Zika virus, honey bees - solutions (Adelino de Santi Junior) Brazil

Zika virus, GMOs, nuclear tech and the killing of honey bees

By Adelino De Santi Júnior Resende, BRAZIL M.Sc. Biology. Biologist working on environmental impact assessment and environmental restoration for the Nuclear Industries of Brazil. Nominated to 2017 Board of Advisors for Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy – USA, efn-usa.org.

September 6, 2016

Honey bee

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Honey bee

Aedes aegypti mosquito

There are some bizarre anti-scientific positions that cost and threaten the lives of others; some of them are pretty similar to the anti-nuclear activism of green fundamentalists.

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Recently, a burst of a tropical disease, the Zika virus, has terrorized the tropical and subtropical world. The virus causes brain damage to babies that will eventually carry problems to the rest of their lives.

The virus is transmitted through the Aedes aegypti, a mosquito native to Asia that is found throughout the tropical zone of Americas, Africa, Asia and some warm zones of Europe and USA. So, basically we have two functional ways to fight the mosquitoes and neutralize them, or at least drop down the possibilities of Zika infections.

One of them is releasing a wave of genetically modified mosquitoes, infertile, that when mate with the female produce "dead eggs" that will not develop into a new generation: http://www.popsci.com/fda-okays-oxitec-proposal-for-gmo-mosquito-release-inflorida Problem is: great opposition to GMOs and the costs of producing it locally (a mosquito factory or a extremely efficient freight system is required - two major problems in the developing world).

The second option: producing the infertile males through gamma rays, the result is pretty much the same as the GM mosquito and so it is the opposition and restraints: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-zika-iaea-idUSKCN0VB246 So, what the hell is the world doing?

Spraying chemicals to control the mosquitoes!

Does it work?

Sure!

It also pollutes water, kills non target species and contaminates the environment! Not to forget that the driving forces of natural selection and evolution will eventually push resistance into the population of mosquitoes, therefore, new chemicals will be needed and a new cycle of environmental problems will arise.

We’ve been having some great results in Brazil with the release of GM mosquitoes, and we are investing some efforts to produce gamma ray irradiated infertile mosquitoes, both of the techniques have pros and cons.

But we are sure that there is a shortage of options and these are probably the most effective and immediate solutions.

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But this is confined to ONE city, Piracicaba, in the State of SĂŁo Paulo, one of the wealthiest regions of Brazil: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/genetically-modifiedmosquitoes-zika/479793/ We had deep opposition going on but managed to overpass it.

And the rest of the World?

Apparently, because of our stupid fears and irrationality, we prefer to kill bees and contaminate the water and soil: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/south-carolina-honeybeeszika_us_57c91f92e4b0e60d31dea238?ir=Science&utm_hp_ref=science Ignorance is costly!

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