Environment The FDA just greenlit releasing mutant Zika-killing mosquitoes in Florida

The Helper

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Our sci-fi future just got a whole lot closer to becoming a reality, after the Food and Drug Administration gave the okay to a field trial that would release genetically modified Zika-killing mosquitoes in the Florida Keys.

On Friday, the FDA released a final environmental assessment of the trial, finding that it “will not have significant impacts on the environment.” The project, led by Oxitec, a biotech company that focuses on insect control, calls for the release of thousands of genetically engineered male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The lab insects are bred so that over time they could kill off much of the local mosquito population by passing on a gene fatal to any offspring they have with wild females.

This is not the last hurdle Oxitec faces in turning its dream of disease-obliterating mosquitoes into reality. The company will have to win the approval of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which plans to vote on the proposal after issuing a survey testing local sentiment of Keys residents this fall. While past surveys have shown the project to have a majority of support, it has also had vocal naysayers. Some fear the environmental impacts that removing the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a non-native species, might have. Others have more imaginative objections, such as conspiracy theories about the project.

Oxitec’s mosquitoes are engineered to include two copies of the baby-mosquito killing genes, overriding natural selection to make it almost certain that their offspring receive the killer gene from dad. Oxitec claims that trials in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands have reduced mosquito populations by 90%, calling the success “an unprecedented level” of human control over nature. (The World Health Organization, which has also studied using such tactics against disease, has stated that while the technology “has demonstrated the ability to reduce the [mosquito] populations in small-scale field trials” there is still “an absence of data on epidemiological impact.”)

 
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Good. Can we do this to flies too?
 
Birds they would disappear! Well, you know they eat flies.
 
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they eat less annoying shit too.
 
Can we do like that same thing but with lawyers too? That would be awesome. Oh and asian people, asian people too.
 
If we're using it for people, I would like to elect Germans and Italians.

I like Asians, you can do it on Chinese, but not Korean or Thai.
 
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    But the electorate would have to demand it and vote people in to do it.
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    Government spending, foreign policy, and the southern border are all bigger issues than the income tax right now I'd say.
  • The Helper The Helper:
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    if the demand is there
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    pretty big split
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    I just don't think Trump actually understands how the government works. I'm not going to pretend like I can understand the entirety of government but in my industry he kind of caused massive fucking issues. Tarriffs and the international counters had a pretty significant impact on what I do, it was actually kind of interesting to see though. I live in Idaho so I'm not really concerned with it, it'll be R pretty much the entire way down. We do have ranked choice on our ballot this year though and I DO really care about that. But if we are going to have a federal government we kind of need income tax. They could abolish it and tax states I guess, but then states are just going to raise income taxes. It's not really viable without a very significant and holistic overhaul of how the federal government works, and that isn't something I would expect Trump to do.
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    I don't expect Harris to do it either. I want to see wealth and church taxes, but those also aren't things I'm going to hold my breath for.
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    I mean he definitely doesn't, which is why he had to retract most of his executive orders, didn't manage to get rid of obamacare etc.
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    Replacing income tax with a wealth tax would be amazing imho, but I can't even imagine that this would happend
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    Wealth tax would be a disaster. Imagine having to liquidate retirement accounts because you have a tax bill just for unrealized gains. Or your house goes up in price and you have to sell it to pay the tax bill.
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    I'm not talking about an income tax on wealth gain.
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    we already have a wealth tax on our house, it's called a property tax. I'm talking about extending that to other income-generating assets like private equity, bonds and stocks.
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    I agree that the effect of that would be to depress asset prices, but I think that's a good thing. Makes it easier for hard working young people to grow their retirement income
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  • seph ir oth seph ir oth:
    Potential problem for a wealth tax for the US would be the ultra rich just offshoring assets in another country without a wealth tax. Those that would eat the wealth tax on, say, stocks, would be the middle class that puts money slowly into the market via the likes of funds.
  • seph ir oth seph ir oth:
    happy US election day btw!
  • Varine Varine:
    Oh election day

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