According to reports, researchers at
the Bill Gates
Foundation-backed Leiden
University Medical Center in
the Netherlands are now part of an international effort to transform mosquitoes
into flying syringes. According to a recently published study in the New
England Journal of Medicine, a viable method exists for using mosquitoes to
deliver protection against malaria in unsuspecting humans. Say what?! Shouldn’t
these folks at least by suspecting? And what about other diseases the
mosquitoes themselves may be carrying?
But wait, that’s not all! Researchers
say that mosquitoes could be used to deliver other payloads, too. Like what? Vaccines
maybe?! Already in the works. Scientists have been working on transforming
mosquitoes into “Flying vaccinators.” Shigeto Yoshida, head researcher on
a 2010 study that modified mosquitoes' saliva so that it would deliver
leishmania vaccines to mice (when sucking their blood), blithely noted that
vaccination by insect is "just like a conventional vaccination but with no
pain and no cost." What could go wrong? Who makes these decisions? Who
lets the dogs mosquitoes out? What else might they want to inject us
with—unsuspectingly?
Free will? Human freedoms? Bah!
Count me out. Or will I have a choice?
A little Pink Floyd paraphrasing for you to end this post:
Just
a little pinprick
There'll be no more... ahh
But you may feel a little sick
There
is no pain, you are receding
You
have become comfortably numb
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