Controversial Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Gear Up for Wider U.S. Release

EPA accepting comments until September 30th

The EPA is under intense scrutiny, as five whistleblowers provided evidence at a public hearing this month, showing how the agency favors corporate interests over public health and regularly approves products by ignoring incriminating evidence. According to Jeffrey Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, “The EPA’s blatant disregard for the dangers of genetically engineered mosquitoes will come back to bite us. The agency’s pro-industry assessment is the poster child of a corrupted system with potentially devastating consequences.”

Oxitec first released GE mosquitoes in the US in May 2021 in the Florida Keys. They claimed that their insects kill female offspring to decrease the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and thereby lower the incidence of the diseases they can transmit (Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya). But the company’s earlier releases in the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Panama, and Malaysia failed to show any human health improvements.

They did, however, expose the citizens of those nations to millions of biting GE insects. Oxitec had promised communities that no biting female GE mosquitoes would be released, only non-biting males, but their science failed.

According to Dr. Michelle Perro, a Californian pediatrician and Executive Director of www.gmoscience.org, “Oxitec has not conducted a full analysis of their GE mosquito saliva, refuses to conduct state-of-the-art tests to see if the insects are allergenic and toxic, and conducts no monitoring of the exposed population.”

Oxitec has promised that their GE mosquitoes would not create any changes in the gene pool of mosquitoes. In earlier releases, because the insects’ offspring were supposed to be sterile, they insisted that the GE mosquito population would die off quickly when the project terminated.
However, three years after releasing millions in Brazil, independent investigators confirmed the opposite. Many areas had mosquitoes that carried DNA from both the Oxitec engineered mosquito and the indigenous varieties. These unnatural “hybrids,” according to the study authors, could theoretically be more dangerous and harder to kill than other mosquitoes. No testing has been done to evaluate this possibility.

Oxitec claims they have a new, improved GE mosquito and, despite the objections of the local communities, released them in the Florida Keys in May. The company has now petitioned the EPA to extend the trial in Florida by two years and expand releases into 12 counties in California.

According to Jaydee Hanson of the Center for Food Safety, “EPA and Oxitec refused to release data from the current Florida trial, ignored repeated requests to provide more evidence to support safety claims, and even refused to identify the California counties slated for the release of the genetically engineered mosquitoes.”

According to Mr. Smith, “If Oxitec gets their way, this release could open the door for dozens of GE insect varieties released in the US and around the world, forever changing the course of nature.”

Michelle Perro, MD
ED, www.gmoscience.org
www.drmichelleperro.com

Jaydee Hanson, Policy Director, Center for Food Safety
[email protected]

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