750 Million Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Approved for Release in Florida Keys – First Time Ever in USA

Marathon, FL—The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) approved the first-ever U.S. release of genetically engineered [GE] mosquitoes.

The GE mosquitoes, a strain of transgenically modified Aedes aegypti, are designed to kill the wild strain, which can transmit yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika fevers.

The GE mosquitoes contain a dominant lethal gene and were developed by a commercial company, Oxitec Ltd, a US-owned, British-based company.

In 2009 and 2010, local outbreaks on the Keys of dengue fever, spread by Aedes aegypti, prompted the FKMCD to spend millions on aerial, truck and backpack spraying and the use of mosquito-eating fish.  They were unable to eliminate Aedes aegypti. Larvicides and pesticides had been largely ineffective.

Though Aedes aegypti is 1% of the Keys’ mosquito population, FKMCD budgets more than $1 million a year, a tenth of its funding, to fighting it.

In 2012, the district contacted Oxitec, which had developed a male mosquito named OX513A, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline.

The new approval permits the release of 750 million of the male GE mosquitoes over a two-year period in Monroe County, Florida, which may begin in 2021, and against the objection of many local residents and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups.

The proposal has already won state and federal approval.

Board members rejected the proposal for a referendum on November’s ballot, which would have asked Monroe County residents to vote on whether to accept or reject the GE mosquito trial.

The public forum on Oxitec’s recent permit application garnered 31,174 comments opposing release and 56 comments in support.

Community members asked the FKMCD to reject the field trial application, pointing out the lack of data demonstrating that Oxitec’s mosquitoes will be safe and effective, the likelihood that biting females will be released, thus putting humans and animals at risk, and the lack of free and prior informed consent of people living in the area.

Dana Perls, food and technology Program Manager at Friends of the Earth said, “This approval is about maximizing Oxitec’s profits, not about the pressing need to address mosquito-borne diseases.”

Scientists have raised concerns that GE mosquitoes could create hybrid wild mosquitoes which could worsen the spread of mosquito-borne diseases and which may be more resistant to insecticides than the original wild mosquitoes.

Environmental groups worry that the spread of the genetically modified male genes into the wild population could potentially harm threatened and endangered species of birds, insects, and mammals that feed on the mosquitoes.

Oxitec has field-trialed their GM mosquitoes in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Panama. In Brazil, researchers from the Powell lab at Yale University confirmed that the mosquito’s engineered genes spread into wild populations of mosquitoes.

In Brazil, people reportedly complained of being forced to breathe in and eat mosquitoes.