[HN Gopher] Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year
___________________________________________________________________
Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year
Author : gregd
Score : 175 points
Date : 2020-05-29 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.isglobal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.isglobal.org)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| When I lived in Africa -especially Nigeria- there were these
| swarms of mosquitoes that could drain half a pint of blood in a
| minute or two.
|
| My sister got caught in one of them. Not fun. She was _covered_
| in the little bastards.
| foobiekr wrote:
| One time, while hiking to go bass fishing in the high Uintas, I
| got attacked by a swarm of mosquitos so insane that they were
| trying to bite me through my shirt, through my shorts, my face
| was covered and one of the little bastards managed on land on
| my cornea. Nightmarish.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| fucking snakes, hate em
| asdf21 wrote:
| Way more than that if you count diseases from ticks.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Koshkin wrote:
| To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito
| 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake
| 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly
| 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater
| Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm
| 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus
| 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion
| 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark
| 10
|
| https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...
| holbue wrote:
| Would love to see statistics from the other perspective: Which
| animals are killed most by humans? Besides insects, I would
| guess fish and chicken are quite high...
| agumonkey wrote:
| you mean farmed animals or wild ones ?
| derefr wrote:
| In that case, depending on the framing, you might care more
| about the balance of animals killed by humans vs. animals
| caused-to-exist by humans. (Or you might think both of
| those things are bad. Negative utilitarians don't much like
| chicken farming, given the large number of chicken lives
| and the large amount of suffering in each life.)
| morsch wrote:
| 0 Traffic 1,350,000
|
| Sort of weird to limit the Human category to, apparently,
| conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism. Also, it's
| horrible that conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism are
| in the same ballpark as traffic deaths.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
| (2016)
| robbrown451 wrote:
| Personally I think they should just skip the human category.
| I mean, if I die of old age aren't I sort of being killed by
| a human? ok maybe that is a stretch, but how about if I catch
| the flu from another person? Is it the flu or the other
| person that got me?
| xpe wrote:
| Here is what the article from worldatlas.com meant, in
| context:
|
| > Approximately 475,000 people die every year at the hand
| of fellow man. In a world filled with conflict, war,
| murders, and acts of terrorism, this is unfortunately not
| that surprising. Deaths among humans are intentional and
| pre-calculated making them beyond tragic.
| derefr wrote:
| The human category is limited, I believe, to intentional
| killing. Otherwise you open up a whole can of worms about
| macroeconomic trolley problems. (Am I killing people _right
| now_ by making insufficiently-optimal donations to charity?)
| paulsutter wrote:
| What makes you think mosquitos are deliberately spreading
| malaria?
| jayrot wrote:
| One of them told me so.
| brenden2 wrote:
| Presumably if you're speeding or driving while intoxicated,
| you're doing so intentionally. It's not as if someone is
| forcing you to drive too fast or too drunk. These things
| (especially speeding) dramatically increase the likelihood
| of being in a collision.
| [deleted]
| viburnum wrote:
| A million people killed by cars prevents five million from
| dying how?
| bredren wrote:
| It doesn't have to be this abstract, though. This will
| likely change in the next 20 years.
|
| Consider the move from horse drawn carriages to vehicles.
|
| It was an acceptable risk that anyone might be permanently
| disabled due to being kicked in the head or trampled by a
| horse.
|
| This might be a horse you are simply walking past. Or one
| that is spooked and running down the street. The owner of
| the horse beared little to no responsibility.
|
| Now it is largely acceptable, to permanently disable or
| kill someone due to a mistake or some form of common
| negligence while operating a vehicle.
|
| It is almost not a crime to accidentally run someone over.
| This is "normal" or "not intentional."
|
| In the future, it will seem insane to have allowed so many
| people manual control over multi-ton vehicles.
|
| Just as it does not make sense that a horse would be tied
| up outside Trader Joe's and due to a spook permanently
| disable you as you exit the store.
|
| It will seem so primitive to have such loose controls on
| cars that if you chose to drive a manually controlled car
| killing someone will likely be seen as dangerous enough of
| a choice that a person would be held liable for
| manslaughter.
| derefr wrote:
| I don't disagree with the principles you're standing up
| for here; but we're not having an ethical argument, we're
| talking about what went into the author's analysis. And
| AFAICT, in said analysis, they just took for "human
| deaths caused by humans", the set of deaths where one
| human thought "I want that other human to die", and then
| caused that to happen. Situations with legal _mens rea_
| for killing.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Ok, but that makes it incompatible for comparison with
| the other animals killing humans. In some cases maybe
| (sharks, wolves, lions, crocodiles) the animal could be
| actively wanting the human to die, but in others
| (freshwater snails, tapeworms, mosquitoes), that's
| probably not the case.
| lxmorj wrote:
| Peace talks sometimes work. Asking sharks to tone down
| the chomping does not. There is no point to
| differentiating 'attack vs incidental' animal deaths in
| the same way as w humans...
| gedekran wrote:
| Or the amount of people you just killed by writing this
| comment. Or me, I'll never be able to live with the
| shame...
| lostmsu wrote:
| Huh, venomous spiders are not on the list?
| NikkiA wrote:
| They rarely kill, just 'really annoy' for a month or so.
| slg wrote:
| These numbers are weird. Why do we count mosquito-borne
| diseases under mosquitoes but don't put communicable diseases
| under the tally for humans? It is especially curious
| considering mosquitoes don't know any better while humans have
| both the knowledge and ability to dampen how disease spreads
| through our population.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That's kind of like saying that it's not the shark that kills
| people but the blood loss.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Not it's not.
|
| They're saying that 1,000,000 is the number for mosquitos,
| not because they kill people but their a carrier of
| disease.
|
| What they are asking is do we consider other animals in the
| same capacity, such as, does the number beside humans
| include human transmittable diseases (HIV for example).
|
| Seems like a reasonable question.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > Seems like a reasonable question.
|
| Just to be clear, I think it's a perfectly reasonable
| question. A rational question can still contain a
| potential flaw.
|
| But I did misunderstand what they were asking.
| slg wrote:
| You missed my point. I am asking for consistency in the
| metrics.
|
| We get malaria from a parasite that is spread by
| mosquitoes.
|
| We get tuberculosis from a bacteria that is spread by
| humans.
|
| TB kills more than three times as many people every year as
| malaria. Why is malaria counted as a death caused by
| mosquitoes but TB isn't a death caused by humans? Either
| you count both or you count neither.
| godelski wrote:
| Mosquitoes don't kill except for diseases. Humans have
| means of killing besides spreading diseases.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think it's because the only really meaningful
| experience you have with a mosquito is when it kills you
| via malaria.
| [deleted]
| ravenstine wrote:
| Ah, I see.
|
| It is probably fair to count TB deaths in the "human
| kills" category, but I think we usually make a
| differentiation between human to human disease and
| disease caused by contact with an animal. It's just the
| way we see ourselves as separate from the rest of the
| animal kingdom.
|
| Although I get what you're saying, I don't think that
| human deaths caused by TB is necessarily what people are
| interested in when you aggregate all of the of humans at
| the hand of other humans, which may be why those deaths
| are omitted.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| For one thing, we could conceivably get rid of the mosquitoes
| if the problem to solve is making life better for humans.
| However, getting rid of humans to make life better for humans
| rather defeats the purpose.
| slg wrote:
| Tuberculosis kills almost as many people as the rest of
| that list combined. It is spread from human to human. There
| is a vaccine that can help prevent it. If this list was
| intended to shine light on a fixable problem, TB seems like
| a much easier problem to solve than eradicating all
| mosquitoes.
| jariel wrote:
| This is unfair because Mosquitos don't kill anyone. They are a
| vector for pathogens that kill.
|
| Humans are also vectors for pathogens, we just don't count them
| as such.
| sarabande wrote:
| Off topic, but how did you make that beautifully formatted
| table?
| xpe wrote:
| See:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
|
| which has a link to:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
| Koshkin wrote:
| Insert two spaces at the beginning of each line.
| sarabande wrote:
| Testing (edit, it didn't work when I copied it from the
| page and added two spaces before each line, see below):
| 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake
| 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000
| creaghpatr wrote:
| I had never heard of Assassin bug but apparently they are all
| over North America.
|
| https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?...
|
| Wonder if those Murder Hornets will make next year's list?
| spijdar wrote:
| My understanding from (very briefly) reading about the insect
| family Reduviidae is some species are parasitic and spread
| deadly pathogens much the same way mosquitoes do. It's not
| the insects themselves killing people, but diseases like
| Chagas disease (Triatominae is a subfamily of Reduviidae
| "Assassin Bug"). [1]
|
| [1] https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease
| gnulinux wrote:
| > Wonder if those Murder Hornets will make next year's list?
|
| I was curious, so:
|
| > Since 2001, the yearly human death toll caused by stings of
| bees, wasps and hornets in Japan has been ranging between 12
| and 26.[26] Since this number also includes deaths caused by
| wasps, bees, and other hornet species, the number of deaths
| caused by Asian giant hornets is likely to be significantly
| lower.[citation needed]
|
| from:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet
|
| [26] is a Japanese source that I cannot read.
|
| Seems like they're not a huge threat?
| the_af wrote:
| The assassin bug is called "vinchuca" in my country,
| Argentina, and it's a real problem here. There are ways to
| combat the bug, but once you catch the Chagas disease,
| there's no cure and you have to live with it. There is only
| symptomatic treatment as far as I know.
| wetmore wrote:
| When I was a kid at camp we used to catch them and make them
| fight other bugs. Those things are creepy.
| stevenbruce569 wrote:
| How about polar bears or orcas - and how would you know?
| fuckyah wrote:
| Let's get rid of mosquito and human. Problem solved ;D
| elwell wrote:
| Why isn't "Plasmodium parasites" on this list?
| ghshephard wrote:
| And, in the United States - the most lethal animal of all is
| the ... Deer. (about 120 deaths/year, which shows how safe most
| Americans are from animals)
|
| https://www.askmen.com/news/entertainment/deers-kill-more-pe...
| cameronfraser wrote:
| Poor sharks, they get one of the worst raps for how little
| damage they do to humans. I'm surprised to see dogs so high up
| on that list.
| aclsid wrote:
| Well, think about it. A mosquito bite seems harmless, while
| getting torn to pieces by a shark, in a medium where you
| cannot even run it is scary as hell.
| agumonkey wrote:
| That's just like flight safety records.. the issue with
| sharks is that when something happens you're 99% about to
| lose a limb or life.
|
| You run into mosquitoes 30k times a year, one of them may
| kill you, and most of the time you could have saved yourself
| on your own.
| jayrot wrote:
| Uhh, maybe? Shark attacks are quite rare, but I think you
| might be underestimating how many bites just result in
| stitches. Talking about "shark attacks" here. Not "Great
| White shark attacks". Likewise you're certainly
| underestimating how many airplane "accidents" don't result
| in any injury (again, not talking about "commercial airline
| accidents").
| twothamendment wrote:
| Yeah, I'd rather have a neighbor with a shark than a neighbor
| with a dog.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I'm thinking, that data is more of a heat-map of
| interactions. Any human interaction with a shark in its
| environment, shark wins. So as a per-capita, they might be
| near 100%?
| jayrot wrote:
| I know it's not the point you were trying to make but
|
| > Any human interaction with a shark in its environment,
| shark wins.
|
| this is straight-up wrong. Humans and sharks interact all.
| the. time. They're not killing machines.
|
| I imagine you probably know that, so I'm not trying to
| patronize you (honestly). But this is really important.
|
| SHARKS KILLED 4 HUMANS IN 2018. HUMANS KILLED 100 MILLION
| SHARKS IN 2018.
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/28/shark-
| a...
| jacobr1 wrote:
| I'm not sure. Plenty of people swim in waters where sharks
| are regularly observed. And still the attacks are low. And
| further, with many attacks, I think in particular great-
| whites, they back off after the first bite, which allows
| for much greater survivability. So the ratio of "shark
| contact" to "sharks win" is probably low. And if you also
| add in fishing for sharks (such as for fins) humans
| probably kill a lot more sharks than the other way around.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Hm. Not convinced. Contact with sharks vs contact with
| mosquitoes, or with dogs, or anything else on that list?
|
| Most people spend maybe hours a year in shark ecosystem.
| Vs 365 days a year in dog country, or mosquito etc.
| sosborn wrote:
| > Contact with sharks vs contact with mosquitoes, or with
| dogs, or anything else on that list?
|
| Swimming with reef sharks vs taking a hike in a malaria
| infested jungle? Swimming with reef sharks please.
| tempestn wrote:
| Certainly the amount of contact plays a roll. That's why
| dogs are so much higher than wolves for instance. But
| it's also true that most of the time people spend
| swimming around sharks, they don't get bitten. How the
| ratio of attacks to contacts compares between sharks and
| dogs or other animals I don't know; agreed that would be
| somewhat interesting!
| tomohawk wrote:
| The dog attacks are really more about dogs that have rabies.
|
| In countries that have good rabies control this is not an
| issue. For example, the US has 30 - 50 deaths due to dogs
| each year.
| Cactus2018 wrote:
| Gruesome wikipedia page with detailed _Circumstances_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t.
| ..
|
| The pattern appears to be, very young child, or older adult,
| attacked by either a pitbull or pack of dogs.
| jl6 wrote:
| I suspect dogs aren't particularly deadly, it's just that
| there are so many of them and they collectively spend so much
| time near humans. Sharks on the other hand almost never
| interact with humans.
| thrwaway69 wrote:
| I am not sure about that. In developing countries, rabies
| kill a lot of people. They might not directly kill people
| as much but their bites sure do.
|
| https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/health/2020/jan/
| 1...
| csours wrote:
| The only reason housecats aren't at the top of the list is
| that they are so small.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Or they cover their tracks very well!
| chubot wrote:
| _There Are No Such Thing As Shark Attacks_
|
| https://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=03214697.
| ..
|
| I actually saw this standup bit recently and after Googling,
| it looks like it was borrowed ...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLwYkZUNvKo&feature=youtu.be.
| ..
|
| To clarify, it's actually the other way around, the standup
| came BEFORE the blog. Should have realized the upload date is
| not the performance date.
|
| https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/3722/shark-
| atta...
| quicklime wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/795/
| saghm wrote:
| I was expecting this one before I clicked:
| https://xkcd.com/1252/
| globular-toast wrote:
| This list isn't really fair. Mosquitoes don't actually kill
| people, they are just vectors for a disease which does kill
| people. So then humans should get a point for every death due
| to flu, AIDS or COVID-19, right? And all the accidental deaths
| too, because I'm pretty sure the mosquitoes are just living and
| don't intend to kill anyone. So I think human should be number
| 1 by a very long way, followed by mosquito.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Is it most mosquitoes, or is it primarily aedis aegypti? I
| could swear I read that particular species was responsible for
| most mosquito-bourne disease, but I can't seem to find much
| information for the proportion between it and other species.
|
| If they disproportionally kill even more than other mosquitoes,
| that also puts things into greater perspective. Perhaps if we
| could target this particular species, it would save millions of
| human lives.
| dekhn wrote:
| From Project Debug, Verily's attempt at reduction of mosquito
| problems: https://debug.com/
|
| """Mosquitoes kill more people than every other animal
| combined. One species, Aedes aegypti, carries diseases such
| as dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya which make
| hundreds of millions of people sick every year"""
| DaniFong wrote:
| i know someone who wants to do this, and probably can.
| divbzero wrote:
| Is that "someone" funded by the Gates Foundation? [1] [2]
|
| [1]: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Mosquito-Week-2018
|
| [2]: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/gates-foundation-teams-
| oxitec-...
| madengr wrote:
| Hydroxychloroquine has been used as a malaria preventative for 60
| years. Now it is suddenly unsafe?
| hobs wrote:
| Malarone is also a malaria preventative, and I personally had a
| psychotic break while taking it, it took 8 men to hold me down
| and strap me a bed for two days until I came to.
|
| Seems pretty harmless I guess?
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The disturbing thing is compared to some of the alternatives
| which can stop breathing in some people that is safer.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The antimalarial prophylaxis which is infamous for mental-
| health disturbances is lariam (mefloquine). Are you sure you
| weren't taking that instead? When malarone appeared on the
| market, one of its big selling points was that it does not
| have the drawbacks of lariam (or doxycycline).
| hobs wrote:
| You know, I am not 100% sure, the time beforehand is pretty
| foggy and they both have an m name it makes me question the
| memory... it was many years ago.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| If you don't mind, could you say a bit more about the
| psychotic break? The closest thing from my own experience is
| being told that I thrashed around a lot while coming out of
| post-surgery anesthesia, but I have no memory of it.
| throwanem wrote:
| General anesthesia often has this effect on both sides,
| because muscle tone is lost late in induction and regained
| early in recovery. If you've been surprised to find
| yourself wrapped snugly in a sheet just before being put
| under, this is why.
|
| It's not related to the sort of mental effects of
| antimalarials mentioned in GP's comment.
| hobs wrote:
| I remember having a sundowner, talking with my family and
| slowly getting more and more irritated about some minor
| conversational bit someone said.
|
| I clearly remember starting to get louder and more
| aggressive and then I blacked out. I woke up in a pool of
| my own sweat several days later wondering what had
| happened.
|
| People talked to me about what happened I piece together
| bits and pieces floating around in a red haze and having a
| human pile on top of me.
|
| In retrospect the weirdest part was how readily they
| accepted I was sane again.
| nunodonato wrote:
| we live in times of extreme double-standards. no point in
| discussing it or will be downvoted and criticized to oblivion
| melling wrote:
| No, malaria drugs have been long known to have side-effects.
|
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/19772-hydroxychl.
| ..
|
| Here's a 2013 NIH article about a rare heart condition.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/
| nanodeath wrote:
| I can't tell if this is a troll comment. The article makes no
| mention of hydroxychloroquine.
| madengr wrote:
| Well it's a troll article. I might as well post an article
| about lead paint being dangerous.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't know where that was mentioned in the article, so I
| think we're going off topic, but isn't the use of cures weighed
| against their efficacy and danger? No one would suggest
| chemotherapy for a cold.
|
| Hydroxycholorquine has proven to be effective against Malaria,
| which is terrible and can be deadly, but proven ineffective and
| in fact can make worse COVID, so it's not recommended to be
| used there. Makes sense to me.
| madengr wrote:
| It's been shown to have no benefit when someone is near-dead
| from COVID. Don't 80% of people on ventilators die anyway? So
| ventilators have no benefit. From what I have been reading,
| the drug does have benefit when used as a prophylactic, in
| combination with zinc. Of course we now have politicized
| medicine due to the fact Trump is taking it, and whatever
| Trump does must be de-facto bad. Now we have countries
| banning it's use, because of the WHO, who also said masks are
| useless.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Given that the entire world is studying these drugs, and
| many nations have now suspended their research, I don't
| think you can chalk it up to a single person, unless you're
| assuming the entire world is defining their own medical and
| research policies based upon Twitter outrage.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Is there a peer reviewed study of this in a top journal?
| Someone tried to send me a link from AAPS and I was like,
| really...
| ebg13 wrote:
| Chemotherapy has been used as a cancer treatment for decades as
| well. There is zero doubt that chemo is extremely harmful to
| the body even as it destroys cancer cells. Sometimes you take
| one thing that's unsafe because something else is more unsafe.
| That doesn't make the thing safe.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| Hydroxychloroquine has always been unsafe. It's just that in
| some situations, the risk of malaria is _more_ unsafe.
| jki275 wrote:
| it's taken by millions worldwide all the time, and not just
| for Malaria.
|
| It's "unsafe" in the same way that any medicine if misused is
| unsafe -- but not more so than most others.
| ping_pong wrote:
| Wrong. Hydroxychloroquine is safer than acetaminophen.
| Chloroquine has much higher side effects, but they different
| drugs, in the same family.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| "Common side effects may include vomiting, headache,
| changes in vision, and muscle weakness. Severe side effects
| may include allergic reactions, vision problems, and heart
| problems."
|
| Sure, these side effects may be uncommon, but they're a
| hell of a lot more common than they are if you don't take
| hydroxychloroquine.
|
| Incidentally, it's an open secret that a lot of the popular
| NSAIDs wouldn't be OTC if they were discovered today.
| Specifically because NSAIDs _aren 't_ just "safe", over the
| counter dosages are quite low--low enough that they're
| ineffective in many cases, which is why the same NSAIDs are
| prescribed at orders of magnitude higher doses.
|
| There's historical precedent for "safe" drugs being
| problematic during a pandemic: aspirin poisoning was a
| significant cause of death during the 1918 Spanish flu
| epidemic.
| ping_pong wrote:
| Yes, so what you said didn't contradict anything I said.
| Hydroxycloroquine is safer than acetaminophen which is
| available openly at doses that can destroy the liver.
|
| Here is what the CDC says about hydroxychloroquine. To
| call it "unsafe" is ridiculous and spreading
| misinformation.
|
| Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively well tolerated
| medicine. The most common adverse reactions reported are
| stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and headache. These side
| effects can often be lessened by taking
| hydroxychloroquine with food.Hydroxychloroquine may also
| cause itching in some people.
|
| All medicines may have some side effects. Minor side
| effects such as nausea, occasional vomiting, or diarrhea
| usually do not require stopping the antimalarial drug. If
| you cannot tolerate your antimalarial drug, see your
| health care provider; other antimalarial drugs are
| available
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > Yes, so what you said didn't contradict anything I
| said. Hydroxycloroquine is safer than acetaminophen which
| is available openly at doses that can destroy the liver.
|
| My point is, that even _if_ it 's safer than
| acetaminophen (which is not in evidence) _that 's doesn't
| mean it's safe_. Which is a direct contradiction to your
| glib, "Wrong."
| [deleted]
| ping_pong wrote:
| The CDC says "Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively well
| tolerated medicine." So, unless you know something more
| than the CDC, it sounds safe to me. That would absolutely
| make what you're saying "wrong", and you're spreading
| misinformation.
| DanBC wrote:
| CDC also said it shouldn't be used for covid unless it
| was in a hospital, as part of a clinical trial. They said
| this because it is dangerous.
|
| Currently CDC refers to NIH for advice about using
| Hydroxychloroquine:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/therapeutic
| -op...
|
| https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/whats-new/
|
| > Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine:
|
| > The Panel recommends against using high-dose
| chloroquine (600 mg twice daily for 10 days) for the
| treatment of COVID-19 (AI), because the high dose carries
| a higher risk of toxicities than the lower dose.
|
| > The FDA warning that cautioned against the use of
| chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 outside
| the setting of a hospital or clinical trial was added to
| this section.
|
| Do they say this because it's a safe drug? No, they say
| it because it kills more people than it helps when used
| to treat covid-19.
| jointpdf wrote:
| Are you going to cite any actual evidence for that bold
| claim? Here, like this:
|
| > _We were unable to confirm a benefit of
| hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with
| a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19. Each of
| these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-
| hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular
| arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19._
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-
| 6...
| jki275 wrote:
| https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/25/this-
| contr...
| jakeogh wrote:
| Among other issues, the authors of that study admit the
| data is unavailable.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305606
| ping_pong wrote:
| Evidence for what claim? That hydroxychloroquine is safer
| than Tylenol?
|
| I don't know why you connected what I said with anything
| to do with COVID-19. I didn't say that it helped, in
| fact, I think it was bad science that lead to that
| belief. But the fact that hydroxychloroquine is safe is
| beyond argument.
|
| This is from the CDC:
|
| Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively well tolerated
| medicine. The most common adverse reactions reported are
| stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and headache. These side
| effects can often be lessened by taking
| hydroxychloroquine with food. Hydroxychloroquine may also
| cause itching in some people.
|
| All medicines may have some side effects. Minor side
| effects such as nausea, occasional vomiting, or diarrhea
| usually do not require stopping the antimalarial drug. If
| you cannot tolerate your antimalarial drug, see your
| health care provider; other antimalarial drugs are
| available
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > I don't know why you connected what I said with
| anything to do with COVID-19.
|
| Well, I'm just gonna quote that so you can't change it.
| jointpdf wrote:
| I think replying with a sardonic "Wrong." and then making
| an unsubstantiated claim made it pretty clear what the
| pretext of your comment was. But sure...I'll give you the
| benefit of the doubt.
|
| Regardless, no it's not "safe beyond argument". Let's try
| again.
|
| FDA:
|
| > _"Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine:
|
| - should be used for COVID-19 only when patients can be
| appropriately monitored in the hospital as required by
| the EUA or are enrolled in a clinical trial with
| appropriate screening and monitoring. FDA is reviewing
| the safety of their use when used outside of the setting
| of hospitalized patients for whom use was authorized.
| have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating
| or preventing COVID-19. are being studied in clinical
| trials for COVID-19, and FDA authorized their temporary
| use during the COVID-19 pandemic under limited
| circumstances through the EUA, and not through regular
| FDA approval.
|
| - being used under the EUA when supplied from the
| Strategic National Stockpile, the national repository of
| critical medical supplies to be used during public health
| emergencies. can cause abnormal heart rhythms such as QT
| interval prolongation can cause dangerously rapid heart
| rate called ventricular tachycardia.
|
| - pose risks that may increase when these medicines are
| combined with other medicines known to prolong the QT
| interval, including the antibiotic azithromycin, which is
| also being used in some COVID-19 patients without FDA
| approval for this condition.
|
| - should be used with caution in Patients who also have
| other health issues such as heart and kidney disease, who
| are likely to be at increased risk of these heart
| problems when receiving these medicines._"
|
| >" _Be aware that hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine can:
|
| - cause QT prolongation
|
| - increase the risk of QT prolongation in patients with
| renal insufficiency or failure
|
| - increase insulin levels and insulin action causing
| increased risk of severe hypoglycemia
|
| - cause hemolysis in patients with Glucose-6-Phosphate
| Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency
|
| - interact with other medicines that cause QT
| prolongation even after discontinuing the medicines due
| to their long half-lives of approximately 30-60 days_"
|
| https://www.fda.gov/safety/medical-product-safety-
| informatio...
| ping_pong wrote:
| Your reference conflates hydroxychloroquine and
| chloroquine to try to prove your point. Chloroquiine is a
| different drug with stronger side effects, which I
| explicitly mentioned.
|
| How about finding information about hydroxychlorquine on
| its own? This is from the FDA itself:
|
| https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007
| /00...
|
| I suggest you actually try to do some deeper research
| besides just reading politicized versions of information.
| First and foremost, educate yourself on the differences
| between hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, they are two
| different chemicals. Just like how "dihydrogen monoxide"
| and "hydrogen sulfate" are two different chemicals, even
| though they have the word "hydrogen" in them.
| jointpdf wrote:
| Ah, so the sources that don't fit your narrative are
| "politicized", yet others (from the same entity) are not?
| What a convenient pattern of thought.
|
| I read the document you linked to, and it outlines the
| potential risks and side effects of the medication and
| clearly specified that it should be administered with the
| supervision of a doctor. This adds evidentiary weight
| against your original claim that it is "safer than
| acetaminophen" (which yes, is also dangerous if misused),
| and you still haven't provided any evidence whatsoever
| for that claim. I'll wait.
|
| All drugs have risks and benefits. Some of those risks
| can be magnified in nonlinear ways based on many
| potential interactions, which is why people should rely
| on medical advice from their doctors, and should fully
| ignore opinions from _ping_pong_.
|
| For some uses, the benefits outweigh the risks. Context
| matters. Is grapefruit juice safe? It depends. In
| combination with some medications, it can kill you.
| cryptica wrote:
| Mosquitoes are killing people by the hundreds of thousands! Let's
| shut down the economy and do another round of corporate bailouts!
| activatedgeek wrote:
| It is uneasy to read this number and I don't get the full picture
| here.
|
| 1. What is the distribution of this number across geographical
| regions? Is it uniformly spread across all regions? Are some
| regions outliers?
|
| 2. The distribution of this number over time of the year in every
| geographic region is perhaps an interesting thing to look at for
| short-term solutions.
| ardy42 wrote:
| Needs a (2017). This looks like the publish date:
|
| > 18.08.2017
| clairity wrote:
| 700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag:
|
| why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly
| scourge has been exterminated?
|
| and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain.
| even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and
| deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential
| trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being
| implemented.
| root_axis wrote:
| Your reasoning is flawed. Mosquito bites don't silently and
| rapidly spread through human populations via close contact. If
| I get bit by a mosquito and walk into a crowded bar the patrons
| within are not at risk of becoming infected. Not true with
| COVID.
| 7leafer wrote:
| "why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly
| scourge has been exterminated?"
|
| One does not simply question the official corona narrative here
| without being censored by downvoting or flagging.
|
| But answering your question: that's because such scenario was
| not developed and funded. Yet.
| clairity wrote:
| i'm happy to pay that (tiny) cost if it makes even one person
| stop and question the narrative honestly for even a second.
| 7leafer wrote:
| So am I, my friend.
| cryptoquick wrote:
| Your pushback against the HN downvoter cowards,
| especially when you've questioned the status quo and
| planted a seed of dissent against the grain, is quite
| appreciated by this particular HN user.
|
| Honestly, I find the dialogue here toxic and coarse, and
| I'm sure I'm a part of that, too. Ideally I'd just delete
| my account, and never come back... But HN won't allow me
| to delete my account, so, in spite, I'll keep coming
| back.
| fein wrote:
| Years ago it wasn't like this, and I recall reading
| mostly hardcore tech nerdery on here.
|
| Now... I don't even know. HN and Reddit are pretty well
| useless, and the only thing that keeps me around Reddit
| are automotive and industrial/machining subs. Seems
| strange that it was only 8 years ago.
|
| Member when HN was overwhelmingly pro meritocracy? I
| member.
|
| I really miss reading King Terry's diatribes in showdead.
| You'd probably be outright banned for that on here now.
|
| I don't think people downvoted as much back then either.
| 7leafer wrote:
| The same thing happened to Russian IT hub, Habr.com.
| Today it's nothing but a propaganda outlet aimed at those
| who spin the cogs of this technocratic machine (and
| especially at the suggestible teens who will spin them in
| the future). The same thing over and over again all over
| the internet and society as a whole. No choice, no
| dissent, no free will. We know better. You get muted and
| ridiculed. Silently. Efficiently. Yes you can but you
| can't.
|
| People today seem to be scared to death to think
| different (not as in apple).
| [deleted]
| 7leafer wrote:
| Please keep coming back and commenting, because otherwise
| there's nothing to dampen this dittohead echo-chamber.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| > why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly
| scourge has been exterminated?
|
| Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has
| suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.
| jakeogh wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-
| pn...
| clairity wrote:
| currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since
| december.
| thawaway1837 wrote:
| In about 3 months. For a disease that was growing
| exponentially before action was taken and even now is only
| just stopped growing in countries where action was taken.
|
| And no mosquito outbreak has caused entire hospital systems
| to collapse in various parts of the world.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm of the impression that in March and perhaps even in April
| "experts" (whoever they are) thought the US alone could see
| death tolls in the millions?
| macintux wrote:
| Without a lockdown, it's still possible. Latest estimates are
| 0.5-1 percent fatality rate, which maps to 2-3 million people
| here in the US, and if everyone got ill in a short
| succession, because it is very contagious, the death toll
| would certainly be higher.
|
| Recent birthday party, 20 people, _every single one_ caught
| the disease.
| thawaway1837 wrote:
| The 0.5-1% fatality rate would be a LOT higher if all those
| people did fall sick at the same time.
|
| Hospital systems would collapse because of the number of
| sick people. Doctors and nurses would be missing because
| they would almost all likely fall sick.
|
| And people who would not die of COVID would die of other
| stuff because healthcare systems would have collapsed.
|
| This is what happened in Italy. This is what was happening
| in NYC for a few days at its worst. This is what is about
| to happen in Brazil and possibly in India.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Latest estimates are 0.5-1 percent fatality rate
|
| I read just a couple of days ago that the IFR (infection
| fatality rate) is only ~0.25%-0.3%? Still ~four times
| higher than that of the flu, but not ten times greater.
| clairity wrote:
| yes, IFR was trending toward 0.2-0.3% even in march, and
| with time it's only become more likely that those are the
| bounds. flu averages around 0.1% IFR, so likely 2-3X as
| deadly.
| saalweachter wrote:
| The current CDC "best estimate" is ~0.4%, assuming an R0
| of 2.5, with estimates of ~0.2% if the R0 is actual ~2 in
| the US and ~1% if the R0 is actually 3.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Pretty sure that 0.4% is "among people who develop
| symptoms" and 35% of infections are asymptomatic. So 0.4%
| of 65% of infections, or ~0.26% of infections.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-
| scena...
| saalweachter wrote:
| Thanks for the correction; everyone else, ignore what I
| wrote one post up.
|
| (It's a shame HN doesn't support strike-through; that is
| my preferred way to retract a post without just deleting
| it in shame.)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| No problem. This stuff is all very nuanced and rapidly
| changing. It's hard not to make a mistake.
| clairity wrote:
| it's not a single source, but certainly media editorialized
| that into the collective consciousness as an attention-
| capturing bonanza, and many politicians leapt onto the same
| opportunity to promote their power, agendas and careers. same
| for said "experts": a chance to be in the media, and if they
| were wrong, oh well, that's science.
| thawaway1837 wrote:
| Umm, for one thing because going into lockdown wouldn't do
| anything to prevent death by mosquito?
|
| You do know that mosquitoes have wings and can move from place
| to place without humans right?
| clairity wrote:
| you know that the most effective preventative for mosquito
| bites are mosquito nets, like staying inside, with screens on
| your windows and doors, right?
| macintux wrote:
| The lockdown isn't intended to protect the people staying
| inside, although that certainly helps; it's designed to
| protect everyone who they'd otherwise be infecting
| unknowingly.
| addicted44 wrote:
| So you dont need a lockdown. You simply need mosquito nets.
|
| So when you have a cheap solution that works, why would you
| want to do something expensive that does not even work any
| better than the cheap solution?
|
| Other than making a nonsensical ideological statement, that
| is.
| tempestn wrote:
| And people who live in areas where malaria is common do use
| nets and screens as much as possible. Unlike many people in
| western countries though, they don't have the luxury of
| locking themselves down indefinitely. Nor do they have the
| same expectation that the measures would only need to be
| temporary.
| smabie wrote:
| > And people who live in areas where malaria is common do
| use nets and screens as much as possible.
|
| Ehh, not exactly. I used to live in Africa, parts where
| there were tstsi flies and mosquitos. Despite being given
| nets by the Gates foundation, people rarely used them.
| Well, some used them as hair nets, others through them
| away because their pastors convinced them their purpose
| was to sterilize the African people, etc etc.
| the_af wrote:
| Where I live we're concurrently experiencing, besides COVID19,
| a dengue fever outbreak. Dengue fever is spread by mosquitoes
| -- specifically, Aedes Aegypti.
|
| Dengue is way more serious than COVID19. Particularly
| worrisome, having had dengue makes subsequent reinfections
| _more_ life-threatening, not less.
|
| There are ways to eradicate the mosquito -- mainly getting rid
| of small clear water containers near/within your home, such as
| vases and empty plant pots -- but we still don't do it until
| it's too late and becomes a problem. A single neighbor who
| doesn't do this endangers the whole block. And the authorities
| don't give a fuck. It's infuriating, really.
|
| So to rephrase your question, why don't we do something about
| it? It's way more actionable than COVID19 (though lockdowns
| don't work for the reasons others told you). So who knows?
| clairity wrote:
| yeah, that's the kind of thing that's absolutely infuriating
| relative to the panic and paranoia we're seeing with this
| pandemic just because it's novel.
| acdha wrote:
| > we still don't do it until it's too late and becomes a
| problem. A single neighbor who doesn't do this endangers the
| whole block. And the authorities don't give a fuck. It's
| infuriating, really.
|
| You seem to be strangely unaware of the large amount of money
| which has been spent for decades on mosquito control by
| individuals and all levels of government. There are
| widespread control campaigns, active research into developing
| new weapons (e.g. traps which are effective against tiger
| mosquitoes), and community awareness to get more people
| involved with habitat control and using things like bed nets.
|
| I mean, does this sound like not doing something?
|
| https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/success-mosquito-
| control...
|
| Several companies have been working for years on genetic
| modifications to disrupt mosquito spread:
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/genetically_modified_mosquito.
| ..
| the_af wrote:
| > _You seem to be strangely unaware of the large amount of
| money which has been spent for decades on mosquito control
| by individuals and all levels of government._
|
| Which government are you talking about? I don't live in the
| US and you linked to EPA and Yale. I can tell you _my_
| government is doing very little to combat dengue fever, and
| when they do, it 's too little, too late.
|
| > _widespread control campaigns [...] community awareness_
|
| There's very little of that. And one careless neighbor
| effectively endangers the whole apartment block.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| So, Covid is on track to beat this, sadly.
| tempestn wrote:
| Yes, but mosquitos kill that many every single year. Look at
| the reaction to COVID-19 compared to the amount of effort going
| into eliminating mosquito-borne disease. There's certainly
| some, but it's far from the mobilization we see when a calamity
| on this scale hits rich countries.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Maybe that's cause-and-effect turned around? We stifled our
| economy and mobilize a million researchers, because we can
| afford to and have the will. It'll cost us in the end.
|
| What do folks in malaria country do? Scavenge their
| childrens' mosquito nets to catch fish etc. Reject modern
| medicine and go to the local quack. Foul their water supplies
| and poach their endangered species.
|
| I know, we can have all the morals we can afford. But some
| large-scale coordinated actions require a populace that is
| educated and willing.
| eruci wrote:
| 1. Stupidity - More than the rest combined.
| ahelwer wrote:
| I grew up in Manitoba so have a _very healthy_ hatred of
| mosquitoes - 50 of them once followed me into a car during the
| <1s window of me opening & closing the door (I know because I
| killed them all before driving) - but anyone leaning toward the
| idea we should exterminate mosquitoes is incredibly reckless.
| Ecological systems don't shift slowly, they collapse all at once.
| Their continued existence is predicated on feedback loops of
| mind-boggling complexity. To put it another way:
| https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312
| mantap wrote:
| Citation needed. Mosquito extermination and habit destruction
| has been going on in USA for 60 years at least. It is THE
| primary method of malaria and dengue fever prevention around
| the world and is supported by every public health body on
| earth.
| dmix wrote:
| > anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate
| mosquitoes
|
| Is this actually a thing?
| ahelwer wrote:
| Of course it is, very popular among the Thought Leader
| circuit: https://www.sciencealert.com/bill-melinda-gates-
| funding-scie...
| bamboozled wrote:
| I love this, "Though Leader circuit", been looking for this
| term for a while!
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Malaria and dengue are only carried by certain mosquito
| species. Suggestions to eliminate mosquitos through gene
| therapy almost always concern those specific species, not
| the relatively harmless (yet very annoying) mosquitos of
| the global north.
| graeme wrote:
| Isn't that plan only to eliminate the specific species
| responsible for disease carrying? There are many mosquitos,
| the mosquito they're targeting is just one.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Intentions don't always match outcomes when it comes to
| fiddling with these systems.
| graeme wrote:
| That's true. But, by what plausible mechanism could this
| project switch from killing one species of mosquito to
| killing all of them?
|
| There's no way it would happen via natural selection. The
| mosquito is engineered to die. The project has to keep
| releasing new genetically engineered mosquitos to mate
| with females.
|
| I totally get the idea that removing all mosquitos would
| likely lead to spiralling ecosystem collapse, and it's
| possible that even killing this one species could do so.
|
| But, are you arguing that trying to kill this one species
| could kill all mosquito species? I just don't see how
| that's possible with this mechanism.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| One idea: killing one specious could cause some kind of
| "trophic cascade" style impact. Such as, imagine that
| current preditor (B) of the targeted species (A) adapts
| to target an alternate species (C) and is a more
| efficient predator wiping them out. But then usual
| preditor of (C) species (D) has now lost is food source
| and dies off, as do species that depend upon it, maybe in
| indirect ways, like its excrement is needed to fertilize
| certain plant species and then other animals dependant
| upon that plant are impacted and so on and so on.
|
| Note: I think these types of scenarios are unlikely and
| am in favor of the eradication programs (though I do
| think we should have smaller-scale trials not just to
| validate efficacy but also to understand unintended
| impacts). But we have observed these types of impacts. It
| isn't just a crazy idea. But nature also seems to me to
| quite adaptable.
| graeme wrote:
| I think that's plausible, but you seem to have missed the
| point.
|
| OP asked whether anyone was considering killing all
| mosquitos? Myself and others replied no, just this one
| species.
|
| It's indeed possible that there would be local ill
| effects, possibly even on other mosquitos. But I don't
| see how it would affect mosquitos outside Aedes Aegypti's
| habitat.
|
| Also, the species is invasive outside of Africa. This
| increases the odds it could be safely eliminated in those
| areas.
|
| I still agree there's the possibility of great impacts.
| But I don't think it could affect "all mosquitos".
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Yes, I am in favor of exterminating every last mosquito. I'd
| rather deal with any results than the mosquitos themselves.
| Also I had a long conversation with a specialist in a company
| working on this and they convinced me that it wouldn't
| actually be a big problem like some say.
| seph-reed wrote:
| Super down for this.
|
| First test it on a small isolated island.
|
| I think the main reason people don't like camping or nature
| is because of mosquitos and biting ants. This dislike of
| outdoors converts directly to a lack of environmentalism. I
| don't know the conversion rate, so who knows how much more
| we'd care for nature minus mosquitos, but if we're
| destroying the planet either way, we should at least enjoy
| some part of life without these parasites.
| enchiridion wrote:
| Let's take care of ticks whole we're at it!
| nkozyra wrote:
| > it wouldn't actually be a big problem like some say
|
| Well this is the law of unintended consequences in action.
| Many people don't _think_ it will have any negative effect
| but we don 't know. Nature is extraordinarily complex and
| disrupting it in such a huge way almost always carries
| knock-on impact.
| smabie wrote:
| Saying we are too stupid to ever know anything is a
| pretty anti-scientific attitude. Maybe global warming is
| gonna make the world so much better, after all, we don't
| really know anything. It's impossible to actually live
| your life if you just throw your hands up and say "we
| don't know".
|
| What we do know is that mosquitos have killed more humans
| than probably anything else _ever_. Shouldn 't that be
| impetus enough to actually do something about it? Of
| course, the problem is made worse by the fact that the
| people who are advocating against doing anything aren't
| the people that mosquitos are killing. If you knew a lot
| of people who had died from Malaria, you might be singing
| a different tune.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > Also I had a long conversation with a specialist in a
| company working on this and they convinced me that it
| wouldn't actually be a big problem like some say.
|
| and a specialist working for an oil company convinced me
| that climate change happens all the time. he wasn't
| technically wrong, except that he wasn't around to enjoy
| those other times to attest that it would be "no big deal".
| yyyk wrote:
| I am very much in favour. Well, not all mosquitoes, just
| those carrying infectious diseases. Ok, maybe not even
| wiping. We can keep some specimen in labs/zoos, and once the
| parasites/diseases has been wiped out by killing the hosts,
| we can release them again.
|
| Humanity wipes out species by the dozens each year for no
| reason and people shrug, but for some reason many people
| don't want to target the few subspecies that are actually
| extremely harmful to humans.
| yyyk wrote:
| The issue is very well studied - Mosquitoes are an invading
| species in most areas; Only a few subspecies are harmful to
| humans, and they'll be replaced by similar mosquitoes that
| aren't.
|
| Besides, there's a very wide gap between what the West is and
| was willing to do when an infectious disease happens.
|
| When Malaria hit the West, we drained entire swamps (and their
| ecosystems) without a second though. When corona hits, we
| justifiably lockdown entire countries. When Malaria hits poor
| people, it's _think about the Mosquitoes_. I can 't help but
| think there's a very ugly thing behind this double-standard.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Destroying every member of a specific species is ridiculous.
| In the next couple decades we'll solve the majority of the
| illnesses that these things cause and we can roll out the
| cures around the world without the permanent damage to these
| ecosystems.
|
| I also lived for a time as a child in Manitoba and my
| grandfather got live altering malaria, so I don't share any
| love for these insects but we're part of something bigger and
| just because the west drained entire swamps doesn't mean I
| support that or that it validates making a species extinct on
| purpose.
| yyyk wrote:
| "In the next couple decades", oh, a couple million would
| die, until maybe we'll have something else (or not). You
| have no right to make that choice.
|
| The only reason people are even thinking about it, is
| because it doesn't affect the West. That's callousness
| masquerading as environmentalism. %$#@! the ecosystem* .
| People are more important.
|
| * Nevermind no one has even shown any way that anything
| aside from the target would be harmed. Or that we could
| reintroduce the species once the parasite is gone.
| throwanem wrote:
| > %$#@! the ecosystem* . People are more important.
|
| You do know humans _need_ a functioning ecology in order
| to survive, right?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| ...and you read the part about mosquitoes being invasive
| species, right? So removing them improves almost every
| ecosystem they're found in.
| throwanem wrote:
| You read the part about it being a specific couple of
| species, right? So unless somebody comes up with a
| brilliant plan that targets specifically those species,
| _and_ only in the parts of the world where they 're not
| native, _and nothing else_ , we're still risking the same
| kind of consequences as with DDT, or neonicotinoids. The
| kind we can't predict in advance are going to fuck us
| over.
|
| I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the optimism inherent
| in a perspective on the world that says there's
| necessarily a technological solution to everything, and
| more than that, one that modern-day humans are certainly
| smart enough to find. I just wish it didn't so lend
| itself to hubris.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| The one plan we do have that targets a specific species
| is the spread of neutered males. We've done this
| successfully in the past with screw-worm.
| throwanem wrote:
| The sterile-insect technique does work, but it's not
| going to achieve the kind of eradication people in here
| are talking about. Wild-eyed ideas about mass pesticide
| application and CRISPR gene drives are more the sort of
| thing that actually concern me, or would if I thought
| anyone talking about them was anywhere near the required
| levers of power to actually make them happen. As it is, I
| just wish people had enough sense of history to
| understand the import, although I suppose in the age of
| alternative facts that's far more than can reasonably be
| expected.
| yyyk wrote:
| Strile-insect achieves 90-95% (e.g.[1]). Sustained and
| combined with a bit from the other approaches (netting,
| drying some swamps, this article suggests a medicine to
| make infected biting mosquitoes die, etc.), we can at
| least repeat what happened in much of the West - the
| population was reduced so much the parasite went extinct,
| when the population bounced back it was 'clean' (in other
| places in the West these mosquito simply went extinct).
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489809/
| throwanem wrote:
| Well, hell, OK, then, let's do that.
| yyyk wrote:
| We're talking about a very very specific ecosystem, which
| is frankly not relevant to humans (we can do fine without
| swamps).
|
| There's no balance between the concern we don't have for
| the many ecologically damaging things humans do for
| profit and the nagging when we think about intervening
| with a disease that killed millions.
| jki275 wrote:
| That's a nice theory, and I hope it happens, but hope is
| never a course of action, especially when we're talking
| about total hypothetical with no basis in fact at all.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Nature doesn't care about how something looks politically.
| Those decisions were bad and aren't vindicated because
| nothing went wrong (there are other cases where things went
| very very wrong, as another commenter mentions with DDT). In
| a nonlinear world you can never know whether you were right
| or just lucky.
| yyyk wrote:
| Make no mistake, the West would do DDT all over again if
| that was the price for getting rid of Malaria. But a very
| targeted intervention is off limits due to 'well, we don't
| know, _something_ might go wrong '.
|
| Nature doesn't care if humans all die. Nature doesn't
| 'care' at all. Humanity does. And this looks very ugly and
| very hypocritical.
| throwanem wrote:
| "The West" _is_ doing DDT all over again. This time it 's
| neonicotinoids, and just like with DDT, they're being
| pushed by ag conglomerates as a way to increase profits,
| with a side of "cigarettes give you healthy skin!" style
| propaganda to make them look innocent.
|
| Last time, we "merely" almost wiped out a whole class of
| apex predators and caused a collection of trophic
| cascades. This time, with a menu of unintended
| consequences only the most obvious of which is the
| "colony collapse disorder" that's been imperiling
| pollinators worldwide, we might just end up managing to
| break modern agriculture entirely and cause famines
| worldwide, too.
|
| So, yeah, "targeted interventions" merit extreme
| skepticism, because we as a species _suck_ at them. If
| you want to look at that through a lens of anti-
| Westernism, you 're welcome.
| yyyk wrote:
| There's already a "colony collapse disorder", and nobody
| does anything. But when it comes to the Third World,
| suddenly we have to do nothing because something _might_
| happen (nobody even has a mechanism. We 're supposed to
| sacrifice millions for delusions). This is unacceptable.
| Fortunately, there are enough good people in the world to
| ignore the callous.
| throwanem wrote:
| The point you're ignoring in your haste to indict
| everyone you don't like - due to what I suspect to be
| your complete ignorance of, or at least disinterest in,
| the millions of dollars annually spent on research aimed
| at eradicating malaria worldwide by the very same "West"
| for which you cannot find enough opprobrium - is that we
| _can 't know_ what consequences will come of these kinds
| of broad, blunt methods.
|
| Nobody _expected_ DDT to drive large birds of prey nearly
| to extinction. Nobody _expected_ neonicotinoids to
| concentrate in ecosystems and have a very similar effect
| on the insects we depend on to pollinate our food crops.
| It 's not about predicting that terrible things will
| happen. It's that we aren't able to make sure terrible
| things _won 't_. Neonicotinoids already have us at non-
| negligible risk of worldwide famine through agricultural
| collapse as a result of consequences we were too stupid
| and too hubristic to predict. How many millions do you
| think that will kill if it happens?
|
| Because that's the kind of risk you're proposing - and,
| just as with that famine, it's a risk that will hit worst
| on the most vulnerable, least privileged people in the
| world. You know? The same ones in whose supposed defense
| you're making such a performative display of contempt?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| I think the risk equation being questioned is different.
| Today, right now, with a better understanding of the
| risks for DDT, would it be better to have a campaign to
| eradicate malaria in sub-saharan Africa with tools like
| DDT? There would be ecological damage, both anticipatable
| and unknown. And that would have second and third-order
| detrimental impacts. But we'd also have a huge gain.
| Would it be worth it? Right now it is hard to have that
| kind of discussion.
|
| Another related example: is it better to have the
| consequences of polluted cities powered with unclean
| coal, than to have a less developed country with fewer
| resources to spend on things like healthcare. Which on
| net is better? I certainly don't know, but the tradeoffs
| are real.
| yyyk wrote:
| I'm not indicting the entire West. I'm indicting certain
| people in the West that post silly almost conspiracy
| style stuff against obvious solutions to a deadly
| disease. There's an obvious balance here, and it's not on
| the 'we don't know how but _something_ might happen '
| side. How about we all stop posting on HN? After all,
| posting _might_ change magnetic fields which _might_
| change a butterfly 's path which _could_ cause a deadly
| hurricane?
|
| P.S. We knew even at the time DDT was poisonous to life,
| and that draining swamps kills ecosystems. What changed
| wasn't so much our knowledge, but the situation (the West
| had gotten rid of many deadly diseases by that time,
| mosquitoes had started to develop resistance).
| throwanem wrote:
| Well, you're making not posting on HN any more look like
| an appealing option, I'll give you that much.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| I find your appeal to hyperbole pretty distasteful.
| Please be civil and argue from the facts of the
| situation. There's a huge chasm of difference between
| what GP is saying and the words you're putting in their
| mouth.
| yyyk wrote:
| What am I missing?
|
| The current situation is that many people needlessly die.
| The current approaches don't work well enough. Various
| radical approaches to fixing that have been investigated
| and tested to a significant degree. Now given the cost,
| testing and various answers to the objections, there
| comes the time the objections have to put a bit more meat
| and go beyond _people have screwed up before_ , and
| _something_ might happen.
| jki275 wrote:
| Just for the record, DDT didn't actually do any of that,
| and your histrionics about pesticides aren't supported by
| evidence either.
|
| The West murdered millions of third world children when
| we banned DDT.
| throwanem wrote:
| A series of extraordinary claims, for which you don't
| care to provide any support whatsoever. Okay.
|
| I did, with a little effort, find a single source [1] for
| your "DDT didn't harm birds" claim. Of course, he's [2]
| also a climate denier, a conspiracy theorist, and a
| lobbyist for companies whose financial interests are
| coincidentally in total alignment with his "scientific"
| advocacy. But hey, if that's the company you want to
| keep, don't let me dissuade you.
|
| [1] http://archive.is/UTyoT#selection-2159.0-2156.3
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy
| jki275 wrote:
| You didn't look very hard:
|
| https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-truth-
| about-...
| throwanem wrote:
| Zubrin's fine, if excessively Golden Age of Science
| Fiction for my taste, when he talks about Mars. Earth,
| not so much. But, again, if you want to keep company with
| someone who's super excited about anthropogenic climate
| change, likens mosquitoes to Nazi V-2s, and alludes with
| crafty dissimulation to the conspiracy theory around
| environmentalism that forms the backbone of such sober
| documentaries as "Kingsman: The Secret Service" (2014),
| go for it.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| The US stamped out malaria in the 1930's as a public
| works program. That was before DDT.
| gjs278 wrote:
| if we kill the mosquitoes we'll be fine.
| [deleted]
| petters wrote:
| The ecological systems would likely be fine; the mosquitoes
| responsible for diseases are a minority.
|
| But that is beside the point and does not matter. What matters
| are 700,000 human lives annually.
|
| It's tragic really. If we had these diseases in Europe or North
| America, we would have already done this.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Maybe you didn't click the link, so I guess I'll ask you: how
| many humans would die if we _did_ exterminate the mosquitoes?
| More or less than 700,000? Do you know? You have no way of
| knowing how ecological systems would react.
| lucisferre wrote:
| Several of the comments responding to him do address this
| and at least some of the people commenting do appear to
| know, or at least know more than Nassim Taleb appears to.
|
| Besides, his statement isn't an argument, and present no
| facts or information.
|
| > Imbecilic remark. Do you know how many humans would die
| if we eliminated mosquitos? Any idea?
|
| petters also appears to be correct on what would happen if
| we had these issues in North America. Your own province
| kills mosquitos en masse and those ones aren't even
| carrying deadly disease they are just a nuisance.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deltamethrin-
| first-u...
| ahelwer wrote:
| Taleb's position in general is one of extreme
| conservatism when meddling with ecological systems (for
| example he is also against GMOs). The basis for this
| conservatism is his general concern with risk in a
| nonlinear world. He does indeed put forth an argument,
| which is: can you predict the effects of this? No, you
| cannot, and possible effects include ecological collapse.
|
| Re: Manitoba, spraying to reduce mosquito populations in
| urban areas is a whole different ball game from
| extermination.
| yyyk wrote:
| Taleb's position in a nutshell:
|
| http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-
| fiction/
| pitaj wrote:
| We did already do that. It was called spraying DDT
| everywhere.
| wvenable wrote:
| Not all mosquito species feed on humans. If we eliminate just
| those, there will still be thousands of other mosquito species
| in the environment.
| condesising wrote:
| The mosquitoes provide any benefit? Reading this article is
| scary, I figured Science would just go for Total eradication.
| condesising wrote:
| IIRC Weren't they genetically modified mosquitoes to stop their
| spread? I guess I'm curious at what point would the Chi turn and
| we would gain control over the mosquito population?
| paulorlando wrote:
| This is a look into mosquito extirpation programs and what
| happens when they go wrong: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-
| on-mosquitoes-new-data/
| dean wrote:
| According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our
| Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has
| killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion
| people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were
| determined.)
| gxqoz wrote:
| This book is in a genre I like (microhistories) but I found it
| pretty dull reading. It's basically a very superficial history
| of "the world" (mainly Western Europe) that posits malaria to
| be the cause of pretty much every world event. I'm sure there's
| some truth to this, but the plodding military metaphors and
| oversimplifications really started to wear on me.
|
| I haven't read it, but a recent review (https://lrb.co.uk/the-
| paper/v42/n11/steven-shapin/drain-the-..., possibly behind a
| paywall) suggested Sonia Shah's The Fever to be a better book
| on the topic.
| mac01021 wrote:
| Just as a curiosity, humans kill hundreds of trillions of insects
| annually.
|
| [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-
| stepp...
| dheera wrote:
| Insects, however, reproduce so much that without population
| control, the ecosystem would be in imbalance very quickly, and
| they can't be educated to have less children. Insects were
| "designed" into the system such that a large number of them are
| expected to die.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if birds and spiders kill far more
| insects than people.
| mac01021 wrote:
| They probably do if you count only humans directly squashing
| the insects with their hands/feet/cars.
|
| If you count things like pollution, pesticides, land use,
| they absolutely don't.
|
| Insect populations have been reduced to a fraction of their
| former size over the last few decades due to human activity.
| xenocyon wrote:
| This is a strangely worded title: why not say "mosquitoes"
| instead of "tiny insects" since that is what is being referred
| to?
|
| Insects as a whole are of crucial planetary importance.
| gregd wrote:
| Sorry. When I cut/paste the subtitle of the article on
| submission, I thought I grabbed the entire subtext. Not sure
| how that happened, but I've edited the title.
| creaghpatr wrote:
| Agree, the HN header should be updated. No other insects
| mentioned.
| gregd wrote:
| I updated it and apologized for the error.
| throwanem wrote:
| If we really want to be accurate, why not talk about the
| parasites actually to blame, which the mosquitoes incidentally
| transmit? I carry no brief for the little flying bloodsuckers,
| but I also don't want to find out what happens to ecosystems
| when the many animals that prey on mosquitoes and their larvae
| are suddenly deprived of them.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > This is a strangely worded title
|
| clickbait
| yboris wrote:
| If you want to reduce the number, consider donating money to the
| _cost-effective_ Against Malaria Foundation
|
| https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf - review by GiveWell, and
| independent charity evaluator
|
| $2 donation results in 1 net that lasts 3-4 years protecting 1.8
| people on average from malaria $3
| jonshariat wrote:
| This is why Verily's https://debug.com/ project is so
| interesting.
|
| The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or
| breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus
| neutralizing them.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Another way we can control mosquitoes is by making sure the
| native bird populations are healthy. Where I live tree and bank
| swallows eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and other bugs every
| year which helps control the population. I wouldn't recommend
| releasing these birds elsewhere because they may not have any
| natural predators but surely where there are tons of mosquitoes
| there are also predators of mosquitoes as well.
|
| Otherwise this reminds me of well-meaning efforts to control
| erosion by planting Kudzu or Himalayan Blackberry everywhere.
| Ultimately they just become an invasive species. And I could
| also see eradicating mosquitoes as removing a food species for
| many other animals. This is a really bad idea.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Is this true? I recall looking into this and finding that
| swallows, bats, and other "mosquito predators" don't put a
| dent in mosquito populations (mosquitoes are numerous and
| only account for a negligible percentage of these predators'
| diets).
| baybal2 wrote:
| Malaria can be eradicated by timely treatment, and quarantine.
| There are countries that defeated malaria with nothing more
| than that.
| dubcanada wrote:
| What's to say something strange doesn't happen with these
| "modified mosquitoes" and we somehow engineer a super mosquitos
| or kill off 4 other species accidentally.
|
| I really want to believe that doing this would be something
| that humans should explore, but I think the chance of something
| going wrong is fairly high. Considering our rather terrible
| track record with stuff like this (weapons, pesticides, etc).
|
| It often takes decades to truly see how it works, so while we
| may end the mosquitos problem we may make ourselves a worse
| one.
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