a weapon — say by sabotaging the pollinators that support agriculture, or by altering the genes of innocuous wild insects so they could transmit disease

Could a gene drive stop one virus only to open the way for another, more virulent one? Could it jump from one species to a related one? What would be the environmental effects, if any, of altering the genes of entire species? How about eliminating a species entirely?

Besides combating malaria, gene drives could be used to alter, or even eliminate, other disease-causing insects, from the sand flies that transmit leishmaniasis to ticks that carry Lyme disease in the United States.