Disease-Resistant Mosquitoes

Scientists are able to alter the genes in mosquitoes to decrease their ability to transmit a virus or a parasite and have given disease-resistant mosquitoes new genes that do the same. Disease-resistant mosquitoes were developed in order to prevent the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. These diseases take a tremendous toll on human populations, especially in developing nations, and creating disease-resistant mosquitoes will bring this toll down drastically. There has been research by Canadian centers for Disease Control and Prevention in regards of the diseases spread by mosquitoes and their effects on human populations. These are things that the disease-resistant mosquitoes will be helping to reduce. In my opinion I believe creating these genetically modified disease-resistant mosquitoes was both a good and bad idea. By creating these organisms there will be many effects on society and the environment. With species of mosquitoes that are resistant to disease there will be many lives saved all over the world, many sicknesses reduce, aide economic situations in areas such as Africa and developing tropical areas, agriculture will involve less insecticides and pesticides and much more. All of these things will help to make our world better for people now and for the generations to come, but there are also some precautions towards using these genetically modified insects. When releasing these insects we have to beware of some things like possible health effects (such as allergies and irritation or a whole new disease created) due to the organisms and negative effects on agriculture. These things may be unlikely and tested before hand, but they should still be acknowledged. If genetically modified organisms were to be released and they were to have any negative effects it would be nearly impossible to control the situation and solve the new problems due to the mosquitoes having such high populations and possibly breeding with the already native ones. If anything was to go wrong with disease-resistant mosquitoes it would be a world wide problem. There are also many ethical considerations in association with disease-resistant mosquitoes such as protecting the public and the environment from harm, balancing the benefits and risks, collaborating with local communities, avoiding exploitation, and safeguarding the rights and welfare of research subjects. In relation to the environment disease-resistant mosquitoes will have some effects on the environment, both positive and negative. These genetically modified mosquitoes may negatively effect the genes of other mosquitoes and have dangerous effects on the target and nontarget organisms all over the world. If the disease-resistant mosquitoes were to be released there is the possibility of them creating new diseases and having negative effects on the health of the different species in an ecosystem. If this was to happen it would be extremely difficult to control and fix. Though there are some negative effects of disease-resistant mosquitoes on the environment, there are also some positive ones such as the new mosquitoes decreasing the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in animals as well as humans and improving ecosystems all over the world. These two things would have a very large impact on our world. They would lead to things like more animal species, healthier ecosystems and animals and less risk of a diseased animal being consumed by humans. Overall I believe creating disease-resistant mosquitoes was both a bad and good idea due to it having many negative and positive effects.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23279283

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965174812001476

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dengue-case-for-genetically-modified-mosquitoes/

http://news.nationalpost.com/health/scientists-hatch-malaria-resistant-mosquitoes