Thanks for the post, Mathias! Do you know whether the increase in welfare of the infected wild animals would be larger than the decrease in welfare of the eradicated screwworms assuming these have positive lives?
I haven’t looked into this at all, but the effect of eradication efforts (whether through gene drive or the traditional sterile insect technique) is that screwworm stop reproducing and cease to exist, not that they die anguishing deaths.
Thanks for the post, Mathias! Do you know whether the increase in welfare of the infected wild animals would be larger than the decrease in welfare of the eradicated screwworms assuming these have positive lives?
I haven’t looked into this at all, but the effect of eradication efforts (whether through gene drive or the traditional sterile insect technique) is that screwworm stop reproducing and cease to exist, not that they die anguishing deaths.
Thanks, Mathias. Just to clarify, my “decrease in welfare” was referring to screwworms with positive lives ceasing to exist, not to their deaths.