Scientists tricked mosquitoes into delivering vaccines to humans

[THX1138]

The good, bad and ugly of this?

Scientists tricked mosquitoes into delivering vaccines to humans

 

[mosaix]

For some reason I couldn’t read the article, but I would have thought the volume of vaccine that a mosquito could deliver would be insufficient.

 

[Danny McG]

Haw! Haw! Haw!
Stupid and gullible mosquitoes, they fall for any jolly jape.

 

[hitmouse]

So this is using mosquitos to deliver an attenuated malaria sporozoite, as a malaria vaccine, which is very clever, since the mosquitos are the normal vector for malaria, which causes vast mortality and morbidity, and huge economic damage across the world. Only recently have useful-looking vaccines been clinically demonstrated, and these are not yet available. One problem is that the disease is endemic in many parts of the world where vaccination programmes are difficult, so use of mosquitos is interesting and pragmatic.

There are obvious ethical problems: individual consent is impossible. Also, environmental impact assessments will set a very high bar against unintended consequences.

 

[Wayne Mack]

There are obvious ethical problems: individual consent is impossible. Also, environmental impact assessments will set a very high bar against unintended consequences.

Is this any more of an ethical issue than other common actions that benefit society as a whole, for example, fluoride in water? As for environmental affects, this would seem far lower that current measures used to combat mosquito borne disease and that result in the death of beneficial pollinators.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

The conspiracy crowd are gonna love this!

 

[hitmouse]

Is this any more of an ethical issue than other common actions that benefit society as a whole, for example, fluoride in water? As for environmental affects, this would seem far lower that current measures used to combat mosquito borne disease and that result in the death of beneficial pollinators.

I dont have a problem with it, but it is important to recognise that others will. There are parallels with water fluoridation, but I suspect there are some important differences as well.