CRISPR and Zika Eradication a Multidisciplinary and Anticipatory Ethical Analysis

Microcephaly and other birth defects could be the tip of the iceberg," Dr. Sonja Rasmussen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies. "The true burden of congenital disease with Zika virus is probably underestimated," said Dr. Marco Safadi of the Santa Casa Medical School in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who's been treating and studying cases. Zika can be caused by mosquitos and by sexual transmission.

Zika may stay around for years, citing a study just published that showed monkeys have been infected with Zika in Brazil. That means they can act as a reservoir for the virus, as they do with yellow fever.

Even if a vaccine is developed and people get vaccinated, or if enough of the population gets infected to confer widespread immunity, the monkeys will be there for the mosquitoes to bite and carry the infection back into people in the future. This will make Zika a problem for years to come.

The question is how to control this disease vector.

Ethics involves the intentions, actions and the outcomes of actions as performed by actors. Anticipatory ethics is concerned with identifying potential problems with technology while it is in the early stages of development. In this paper we will extend the focus of anticipatory ethics to include the use of technology CRISPR genetic engineering technology to the project of genetically modifying mosquitos . The analysis will explore how CRISPR technology is now being used to modify mosquito populations in order to address human health care problems and examine how the introduction of genetically modified mosquitos in Brazil has led to an end of the Zika health emergency.