No idea, itās probably worth reaching out to ask them and alert them in case they arenāt already mindful of it! I personally am not the least bit interested in this concern, so I will not take any action to address it.
I am not saying this to be a dick (I hope), but because I donāt want to give you a mistaken impression that we are currently making any effort to address this consideration at Screwworm Free Future.
I think people are far too happy to give an answer like: āThanks for highlighting this concern, we are very mindful of this throughout our workā which while nice-sounding is ultimately dishonest and designed to avoid criticism. EA needs more honesty and you deserve to know my actual stance.
I donāt mind at all someone looking into this and I am happy to change my mind if presented with evidence, but my prior for this changing my mind is so low that I donāt currently consider it worthwhile to spend time investigating or even encouraging others to investigate.
EDIT: Since this post is getting traction again, Iāll highlight that SFF did eventually end up spending time thinking about the impacts on insect welfare and we are looking to include these effects in our CEA. Currently we think gene drives (to create eg. male-only strains) look tentatively positive for screwworm as it would reduce screwworm that currently are factory farmed for SIT.
Thanks for the comment, Mathias! I strongly upvoted it. I love the transparency. I emailed Mal Graham, WAIās strategy director, right after my comment.
Mal said āAny project we do on screwworms will include the effects on the screwworms themselves as well as the effects on wild animalsā. I am glad they care about all animals.
No idea, itās probably worth reaching out to ask them and alert them in case they arenāt already mindful of it! I personally am not the least bit interested in this concern, so I will not take any action to address it.
I am not saying this to be a dick (I hope), but because I donāt want to give you a mistaken impression that we are currently making any effort to address this consideration at Screwworm Free Future.
I think people are far too happy to give an answer like: āThanks for highlighting this concern, we are very mindful of this throughout our workā which while nice-sounding is ultimately dishonest and designed to avoid criticism. EA needs more honesty and you deserve to know my actual stance.
I donāt mind at all someone looking into this and I am happy to change my mind if presented with evidence, but my prior for this changing my mind is so low that I donāt currently consider it worthwhile to spend time investigating or even encouraging others to investigate.
EDIT: Since this post is getting traction again, Iāll highlight that SFF did eventually end up spending time thinking about the impacts on insect welfare and we are looking to include these effects in our CEA. Currently we think gene drives (to create eg. male-only strains) look tentatively positive for screwworm as it would reduce screwworm that currently are factory farmed for SIT.
Thanks for the comment, Mathias! I strongly upvoted it. I love the transparency. I emailed Mal Graham, WAIās strategy director, right after my comment.
Mal said āAny project we do on screwworms will include the effects on the screwworms themselves as well as the effects on wild animalsā. I am glad they care about all animals.