Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes To Be Released In 20 States
The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes in 20 US states and Washington D.C – what are the implications of this mass experiment?
In early November the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of mosquitoes which have been genetically engineered to carry a common bacterium designed to kill mosquitoes that carry dangerous viruses. The news was reported in Nature, and later confirmed to Gizmodo by MosquitoMate, the company behind the GE mosquitoes, and the EPA. The EPA said they officially registered MosquitoMate’s Asian Tiger mosquito with a five-year license to sell their lab mosquitoes in 20 states across the nation.
Nature reported:
On 3 November, the agency told biotechnology start-up MosquitoMate that it could release the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis into the environment as a tool against the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). Lab-reared mosquitoes will deliver the bacterium to wild mosquito populations.
The decision — which the EPA has not formally announced — allows the company, which is based in Lexington, Kentucky, to release the bacteria-infected mosquitoes in 20 US states and Washington DC.
The goal is to have MosquitoMate release the Wolbachia-infected A. albopictus male mosquitoes into the wild to mate with wild females in the hopes that the fertilized eggs do not hatch due to faulty paternal chromosomes. As with all mosquitoes, the laboratory grown male mosquitoes do not bite. MosquitoMate believes that over time the infected males will help shrink the population of A. albopictus mosquitoes.
Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate, told Nature that other species of mosquito and other insects are not harmed by the release of the lab mosquitoes. Dobson also stated that MosquitoMate plans to begin selling the mosquitoes locally in Lexington, Kentucky and then from there expand to nearby cities.
The EPA’s decision came after the US Food and Drug Administration approved the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes designed to prevent the spread of the Zika virus. The FDA’s approval was in relation to a field test of genetically modified mosquitoes engineered by the British biotechnology company Oxitec.
Oxitec is the same company involved in a controversial vote in the Florida Keys during the 2016 Election. In that vote, residents of the Key Haven voted against the release of the mosquitoes in their community. However, shortly after, the trials were approved for a different location in the Keys. Despite the approval, opposition to the controversial project has not ceased. In late November 2016, Health News Florida reported that a coalition of groups, including the Center for Food Safety and the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, have filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Earlier this year the Houston Chronicle reported that Oxitec is working on a deal with Harris County officials to release GE mosquitoes in the Houston area. Oxitec is attempting to sway Houston officials by stating that their product has a nearly 100% success rate.
The company claims that trials in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands have reduced mosquito populations by 90%, calling the success “an unprecedented level” of human control over nature. (The World Health Organization, for it’s [sic]part, has stated that while the technology “has demonstrated the ability to reduce the [mosquito] populations in small-scale field trials” there is still “an absence of data on epidemiological impact.”)
Interestingly, in October 2017, the FDA made another announcement which clarifies that “mosquito-related products intended to function as pesticides” are not “drugs” under the Federal Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act, and “will be regulated by the EPA under the Federal Insecticide Act.” This decision led to the November announce from the EPA and now sets the stage for future experiments with genetically engineered mosquitoes.
Will the first site of genetically engineered mosquitoes be in Houston, the Florida Keys, or one of the newly approved 20 states? Time will tell. For now, it is important to express your thoughts and concerns to local officials. If this is happening in your area and you have concerns, do not sit around doing nothing, or only complain online. Take some type of action. Educate your neighbors and hold your public officials accountable.
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Dear God, I can see it now... Giant mutant mosquitoes carrying off baby cattle! Mark my words, no good can come of this!
They're genetically modified to carry out Sterile offsprings. So the next generation of mosquitoes won't be cattle but most likely sexually-frustrated douchebags that drink their sorrows away
Except these things seldom turn out as planned.
Exept they usually do turn out as planned and only people with little to no scientific education who live in perpetual fear of anything that sounds technical always knee-jerk to think otherwise.
Why can't they just let nature do its work and help it positively by not destroying it for greed in the first place?!
Nature is doing its work by letting these mosquitoes act as vectors for diseases that kill millions worldwide every year. Sorry that some people want to work to stop that. It's not about greed, it's about making the world a better place.
I'm sorry you can't see past your uneducated prejudice against science to see a good thing when it's in front of you.
You're either a troll or a deluded brainless #Sheeple. Wherever humans interfered in nature the results were horrific. Wherever they left nature fix itself it balanced itself and gave more. Those mosquitoes are there for a reason and the ones genetically modified are there for a totally evil reason whatever dumb people try to cover it with 'science' claims. Atomic bombs were a scientific discovery as well, ask the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima how they think about it.
Some more science. Agriculture, water purification, antibiotics, vaccines, aeroplanes, space exploration, cameras, the internet, X-rays, MRIs, renewable energy, refrigeration etc. If it wasn't for science you wouldn't be here to bitch and moan, let alone be able to do it to someone across the globe.
Deluded. That is not nature engineering, you're totally out of your way. Nature engineering is not agriculture enhancing, it's Genetically Modified Food you won't like to consume. It's not Space Exploration, it's space pollution, it's not about vaccines, it's about biological weapons using modified germs, it's not about water purification, it's about adding chemicals to the water to make the Earth, and those consuming it, unable to properly dissolve it. It's not about inventing the Internet since you mentioned it, it's about controlling it... Now go bark at another tree, never saw a small brain like yours who can actually use the net and have balls enough to reply with bold dumb face.
Showing your age there mate. Here's a fun fact. Science is science, you can't try and group everything you don't like together and call it "nature engineering". I mean 'biological weapons causing modified germs', should have payed more attention in high school and less to reddit and holywood. It's cute that you try though
Well, it is my theory that they were the ones that created the infected mosquitoes in the first place for the sole purpose of being able to sell their GMO mosquitoes. Thanks for posting. Resteeming.
What a stupid stupid theory. Mosquitoes have been vectors for thousands of diseases for millennia. Why don't you go and try to UNDERSTAND the reason why they're being released instead of throwing out your own staggeringly uneducated theories.
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