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Battle Rises in Florida Keys Over Fighting Mosquitoes With Mosquitoes

JANFU

JANFU

Land by the Gulf Stream
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/u...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

KEY HAVEN, Fla. — In this bite-size community near Key West, like so many other mosquito-plagued spots up and down the Florida Keys, residents long ago made peace with insecticides dropped into town by planes or rumbling by on trucks. Cans of Off are offered at outdoor parties. Patio screens are greeted with relief.

But Keys residents are far less enamored of another approach to mosquito control — a proposal to release the nation’s first genetically modified mosquitoes, hatched in a lab and pumped with synthetic DNA to try to combat two painful, mosquito-borne viral diseases, dengue and chikungunya.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Sounds like another "love bug" cure.
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more like the Australian frog issue all over again. this is a really stupid idea if you ask me.
you setup a creature that while fighting one thing could harm others.

those things are just another acceptance to living in FL just like heat during the summer.
 
ludin said:
more like the Australian frog issue all over again. this is a really stupid idea if you ask me.
you setup a creature that while fighting one thing could harm others.

those things are just another acceptance to living in FL just like heat during the summer.
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Don't want to deal with mosquitos? Don't live in the tropics. How is that so hard to understand.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Don't want to deal with mosquitos? Don't live in the tropics. How is that so hard to understand.
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Or Alaska?

How about New Jersey and Tennessee? They used to have malaria and yellow fever in those states. They're under snow right now.
 
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I read thru the article, it doesnt seem to have the potential to harm humans or anything else. It's pretty interesting, I'd want to know more.

And the results have been good where the program's been tried before: 60-90% reduction in that species of mosquito.
 
Lursa said:
Or Alaska?

How about New Jersey and Tennessee? They used to have malaria and yellow fever in those states. They're under snow right now.
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We have mosquitos almost all year round. How many months does NJ have mosquitos?
Furthermore, we dress a lot lighter than in Alaska and most of yankee land.
 
CRUE CAB said:
We have mosquitos almost all year round. How many months does NJ have mosquitos?
Furthermore, we dress a lot lighter than in Alaska and most of yankee land.
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What difference does that make?

Here in W. WA state we have mosquitos right now. Sucks at dusk.
 
Lursa said:
What difference does that make?

Here in W. WA state we have mosquitos right now. Sucks at dusk.
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Once he announces one of his simplistic slogan he'll never back off. Rather he will only shift and escalate his messages.

Nor does he make sense given all the efforts and expenses in his area to control mosquitoes - nor does he realize he lives in a tropical zone because of all those efforts. That all sets aside his not grasping the issue isn't just about mosquitoes, but mosquitoes spreading a particular disease.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Point is, its a dumb program. Just like the Love Bugs were.
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I hate those dumb things. they get all over the friggen car and they almost never come off.
 
joko104 said:
Once he announces one of his simplistic slogan he'll never back off. Rather he will only shift and escalate his messages.

Nor does he make sense given all the efforts and expenses in his area to control mosquitoes - nor does he realize he lives in a tropical zone because of all those efforts. That all sets aside his not grasping the issue isn't just about mosquitoes, but mosquitoes spreading a particular disease.
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so they make a new mosquitoe that can get a different disease that they have a hard time curing. yes this makes a lot of sense to me.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Point is, its a dumb program. Just like the Love Bugs were.
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Why is it dumb? Your first attempt at dismissing it was not factual....do you have anything else?
 
Lursa said:
Why is it dumb? Your first attempt at dismissing it was not factual....do you have anything else?
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I can only speak for the last 50 years living here and watching scientists chase their tails trying to "fix" the mosquito problem.
 
ludin said:
so they make a new mosquitoe that can get a different disease that they have a hard time curing. yes this makes a lot of sense to me.
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This program is engineered to reduce total number of that species of mosquitos period, possibly to zero. Are you saying that the mosquitos will 'create' a new disease? They really can only be vectors...carriers. And that tends to be (but not exclusively) species-specific....those host relationships take generations to develop. Different mosquito species carry different diseases.
 
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CRUE CAB said:
I can only speak for the last 50 years living here and watching scientists chase their tails trying to "fix" the mosquito problem.
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My folks are on Islamorada, and I have relatives and friends all over FL. Your 'experience' isnt really relevant to this particular program without addressing it specifically.
 
Lursa said:
This program is engineered to reduce total number of mosquitos period, possibly to zero. Are you saying that the mosquitos will 'create' a new disease? They really can only be vectors...carriers. And that tends to be (but not exclusively) species-specific....those host relationships take generations to develop. Different mosquito species carry different diseases.
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LOL they will never get rid of mosquitos unless they want to drain every protect everglade in FL.
 
Lursa said:
My folks are on Islamorada, and I have relatives and friends all over FL. Your 'experience' isnt really relevant to this particular program without addressing it specifically.
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Well, I am outside most of the time. I hardly ever see a mosquito anymore. I see more love bugs. I rid ATVs all over the swamps from Brevard County Okeechobee and Marion County. Surf cast from Cape Canaveral National Sea Shore to Sebastian Inlet and still haven seen a bad mosquito problem worth worrying about.
I really don't know how more specific I can be.
Oh, and our dealership is right next to a 3 acre retention pond.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Well, I am outside most of the time. I hardly ever see a mosquito anymore. I see more love bugs. I rid ATVs all over the swamps from Brevard County Okeechobee and Marion County. Surf cast from Cape Canaveral National Sea Shore to Sebastian Inlet and still haven seen a bad mosquito problem worth worrying about.
I really don't know how more specific I can be.
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It's not about a 'bad mosquito problem'. It's about reducing the carriers of certain diseases. Those diseases could recirculate again in FL....this is an attempt to reduce that, without spraying, etc. I guess it's only important if you think you or those you care about wont get those diseases. Dengue is also known as 'break-bone' fever.....exceedingly painful.
 
Lursa said:
It's not about a 'bad mosquito problem'. It's about reducing the carriers of certain diseases. Those diseases could recirculate again in FL....this is an attempt to reduce that, without spraying, etc. I guess it's only important if you think you or those you care about wont get those diseases. Dengue is also known as 'break-bone' fever.....exceedingly painful.
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There is more talk about deer tick illness like lyme diease and parasites in still waters more so than mosquitos.
 
I would be all for genetically modified mosquitos that would lead to thier extinction.


VIVA SCIENCIA!
 
CRUE CAB said:
There is more talk about deer tick illness like lyme diease and parasites in still waters more so than mosquitos.
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What do other vectors, diseases, or still water have to do with this conversation?
 
CRUE CAB said:
More important diseases that have actually killed people in recent years.
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Not sure you are qualified to decide which are more important.

Are you implying that they arent attempting to find solutions to other disease-related issues in FL?

Even that really has very little to do with this topic.
 
CRUE CAB said:
I can only speak for the last 50 years living here and watching scientists chase their tails trying to "fix" the mosquito problem.
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Do you ever research before you post? YOUR country has a mosquito control board that includes routinely spraying, including to try to control West Nile disease. This is necessary despite the massive land alterations for drainage, water control and other methods to make your area inhabitable, since it - and everything south of just north of Orlando in Florida was woodland swamps, marshes, and otherwise entirely overrun with such as mosquitoes.

We live further north than you and once you get out of clear and manipulated land the bugs and little critters make it unbearable. The top of that list is mosquitoes. And you live more in a semi-tropical zone than we do - while declaring people shouldn't live there is they don't like mosquitoes.

But for what "scientists" have done, including those in regards to altering land and controlling water, you couldn't live there - or least would be running from your car to your house.
 
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