<story><title>The World Is Closer Than Ever to Eradicating Guinea Worm</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-world-is-closer-than-ever-to-eradicating-guinea-worm/2016/08/20/59d4a752-55bd-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enraged_camel</author><text>Going back to the conversations we&amp;#x27;ve had in the Zika thread[1], why are we OK with eliminating the Guinea Worm, but not certain species of mosquitoes?&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12322885&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12322885&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A lot of people in that thread made the argument that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t exterminate a species without first fully understanding the consequences. Yet we seem to be doing that here with this parasite, and no one seems to be saying, &amp;quot;but... think of the ecosystem!&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maxerickson</author><text>One factor is that there is a lot less &amp;quot;we&amp;quot; involved with the Guinea Worm.&lt;p&gt;I mean, good luck suppressing the knowledge that filtering your drinking water through a cloth prevents a devastating episode where a 3 foot worm crawls out of your body.&lt;p&gt;The proposed programs for eradicating mosquitoes involve things like releasing millions of dollars of genetically modified mosquitoes and putting larvicides and insecticides in all known bodies of standing water.</text></comment>
<story><title>The World Is Closer Than Ever to Eradicating Guinea Worm</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-world-is-closer-than-ever-to-eradicating-guinea-worm/2016/08/20/59d4a752-55bd-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enraged_camel</author><text>Going back to the conversations we&amp;#x27;ve had in the Zika thread[1], why are we OK with eliminating the Guinea Worm, but not certain species of mosquitoes?&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12322885&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12322885&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A lot of people in that thread made the argument that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t exterminate a species without first fully understanding the consequences. Yet we seem to be doing that here with this parasite, and no one seems to be saying, &amp;quot;but... think of the ecosystem!&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rch</author><text>With mosquitos the discussion does tend to meander around what I see as the core issue: the wisdom of developing and field testing a technology capable of eradicating a target species.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nature.com&amp;#x2F;nbt&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;v34&amp;#x2F;n1&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;nbt.3439.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nature.com&amp;#x2F;nbt&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;v34&amp;#x2F;n1&amp;#x2F;full&amp;#x2F;nbt.3439.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>