A total of 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes are set to be released in the Florida Keys between 2021 and 2022 in an attempt to stifle the spread of serious diseases such as zika, the Daily Wire reported.
CNN wrote that the genetically modified bugs, called OX5034, have been sufficiently “altered to produce female offspring that die in the larval stage, well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease.” Female mosquitoes are the only ones that bite, making them the only ones that transmit disease to humans. Males mosquitoes do not bite but eat nectar instead.
Government approves Bill Gates funded program to release 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes across Florida Keys https://t.co/z8OpHysp0E pic.twitter.com/zhdx8UHPLr
— Spiro (@o_rips) August 20, 2020
The bugs were reportedly modified by Oxitec, a US-owned company based in Great Britain, and will also be released in Harris County, Texas starting in 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “granted Oxitec’s request after years of investigating the impact of the genetically altered mosquito on human and environmental health.”
“Winning the growing war against disease-spreading mosquitoes will require a new generation of safe, targeted, and sustainable tools for governments and communities alike. And as we’re learning with the devastating COVID-19 crisis, it is critical to aggressively address global public health challenges head-on with a broad coalition of stakeholders.”
“Our aim is to empower governments and communities of all sizes to effectively and sustainably control these disease-spreading mosquitoes without harmful impact on the environment and without complex, costly operations. The potential for our technology to do so is unmatched, and this EPA approval will allow us to take the first steps towards making it available in the US,” Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen explained when the mosquitoes were finally approved by the EPA.
“This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases,” he said.
Though there have been years of testing and approval from federal and local governments, environmental activists maintain releasing genetically modified bugs into the world is still a bad idea.
Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, released a statement Wednesday claiming the EPA didn’t “seriously analyze environmental risks.”
“With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida—the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change—the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment,” Hanson said.
“Now the Monroe County Mosquito Control District has given the final permission needed. What could possibly go wrong? We don’t know, because EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks, now without further review of the risks, the experiment can proceed,” Hanson added.
The Daily Wire reported that the EPA approved the pilot project in May in order to test whether modified bugs could be used as an alternative to spray insecticides in an effort to put a stop to disease-ridden mosquitoes. Though Hanson attempted to blame the Trump administration for the mosquitoes, the project actually began in 2012 under former President Barack Obama, when the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District “contacted Oxitec for help. Nearly ten years later, the mosquitoes will be released.”
Hanson expressed more reasonable concerns in 2019, suggesting “most (but not all) of the GE mosquitoes’ offspring die at the late larval stage, in the water where the female mosquitoes lay their eggs,” adding that “this partial survival rate, even if low (a reported 3 to 4% in laboratory conditions), would lead to the establishment of hybrid mosquitoes in the environment, which might possess altered properties, including the potential for enhanced disease transmission or resistance to insecticides.”
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