Meet OX5034. He's a genetically-modified Aedes aegypti mosquito. Next year, 750 million of him will be released in the Florida Keys, according to a plan approved this week by Monroe county authorities. OX5034 carries a sort of "self destruct" gene that is passed on to female offspring, causing them to die in the larval stage. This effectively eradicates the mosquito within just a few generations—previous field tests have reduced the Aedes aegypti population by 80% in the Cayman Islands and 95% in the Brazilian city of Jakobina.[1]
Genetically-modified mosquitoes like OX5034 may conceivably give us the power to make Aedes aegypti and other disease-carrying mosquitoes extinct. But is this "playing god"?
My view is that, yes, it is playing god, and that playing god is exactly the right thing to do. Mosquitoes are responsible for an average of 725,000 human deaths each year, via diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, and the Zika virus.[2] Mosquitoes are the only creature on Earth that kills more of us than we do, and to have the power to prevent those deaths, most of them in developing countries, and not do so would be ethically abominable.
Yet, many are opposed to the so called "Jurassic Park experiment"[3] in the Florida Keys, including some 2,000 wealthy local residents,[4] more than 233,000 signatories of a Change.org petition,[5] and a predictable array of environmental advocacy groups. Their fears are based on a familiar combination of senseless alarmism and scientific ignorance and misinformation that informs much of the opposition to genetically-modified organisms in general.
For instance, a statement by the environmental group Friends of the Earth opposing the Florida Keys experiment cites a misleading study in Nature that has been subject to an "editorial expression of concern."[6] And the Change.org petition—which, at times, is incomprehensible due to spelling and grammatical errors—is full of unrelated fear-mongering about genetically-modified crops, an insinuation that GM mosquitoes will bite humans (only female mosquitoes bite, and the GM mosquitoes are all male), and a scientifically incoherent fear of the dengue virus mutating as a result of the experiment.
"Oxitec"—the developer of the OX5034 mosquito—"wants to treat people like human experiments," the petition reads, when in fact mosquitoes are the test subjects, not humans. As ever, "NIMBYism" is the enemy of progress.
But if you're concerned about the unforeseen consequences of making a species extinct, you're not wrong. Mosquitoes are part of the food chain. Bats—including Florida Keys bats—birds, dragonflies, and spiders feed on mosquitoes, and fish, turtles, and frogs eat mosquito larvae.[2] Moreover, mosquitoes perform a useful function as pollinators. But there are three things here; first, no species is known to subsist solely on mosquitoes; second, there are many pollinators in addition to mosquitoes, such as beetles, bees, and butterflies; and third, there are some 3,500 species of mosquitoes in the world, only two dozen of which are dangerous to humans.[2] No one proposes eradicating all mosquitoes—only those that transmit disease to us.
We can foresee very little danger in the extinction of a species like Aedes aegypti or other disease-carrying mosquitoes, and "the unforeseen" can be used as an abstract argument to retard any and all progress. Controlled field tests, such as the one in the Florida Keys, are how we gather information and test for unforeseen consequences. Previous tests in the Cayman Islands and in Brazil have shown absolutely no lasting, adverse effects to the local environment. There is simply no compelling reason not to allow similar experiments to proceed, especially in areas at risk of dengue fever, such as the Florida Keys.
But isn't it wrong to "play god"? This is what we're told, but I maintain that it is not. We are what Mark Lynas has called "the God species"[7]—that is, we are the only species that has evolved to the point that we influence the Earth's systems, including the biosphere, and we can either do so ignorantly, for the worse, or intelligently, for the better. Not influencing the biosphere is no longer possible. With power truly comes responsibility, we are responsible for the environment now whether we've sought to be or not, and we have a responsibility to act ethically, which includes preventing unnecessary death and suffering.
In other words, to quote Emperor Palpatine for a second time in as many articles, we must "wipe them out. All of them."
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003864
[2] https://howtoconserve.org/2016/02/12/mosquitoes/
[3] https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/6126/750-million-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-approved-for-release-in-florida-keys
[4] https://foe.org/news/750-million-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-approved-for-release-in-florida-keys/
[5] https://www.change.org/p/tell-the-epa-no-to-gmo-mosquitoes
[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62398-w
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Species