GM fungus can rapidly kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, study suggests
The previous magic bullet against Malaria was called Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT.<p>DDT worked very well, initially, but its effects and consequences were intractable and long-term. It&#x27;s still deployed to various degrees of effectiveness, but usage is far more complex than the initial promise of getting rid of Malaria.<p>A GM fungus 99% kill rate sounds good, but for insect populations that might not be enough. You likely can&#x27;t use it again to kill 99% of the 1% left, and so on.<p>DDT is a chemical. You can stop using it to mitigate some of the unforeseen side effects. How can one retrieve or stop GM fungi in the wild? What patterns of resistance will emerge?<p>With DDT we got &quot;lucky&quot;. It turned out to be overall effective when combined with guidelines and different approaches, but it never rooted out malaria completely by itself in one fell swoop.<p>Creating natural enemies of a pest by genetic modification is a valid approach, but not something to deploy wide-scale at the first hint of success.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DDT#Malaria_control" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DDT#Malaria_control</a>