for a Mosquito. These bloodthirsty insects are more than an annoyance that feasts on your ankles. Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal on the planet I'm John Glen Hill, and this week on Explained It T Me fromom Vox, we're trying to swat away our mosquito problem. For good Every summer, I'm reminded just how much mosquitoes love me They also love Sony Swagger. She's an etomologist at Texas A and M, where she specializes in bugs that bite us Well, you know, I don't know why they like me so much. I know why they like people in general One of the main reasons is because of the CO two we put off. Oo, what do we have here? Your body temperature, whether or not you're a living host that they can get blood from, that's important They're alive, check. They also do like colors. They have found that they do have a preference for moreore flowery colors actually, right? So more like the pinks and the blues and things like that O, I love butter yellow. They have found, which is this is a fun one that if you consume alcohol, that actually makes you more attractive. Actually it was a study done with beer. So as folks you know took in some more beer at their parties, they actually became more attractive. Okay, well, this one's got something going on They've also had some studies where the mosquitoes have become used to smells that they're associated with such in urban areas. you know there are certain smells that are always in that region. in the mosquitoes, which was the eighties Egypti mosquito actually preferred people who came from that area as opposed to other people that they may be encountering. So it's kind of interesting to think that mosquitoes would have that much U common sense, I guess in a way much ability. Not that they have a preferred flavor of human beings. likeike Oh my gosh What are mosquitoes doing exactly when they bite us? Like what are the mechanics and what are they trying to get We refer to it as a blood meal, but it's not necessarily a meal. It's not a food source. but it's a necessity in order for them to produce eggs. So the female's going to again, sense the host that she's looking for based on her factors that she's you in tune to. And once she finds the ability to probe, she will eventually then you know address it with her her proboscis is made up of different features and then the internal part is what she actually will bite us with. So they'll actually unsheath that and start to force the inner part of their mouth parts into our skin. In the process of doing that, they're also going to spit saliva Int us? Yes. And the reasons they do that have many purposes. One is because they don't want us to know that we're getting bit. So they're going to spit in us with the saliva. They're gonna put in some materials that also anesthesize that biting that' also slow the flow rate of the blood because that's, you know, they're trying to drink it. they don't want it to come flying out ofem like a fire hose. They need to regulate that Unfortunately, though, when they're doing that in the saliva, they're also spitting pathogens into us if they have them. Some of our larger mosquitoes are not as friendly when they bite us. They may actually hurt. They don't always choose to be polite about it. so we're all aware of those ones for sure How soon after I get bitten does my skin start to swell up? Does that bump start Well, that depends on a person. Some people react immediately. and then some people will react later. Like it could be an hour, half hour, the next day, twenty four hours, or even a day or two. And then there's people who have no reaction whatsoever. So unfortunately, there's no said answer to that because everybody reacts differently I think I'm personally, I'm more of a like second level. I'll react usually within thirty minutes of a bite, but it's not common. I react instantly. But my mother, she's an instant reactor, right? So the minute she's bitten by something, she gets a welt, she gets a hive and she knows it. So it does vary and then it also changes because your amount of exposure can change your reaction as well I think probably in my thirties I just stopped reacting to them. So when I get bitten now, they still bite me, but instead of getting and a raised itchy bump. I just get a tiny little spot that doesn't itch at all. So I guess I've built up a tolerance to mosquito venom. over the years. some people can get bit constantly and constantly react to it and they get more severe reactions to it. And then some people can get bit frequently and eventually not notice. They will actually deplete those reactions. So again, there's no set this is how it's going to be. It really just depends on how you as a person will react to those bites. and those bites are not exclusive across the lines for all biting insects either. so there's variability in that as well You said mosquitoes love you. So I have to know as an eetomologist What do you use to keep them away? I just stick with deep because that's always worked for me. and generally it's easier to access to. If you do try some others, there are a few others out there. so like Pkeritin is another good one as long as you don't have a reaction to it because again, some people do react to different chemicals. It's nothing against the chemical. it's just the way our Our bodies react. There's oil, lemon eucalyptus, which is a natural product that's been approved and tested. but the caveat with that is it's not labeled for children. So we do have to be careful of that. Obviously you want something that is as good as or as close to as good as D because it has been found to technically be, I guess the gold standard. They've not really found anything much more effective than that, but they can definitely get equivalent to it I have tried all types of things. There were these, I remember one year, there were like these bracelets that it was like, they're gonna to keep mosquitoes away. and I was like, well Do doesn't hurt or you know, citronella candles when you're out on someone's patio. Do those things do anything? Yeah, I know the bracelets were definitely not found to be as effective as they claimed. Plus they did because they did have some type of a chemical in them, if they stayed on children too long, they actually could cause a chemical burn. So o, you know, as a mom, I was like, no, no, we're not gonna go that route I was let's not do that. The candles are limited. When you're outside and you won't b, now there's en that you don't. It depends on the size of the space and how close you sit to the candle. So the candle in the citronella does have an effect, but how far does it expand is the question. How many do you really need to do the job you're asking it to do is kind of where you run into an issue there. So you may find better results by using something different. What do you do for post bite remedies Um I'm a just deal with a kind of person To be honest, so I'm a true endomologist. I don't kill much and I just deal with it. so but you know, there are good products nowadays that you can get for anti itch. I would suggest that you know, you hear all these different remedies, putting ice on it, sure, that just sues that initial bite maybe that calms the skin. That's really what you're trying to do. You're trying to calm your body's reaction to the bite itself and really just trying to trick the skin into realizing it's okay Mosquitoes need to be managed. I didn't intend to be an entomologist to kill insects. That wasn't my intention. actually my research didn't kill any, but because of the betterment of society, sometimes we do have to interfere and we do need to play our role. There are certain individuals in those populations that are more heavily impacted and they're generally going to be the elderly or the the young, right? And we want to protect every generation that we can There's a real imperative to try to curb the mosquito problem Next We're headed to the lab Su for today Explain comes from Framer. If your team wants a website that looks and feels hand crafted, but is still fast to ship, Framer is built for that. You design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts hosting and a CMS built in, so the work is production ready from day one. Agents work alongside you to draft pages and polish sections, then you review and publish what goes live. Framer is the pro site builder for creators, teams and businesses that want a professional site and care enough to get every detail right. 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And when I say hit It sometimes feels like you're getting hit because I can speak from personal experience that I've been hit. with a vet bill overver a thousand Dollars. And I't even have a pet acccording to consumeraddvocate. org Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats get paid back up to ninety percent of vet bills for accidents, illness, diagnostics and more All vets are in network so you can use Fetch for any vet in the U. S or Canada. getet your free custom quote in about two minutes at fetchpet. com slash save Fetchpet d. com slash save fetch, Lve longer That's nice This is explain it to me I'm JQ One way to protect yourself against mosquito bites is to get them at the source Make sure they can't lay their eggs in standing water. But the life cycle of a mosquito is short Just a month max whichich means They're going to keep coming back So, researchers are trying all sorts of ways to neutralize the mosquito My name's Eric Carrigatta. I'm an Assistant professor of Mosquito Microbe interactions Working out of the Florida Medical entomology Laboratory and that's part of the University of Florida I mean, there's actually some incredibly beautiful mosquitoes. So if you look for photos of pretty mosquitoes, you'll see they're all different types Some of them are iridescent, some of them have sort of plumes on their legs and they kind of look like dancers But I guess My favorite is probably the eighties Egyptti because that's the first organism I ever studied If we take a step back and think of mosquitoes as a whole There's more than three thousand seven hundred described mosquito species. Wow. okay. didid not realize there were that many. There's so many and there's probably a lot that have not been described by science as well But most of those, in fact, the vast majority of those species, don't actually bite people whichich means they aren't responsible for spreading disease It took centuries for us to actually figure out that Certain diseases were caused by mosquitoes and then not caused by mosquitoes directly, but caused by pathogens spread by mosquitoes. Beyond that, The world is a big place How do you find everywhere where those target mosquito species are actually braiding and laying their eggs and developing It's really, really complicated The next issue is this problem of insecticide resistance. So for decades, we've pererformed chemical management of mosquito populations But we're now saying that that is less effective than it used to be because mosquitoes are becoming resistant to the more commonly used chemicals we have been seeing some increased accounts of insecticide resistance in the West Nile vectors across the country. They say as we spray more, the more mosquitoes are exposed to pesticides and in turn There's more resistance to those pesticides. and with a warming climate, Winters may not stop the spread. So we now have populations of mosquitoes all over the world that are resistant to these chemicals and sometimes multiple chemicals Eric actually thinks it may be possible for humans and mosquitoes to live in greater harmony. with a little help from genetic modification. Genetic control of mosquitoes is an old idea about one that's grown in interest in the research community over the last couple of decades. can sort of simplify it down to two categories. The first is called population replacement. and the idea there is that You pick a target mosquito population and modify its genetics to immunize it against pathogens of interest That approach, the replacement, it's really still in the laboratory testing phase The second option is called population suppression. And there, the goal is the same as using chemical insecticides. We want to reduce mosquito numbers so that there's fewer of them to bite us Google just announced its own mosquito fighting experiment Google's health research project called Dbug is asking for permission to release up to thirty two million male mosquitoes in Florida and California over the next two years. The initiative is aimed at reducing disease carrying mosquito populations by introducing sterile mosquitoes that can eliminate the spread of illnesses like dengue fever and Zika They're basically trying to sterilize mosquitoes, right? Walk me through what's going on here So to do that, we want to take a step back and introduce people to Wllbachia, the bacterium, that's part of the Google strategy So Wolbachia it's a very common bacterial endosymbiion in insects. Google has taken Wulbachia from a donor mosquito And then using very small needles, they perform this procedure called embryonic micro injection. So they purified Wolbachia cells, they put it in the needle They get freshly laid mosquito eggs from the target mosquito species and they inject the woolbachia into those eggs the mosquitoes that are injected develop and if they survive they might harbor a stable Wolbachia infection Google's Wachia strategy is population suppression. So again, that means they're trying to reduce the number of mosquitoes in a target population U so they release male mosquitoes and They go out into nature and they find and mate with wild female mosquitoes and Basically, it's makes Wbaki infected insects incompatible with uninfected insects. So when these Wulbachia carrying males made with uninfected females None of the progeny hatches. So we say their eggs are inviable And because Google is releasing a lot of malailes into the area, they saturate the area with these mailes and on that scale it works is that basically there's fewer surviving larvae in the next generation. And if they keep releasing males over the next few weeks or two to three months Hopefully there's really large suppression effects. So we're talking removing ninetycent to ninety five percent of the mosquito population in that area Okay, that's the hope, but does this strategy actually work at the moment this suppression approach with Wbakia is quite widely utilized in the world. So there's There's been some very successful examples of this type of program working to control other mosquito species in countries like China and Singapore. Authorities are expanding Project Wolbakia to reach some eight hundred thousand households by twenty twenty six. So our stock colony produces about twenty four million eggs a week We release about five million males out into the field In Singapore, they've just had a study published that really demonstrates they're cutting the risk of dengue infection in the areas where they use wolbachia based suppression to control eighties Eypti mosquitoes Wow, so how long will it take for Google to fix our mosquito problem over here in the US? Well at the moment, Google's not been approved to release these mosquitoes and it might take potentially years to get that approval and to roll out the technology What would the ideal relationship between human and mosquitoes look like, you think? What's the goal It's going to vary from place to place. Like I can't come in and tell everyone in the world to do things the Eic way, even when it comes to mosquitoes Local community groups and stakeholders need to decide what's right for them. So it might be that They are removing specific mosquito species from around where they live, if that's possible. Or it might be that they are taking a replacement approach and immunizing those mosquito populations So we really want to have lots of options available to people so that we can present solutions that are right for specific segments of every community the science got so good that we could actually eradicate mosquitoes altogether Just because we could Does it mean we should That's next. 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Well, I was on a National Academies of Sciences commommittee a few years ago that was looking at a technology called GeDrive that can be used to make changes in populations of wild animals, wild organisms. We were looking at Anophelies gambia, which is a complex of species. Anophelies mosquitoes are the vector for malaria. and we just brought together a group of environmental ethicists and conservation biologists, ecologists to Think about this question, would it be okay ever to wipe out a species We brought together folks who are kind of like me, predisposed not to want to do that, predisposed to try to protect spacies. Leave the natural world alone But we were persuaded that could be worth looking in time You know, I have to admit And I don't know, Maybe this is bad person alert, but I would not be terribly upset if Mosquitoes were gone tomorrow, I'm a person who gets bitten up so badly. And then on top of that, the disease of it all, are there people who think, okay, why not just get rid of them all? Like what is stopping that idea from taking root and happening For one thing, getting rid of all of them would be phenomenally difficult. The real goal for the people who are doing this work is to address the underlying public health problem. And with malaria The mosquito is a vector. It's part of what transmits malaria. It's part of the life cycle of plasmodium, which is this single celled microbe that is actually what gets into your bloodstream and then causes malaria. And you can get rid of malaria By getting rid of plasmodium, you don't have to get rid of the mosquito Oh. And we have we seem to have different I think intuitively, people have slightly different views about species at sort of different levels. I haven't seen anyone lament the possible loss of plasmodium, but there are people who think we shouldn't get rid of mosquitoes. Do we wouldould it be okay just to eliminate certain species then? you know, there are some that don't carry disease as much Maybe it's like, okay, let's target the ones that do. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. And that's essentially where we came down in an offly scambia. We thought, you know, this this one is really retty horrific There are like eight hundred species of mosquito in Africa. Chances are You could get rid of Anopies Gambia across sub Saharan Africa and Chances are There would be little to no environmental impact from losing it And then there are other kinds of mosquitoes that have been spread around the world. They're not native And so you're not necessarily changing a natural system if you get rid of them, like the mosquitoes that are biting you at night deepending on where you're living, it's one of the Kulecs species probably. and those are not native. So you're not even if you get rid of it, you're not you're not changing it the original ordering of a natural system I noticed that you said chances are that it would probably be fine. How do we know for sure? How do you weigh that level of uncertainty against the potential benefits to public health You don't know for sure, for sureort. We could get to a point probably with a given species that we could be pretty confident that it would be fine You couldn't be absolutely sure. And then the question is, well, do you need to know For sure. how do you feel about the level of uncertainty here if You know, you're faced with an emergency situation and you know like you're in a burning building and you need to like jump to the ground. Do you know for sure that you can get to the ground without killing yourself somethingomet like that? Well, you don't necessarily, but if the building is on fire, you'll go ahead and take the chance. Malaria is a little bit like that. If we didn't have malaria and then suddenly malaria were introduced, a disease was introduced that was killing That many people killing six hundred thousand people a year It would feel like the house was on fire and we would do some stuff to get rid of it. We'd take some chances to get rid of it When you get bitten up in the summer I don't know, how do you think of it? Like, does doing this type of research and thinking about it change your relationship with all that buzzing in your ear? A little bit it does in some funny way. I like to go up to the Adirondacks and go canoe camping up there. And if we go at the wrong time, there will be probablyroably a few species of mosquitoes biting us up. and there could be several species of fly