DESIGNED FOR GENOCIDE: Florida releasing up to a billion genetically modified mosquitoes to exterminate species
A panel of independent experts testified to the Florida Keys mosquito board that GE mosquitoes could also pose significant threats to sensitive ecosystems, other animals, and humans.
STACY LIBERATORE: The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) and Oxitec, a British biotech company, are starting the first-ever U.S. release of genetically engineered (GE) Aedes aegypti mosquitoes this week, which will see up to a billion over a two-year period. The project aims to reduce the numbers of Aedes aegypti, one of several mosquito species that can carry diseases including dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever…
The GE mosquitos, developed by Oxitect, have been modified to pass on a particular protein when they mate, which ensures female offspring do not survive the next generation. With fewer females in each subsequent generation, the researchers hope overall mosquito populations in the region will decrease along with transmission rates of disease passed through mosquito bites. The modified mosquitoes – from the Aedes aegypti species – are all male and the company contends that because only female mosquitoes can bite, there is no risk to humans in releasing them…
Dana Perls, food and technology Program Manager at Friends of the Earth, said: ‘This is a dark moment in history. The EPA must halt this live experiment immediately. ‘The release of genetically engineered mosquitoes puts Floridians, the environment, and endangered species at risk in the midst of a pandemic.’ In March, a panel of independent experts testified to the Florida Keys mosquito board that GE mosquitoes could also pose significant threats to sensitive ecosystems and human populations in the Florida Keys.
Megan Hull, a resident of Islamorada, spoke at the council meeting where she stated her grievances. ‘I find this criminal, that we are being bullied into the experiment,’ she said in March. ‘I find it criminal that we are being subjected to this terrorism by our own Florida Keys Mosquito Control Board.’ Residents say the EPA did not require peer review or preliminary trials for caged GE mosquitoes before releasing them into the wild… Barry Wray of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition said: ‘People here in Florida do not consent to the genetically engineered mosquitoes or to being human experiments’…
‘I truly believe we are fighting one of the most consequential regulatory malfunctions we could ever imagine,’ Wray said. ‘We all watched as four experts in the biotech field, each enthusiastic about the technology Oxitec had created and each wise enough to say that without proper scientific rigor and prudence, we risk unnecessary outcomes and mistakes. ‘The problem is that the discovery of those mistakes and consequences may not be realized until damages are more severe and irreversible. ‘All this risk to benefit a for-profit company getting to market quicker with a product that has yet to actually prove anything other than failure in all of its historical field trials’…
Oxitec and FKMCD’s claim that the GMO mosquito experiments will be monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is misleading. CDC has agreed to review data provided by Oxietc, but that data will not include independent health assessments. SOURCE…
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