Part 1: In the 1700s and early to mid 1800s, the Irish population largely depended on potatoes for nutrition. In fact, in the 1840s, half of the Irish population was entirely dependent on the potato (slide 3), consuming it as an appetizer, dinner, and dessert. Combined with milk, potatoes provided all essential nutrients (slide 3).

However, from 1845 to 1852, blight devastated potato production, accounting for the loss of 1/3 to ½ of all acreages in 1845, and the loss of ¾ of potato crops in 1846 (slide 4). Thus, the Irish were left starving and diseased (to include measles, diarrhea, TB, cholera, etc.). The pathogen associated with the blight was Phytophthora infestans, specifically a strain of P. infestans HERB-1 (slides 31 and 32), which made its way out of Mexico to North America and Europe in 1842 or 1843 (slide 32). The weather was just right for this host: “cool, with high rainfall (or watering of crops) and humidity” (Irish Potato Blight article, page 30). Eventually, around one million Irish died and millions more emigrated, primarily to North America (slide 5).

With such a famine and the widespread presence of disease, the Irish sought refuge elsewhere outside of Ireland. A hotspot was the United States, into which ships overcrowded with sick Irish were sent at a rapid rate. U.S. tenements were then packed with Irish, particularly in Boston and New York. These individuals – sick, poor and incapable workers – were despised by many Americans, to whom they transmitted their diseases (article page 31).

Part 2: Such tragedies could have potentially been prevented through gene editing/modification. For example, some plants and animals have already been made immune to certain diseases through the editing of their genes. CRISPR has made the idea of pig-to-human organ transfer more possible by getting rid of certain retroactive diseases. Clearly, this concept of gene editing thereby provides a lot of benefits, both big and small. However, if used unethically, the same methods can be used for harm. As an example, militaries could use a virus as a weapon by introducing it to a population whose certain genes would then be edited upon inhalation of the virus, thereby making them extremely likely to develop lung cancer.