Mosquito-free world? KIRO hosts weigh risks of a world where the pest is extinct

Scientists can now use gene editing technologies to spread infertility among female mosquitoes, The Washington Post reported last week. This means the pesky insects could be wiped out—but should they be?

While researchers focus on preventing malaria, critics, like KIRO Newsradio fill-in host Mike Lewis, see this as causing potential risks to the ecosystem.

“If you decide to eliminate any single thing, you’re going to have a domino effect because that evolved to eat something, and something evolved to eat it,” he said while filling in on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “This is the way the planet Earth works, and the idea of eliminating that, I get it, we should work on trying to solve problems with malaria that are significant. Dengue as well, another disease carried by insects, but neither of those should be solved by killing out the population that carries the thing.”

While Lewis was thinking long-term, KIRO Newsradio fill-in host Angela Poe Russell brought it back to the present.

“You’re thinking long term, and you’re being strategic, but this is a question for ‘in the moment,'” she responded. “In the moment, do you want to live in a mosquito-free world? Of course, we want to live in a mosquito-free world, and you’re asking us to look at the consequences.”

Finding a compromise for a completely mosquito-free world

However, Poe Russell wondered if researchers could find a compromise.

“There are several things in nature that I could do without, but the reality is, it is part of the system, a food source, or something,” she said. “Could there be some kind of a balance where we’re able, because any kind of species, there can be too many of them? Is it possible that we can reduce the amount?”

Mike proposed not to exterminate the insect, but to eliminate their breeding areas, which could be a solution to managing malaria. He explained his late uncle was an entomologist at the University of Panama and studied mosquito vectors.

“He said, ‘You want to eliminate malaria, you eliminate discarded tires,’ because discarded tires pool water, and he said that you cannot build a better incubator for mosquitoes than old rubber tires sitting in the sun,” Lewis shared. “He said, ‘If you could eliminate that, you’re going to have malaria at a level that is not epidemic level. You’re going to have malaria that is completely manageable.’ Now it doesn’t necessarily cure the malaria, but you cure the spread. The spread, in part, is stagnant water.”

Listen to the full conversation below.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.