'Halt This Nightmare': Alarm as Florida Set to Begin Release of Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

[douglas9]

Environmentalists and Florida residents voiced concern and outrage Monday as state government officials and the biotechnology giant Oxitec announced plans to move ahead this week with a pilot project that involves releasing up to a billion genetically engineered mosquitoes in Monroe County over a two-year period.

"EPA has set the lowest possible bar for approving genetically engineered insects and has opened Pandora's Box for future experiments that will slide through with little investigation."
—Barry Wray, Florida Keys Environmental Coalition

Presented by local authorities as an effort to control the population of Aedes aegypti—a mosquito species that can carry both the dengue and yellow fever virus—critics warn that the effort's supposed benefits and its potential negative consequences have not been sufficiently studied.

Responding to news that the first boxes of genetically modified mosquitos are set to be placed in six locations in Monroe County this week, Friends of the Earth noted in a press release that "scientists have raised concerns that GE mosquitoes could create hybrid wild mosquitoes which could worsen the spread of mosquito-borne diseases and could be more resistant to insecticides than the original wild mosquitoes."

Dana Perls, food and technology program manager at Friends of the Earth, called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—which approved the project last May—to "halt this live experiment immediately."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/26/halt-nightmare-alarm-florida-set-begin-release-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes?cd-origin=rss

[Lovie777]

1. Sounds like overall "conservatives" "RWers" "Qanon" . . .

have a desire to kill off as many human beings as possible alongwith the rest of the living creatures both plant and others in their world of absolute devastation of earth and beyond.

[abqtommy]

2. I certainly hope that the last clever human left alive will remember to turn out the lights.

[douglas9]

3. Trump ally pushes for permit to release GM mosquitoes in the US

snip>

Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by E&E News show lobbyist and Trump fundraiser Roy Bailey and billionaire and CEO of Intrexon Randal Kirk were scheduled to meet with former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on May 18, 2017, to discuss the application.

Kirk is a former attorney who made his money as an investor in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Bailey is a Texas financial executive who raises funds for America First Action, a super political action committee comprised of former aides to President Trump.

The nonprofit arm of the organization, America First Policies, is dedicated to supporting Trump's agenda. America First raised $39 million from 2017 through 2018, according to Federal Election Commission files.

Meredith Fensom, Intrexon's head of global policy and governmental affairs, said Bailey set up the meeting for Kirk, who needed help transferring review of his biotech application between federal agencies. Fensom also noted that Bailey and Kirk are good friends.


https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19141-trump-ally-pushes-for-permit-to-release-gm-mosquitoes-in-the-us

[FalloutShelter]

4. Feels like we are living in a BLACK MIRROR episode.

[gab13by13]

5. If I remember right,

Bill Gates already tried this, with disastrous results.

[Chipper Chat]

6. Those English Sparrows are so cute.

Let's release 22 of them in Central Park. They won't go far.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Fuck. All of Florida is a test site for bad ideas.

Someone should write a book.

[Jirel]

8. This is not a "nightmare" except to people who don't trust science.

This is a terrific program. The lab-created male mosquitos will die. The offspring will die. There is no scientific basis to worry about creating some new strain of super-mosquitos. The modified mosquitos have been tested in the lab, but the only way to test further is to do limited testing in limited locations in the wild - which is what they are doing.

There are only two questions to be answered:
1) Does this work to sufficiently decrease mosquito populations in the test areas?
2) Does this work TOO effectively in decreasing populations, so that animals that rely on the mosquitos for food begin to suffer?

Regardless, they will have ONE GENERATION of testing. Male mosquitos live 6-9 days. They will know the answer in under two weeks, and then the test subjects are dead with no real risk.

[Phoenix61]

9. There have been cases of dengue fever in the keys.

As the temps go up, the mosquitos that carry it, and other diseases, will move north. I like the parasite approach better but I wish people would stop freaking out over GMO.

[Pobeka]

10. If only the mosquitos could inject the mRNA covid spike sequence when they bite.

[douglas9]

11. First GMO Mosquitoes to Be Released In the Florida Keys Undark

This spring, the biotechnology company Oxitec plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. Oxitec says its technology will combat dengue fever, a potentially life-threatening disease, and other mosquito-borne viruses — such as Zika — mainly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

While there have been more than 7,300 dengue cases reported in the United States between 2010 and 2020, a majority are contracted in Asia and the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Florida, however, there were 41 travel-related cases in 2020, compared with 71 cases that were transmitted locally.

Native mosquitoes in Florida are increasingly resistant to the most common form of control — insecticide — and scientists say they need new and better techniques to control the insects and the diseases they carry. “There aren’t any other tools that we have. Mosquito nets don’t work. Vaccines are under development but need to be fully efficacious,” says Michael Bonsall, a mathematical biologist at the University of Oxford, who is not affiliated with Oxitec but has collaborated with the company in the past, and who worked with the World Health Organization to produce a GM mosquito-testing framework.

Bonsall and other scientists think a combination of approaches is essential to reducing the burden of diseases — and that, maybe, newer ideas like GM mosquitoes should be added to the mix. Oxitec’s mosquitoes, for instance, are genetically altered to pass what the company calls “self-limiting” genes to their offspring; when released GM males breed with wild female mosquitoes, the resulting generation does not survive into adulthood, reducing the overall population.


https://research.ncsu.edu/ges/2021/04/first-gmo-mosquitoes-to-be-released-in-the-florida-keys-undark/