Hope this Zika thing scares enough people in the developed world to finally start a world-wide program for completely eradicating all disease bearing mosquitoes.
And hopefully skip the damn talks about "the consequences of removing an entire species from the ecosystem for ever" (hint: humans already did this dozens of time by now, and now we can also froze some damn buzzers for future scientific study or whatever). Or about "developing a technology for completely exterminating a given species" (hint: besides being cool science, having a technology like this around and field tested could prove extremely f useful in quite a few scenarios).
Is there anywhere I can put my money where my mouth is and donate money to someone developing this? Like, not "doing the science and if it works out use it in 10 years time in the field", but more like "engineering and testing as you go, with iterative deployment of multiple batches of 'extermination agent', be that genetically engineered mosquitoes or bacteria or viruses, until the damn things are completely gone, even if we don't get to publish many papers because we've been a bit sloppy in measurements and focused on engineering and not science"?
P.S. And really, the best way to "investigate the consequences" of such a thing is to fucking do it an see what happens! Imagine the cool papers you'll publish about "ecological consequences of mosquito extermination" when you actually have data about this! And if you're into debating and stuff, you can debate "reintroducing mosquitoes into the ecosystem", and see how that goes after the picture of the "first kid dead from malaria after 10 years" shows up in the Times magazine. You can always keep a few mosquitoes in a lab in repopulate them afterwards if we turn out to actually need them.
That's a really unhealthy mentality. There are aprox 3500 species of mosquitoes, out of which about 100 draw human blood. And first of all it's probably really hard to target just specific species. And if the solution is chemical or some sort of virus, then how do you know it won't spread to other insects?
Mosquitoes are pollinators, also being a food source for birds and fish. If mosquitoes vanish, you could end up with an ecological disaster, remember that we've been exterminating bees as well.
But OK, mother nature can still cope with a species vanishing, but this means another insect will probably fill the vacuum left by exterminating mosquitoes. How do you know that the insect taking the place of mosquitoes won't be much worse? You know, nature has a strange habit of fucking up our plans.
It's also important to remember that life on earth is 3.5 billion years old and we are fucking it up, destabilizing it in just a couple hundred. And "just fucking do it" is not science.
I presume seeing somebody very close dying from dengue/cerebral malaria/etc would change your perspective of "this ain't science". But that won't happen to many in 1st world countries, would it. Few millions of poor dying somewhere far away ain't that much of a hot issue to you?
mankind wants to eradicate all diseases for example. don't you think that they also have their role in the food chain, albeit probably more on the single cellular scale? why not protect those?
It's us vs them, due to global warming they are spreading to new places all the time. nobody is talking about removing all mosquitoes from the face of the earth, just those 100 you mentioned. Will there be some mess and consequences from it? of course, there are always consequences, even if you fart in the wind. considering the clusterfk we are heading to in terms of destroying the nature, this is peanuts with very real positive and immediate results to poorest and weakest of this world. count me in.
I had my grandfather dying from a bacterial infection developed while hospitalized, not responding well to antibiotics. I know how that feels.
Having close people die does change our perception, but science requires objectivity and a move like this requires careful planning, as you have to admit, we aren't known for making the best choices in healthcare.
And an ecological disaster probably won't happen, but lets consider that it does for the sake of argument, having as result a much lower yield for the crops in Africa or the rest of the world for a while. It's not impossible and the world's supply of food is actually very fragile. So you save millions from the spread of viruses, but then starve them to death.
I'm not against killing all mosquitoes, I'm just against doing it without thoroughly researching the effects and having a prepared contingency plan.
I really don't think an iterative approach is right when you're talking about exterminating a species. I'm worried about collateral damage. You don't want your virus jumping species, for instance.
I posed a question along these lines (eradicating mosquitoes) a couple weeks ago[1], and there were quite a few interesting responses regarding possible consequences, or lack thereof. Apparently it's been investigated quite a bit.
The general consensus of the actual studies done on the topic, IIRC, is that eradicating mosquitoes shouldn't affect any ecosystem particularly harshly. For all the harm them do, I know I think (at this point) we would all be better off without them, even considering possible impacts to ecosystems.
Found this pretty informative answer to one of the questions I had (mainly, whether Zika had always been this bad, or had mutated in some way to make it worse).
TLDR: It's likely it's spreading so quickly because there's no natural resistance in the areas where there have been outbreaks, though this isn't proven.
Wait, you think zika has been "purposefully transplanted to push the <<hype machine>>"? What does that mean? Do you think there is an evil pharmaceutical concern out there that just infects people with a virus?
And by the way: The non-lethal symptoms that are "not proven" include serious birth defects which means infected mothers can not get healthy children for an unknown time period. I think it might therefore be seen as a serious health issue.
There are hundreds if not thousands of diseases that cause vastly more harm to humans than Zika, but the absurd level of fear-mongering and media sensationalism about Zika is really off the charts.
We can be sure that once the pharma companies receive their corrupt tax payer dollars, the Zika story will evaporate from the airwaves, much like H1N1, Sars, Swine, etc.
It's something weird with how outbreaks get reported. Guess it generates eyeballs. Remember the panic over the avian flu? It proved to be much less dangerous than ordinary influenza. But people love a world ending story.
Just more evidence that the primary vector of this terrible virus -- Aedes Aegyptus -- should be eradicated. I suggest a multi-pronged approach, including genetic modification such as Oxitec's sterility in males, release of natural predators such as dragonflies, and minimizing their habitats, i.e. standing water in urban areas.
That last one is tricky, since A. Aegyptus is notoriously tenacious and can breed in a body of water as small as a bottle cap. But, we have to try.
“The Zika epidemic has been very explosive, more explosive than we can account for by just mosquitoes and the level of Zika virus in human blood. Some other factor may be at play ... it could be some other bodily fluid – saliva, or urine or tears.”
Health insurance would be unlikely to cover an employment drug screen.
If you're not paying for it, the employer is. Same with the background check. And it makes sense that if the employer is requiring these things that they should pay for them. They get to expense it as an administrative cost of hiring.
Employers make employees pay for them often enough that many states have laws prohibiting it
> Q: Can I make an applicant/employee pay for the costs involved in drug testing?
A: There are certain states that specifically address this issue, and employers should familiarize themselves with their state requirements. For example, employers in New Jersey cannot make a candidate pay for his/her drug testing (or medical or other evaluations), unless the position they are applying for is that of a security guard.
I mean, employee drug testing (outside a small number of specific fields and roles) is unthinkable enough as it is, but making the employee also pay for that kind of invasion of their privacy is just despicable.
I really hate having to pay for tenant background checks now. It gives the background check company free reign to change whatever they want and they are friggin expensive! My state allows landlords to pass down the exact cost of the background check to the tenant which really isn't fair IMO, it should be considered a cost of doing business.
I solved that problem by purchasing a house. Landlords around here have gotten crazy since the housing bubble burst.
What? No, health insurance doesn't cover pre employment drug screening which is not in the least medically necessary. It certainly doesn't cover pre employment background checks(!) which are not medical at all. These are paid for by the employer who ordered them. Since you have to actually give a provider your health insurance information and permission to bill said insurance I would know if they where billing the insurance company. Plus you'd get an EOB as well. My first full time job out of college I didn't have health insurance at the time of the test.
They could pass the cost onto you (which has become the standard for landlords now) but in my experience they don't probably because it may not be legal as these tests can be prohibitively expensive for low income people. In competitive industries may effect recruitment in a negative way. They probably do in low skill jobs if legal.
I worked in a job that required yearly TB screening too which was similarly paid for by my employer. Might have been a health department requirement so they probably have strict rules/protocol around that.
Drug prescreening and background checks aren't done until you have accepted the job. The job offer says "job offer is contingent on passing drug test/background check" so they only screen new hires who have already committed and not everyone who interviewed.
No, insurance will never pay for that kind of test. Insurance only pays for medically necessary testing.
The employer will pay, or very rarely the employee, and even then usually the way it works is if you pass the test they give you back your money in your first paycheck.
> Actually, many lab tests charges are passed on to the patient: employment drug tests, std tests, PRN blood tests, etc etc.
In general only the "optional" lab tests are charged, meaning those that are not directly related to health. Which is exactly the list you posted - employment, PRN (aka curiosity) tests.
STD testing is usually free at country health programs.
Sure, but regardless, you really can't assume in any situation health insurance will pick up anything. I've been billed for blood tests that have saved my life. I'm not sure what they do cover.
And hopefully skip the damn talks about "the consequences of removing an entire species from the ecosystem for ever" (hint: humans already did this dozens of time by now, and now we can also froze some damn buzzers for future scientific study or whatever). Or about "developing a technology for completely exterminating a given species" (hint: besides being cool science, having a technology like this around and field tested could prove extremely f useful in quite a few scenarios).
Is there anywhere I can put my money where my mouth is and donate money to someone developing this? Like, not "doing the science and if it works out use it in 10 years time in the field", but more like "engineering and testing as you go, with iterative deployment of multiple batches of 'extermination agent', be that genetically engineered mosquitoes or bacteria or viruses, until the damn things are completely gone, even if we don't get to publish many papers because we've been a bit sloppy in measurements and focused on engineering and not science"?
P.S. And really, the best way to "investigate the consequences" of such a thing is to fucking do it an see what happens! Imagine the cool papers you'll publish about "ecological consequences of mosquito extermination" when you actually have data about this! And if you're into debating and stuff, you can debate "reintroducing mosquitoes into the ecosystem", and see how that goes after the picture of the "first kid dead from malaria after 10 years" shows up in the Times magazine. You can always keep a few mosquitoes in a lab in repopulate them afterwards if we turn out to actually need them.