In an article: Fire ants may have met their match on CNN they discuss a very important finding. The use of a virus that naturally occurs within fire ants to destroy them.
Is it ethical to use a virus to deliberately kill insects? I think it is. The fire ants in question do not naturally occur in the Northern United States of America and have no natural predators in this region. The article briefly talks about importing another species in to the US that is a natural predator to the ants. I think that this would not be an optimal solution. Introducing a second species even if successful still leaves you with now two introduces species competing with local species for limited resources.
The question is if the implementation of the virus to destroy as many fire ants as possible will be ethically done - and not to the ants, I mean to other species, the ecology and to humanity.
Whatever pathogen is generated to go after the fire ants will need to be significantly tested against all species of insects that are rungs in our ecology. Imagine if they don't do such testing and ants that we need are also killed? This would be a bigger disaster.
I think appropriate testing can be done. I hope the testing will be done. Currently there is no legislation forcing companies using biological agents to perform such testing. The FDA doesn't hold any authority in this scope, as the product does not impact (directly) food eaten by humans.
So, here's to hoping everyone does the due diligence and tests any solution in development appropriately.
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