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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Green Living / Pest Control / Mutant Mosquitoes Planned for Release in Florida

Mutant Mosquitoes Planned for Release in Florida

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

mutant mosquitoThe war against genetically modified organisms expands to include animals as the private firm Oxitec readies a planned release of GE mosquitoes in the Florida Keys as early as January 2012.

The mutant mosquitoes are genetically modified to contain a gene that will kill them unless they come in contact with the antibiotic tetracycline.

This lethal gene is passed on to any mutant offspring when the GE mosquitoes mate with wild mosquitoes.  Any offspring born with this gene will then die before adulthood.  The theory is that over time, the mosquito population will decline due to the lethal gene becoming more widespread.

Residents of the Florida Keys have not been asked to approve this release despite the fact that they would be potential bite victims given that .5% of the to be released mutants are female (the female mosquito is the one that bites).

Two previous releases of the GE mosquitoes (aedes aegypti) occurred in the Cayman Islands and Malaysia.  The Cayman release, performed without residents’ permission, resulted in an 80% drop in the mosquito population compared with neighboring areas that did not have a release.   The success of this release was discussed in a scientific paper in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Many unanswered questions about the impending release in Florida remain including what will happen with a reduction in the mosquito population in the release area?   Will the void be filled by another insect species inadvertently creating new, unforeseen and perhaps irreversible problems?

What will happen to the balance of the local ecosystem?  Florida bats, for example, depend on mosquitoes for food.   Would such a release have unintended consequences and potentially threaten this fragile mammalian species already in alarming decline?

Who is responsible financially or otherwise if complications with the release develop?

Hopefully, residents of the Florida Keys will demand an open discussion of this impending release in a public forum and that no such experiments be allowed to proceed without their permission.

As with the haphazard and unpredictable spread of GM crops around the globe (feral GM canola growing in ditches in Japan, for example), there is no doubt that the release of GE animals particularly one like the mosquito that has the ability to hitch a ride and move unrestrained into any uncontained area will have far reaching consequences that the scientific mind can only feebly begin to comprehend.

 

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

Source: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to be Released in US for the First Time

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Category: Pest Control
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: the bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (38)

  1. Emily

    Jul 10, 2012 at 12:19 am

    I live in central Florida and have killed two of these mutants in the past week.

    Reply
  2. Sasha

    Jan 16, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    I am wondering if the fish eat the larva, will it change their genes as well and start to die off before adulthood? What about us humans that eat fish, will it change our genes as well? Everything works in a chain reaction, why wouldn’t this?

    Reply
  3. Joshua @ Deliberate Web Solutions

    Dec 29, 2011 at 3:19 am

    It always amazes me that so much science and educated effort goes into these things and so little common sense.

    Reply
  4. Dena T

    Dec 28, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    I sent your story to Prison Planet TV, he post stories that don’t make it to main stream TV or the paper. Hopefully this will get the word out.

    Reply
    • Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist

      Dec 28, 2011 at 4:01 pm

      Thank you Dena. I hope the folks in the Keys get word in time to stop this madness from happening in their backyard.

  5. Meagan

    Dec 28, 2011 at 10:20 am

    Very interesting. As a scientist I would be worried about disturbing the ecosystem. Just yesterday I learned that some scientists at Harvard are trying to engineer some spermless mosquitos. It would probably have the same ultimate effect as these epigentic mosquitoes.

    Reply
  6. Ingrid

    Dec 28, 2011 at 6:30 am

    Whenever we mess with Mother Nature, there will always, always be consequences and these consequences are never good for us, our ecosystem or the future or our planet.
    Instead of spending millions working against Mother Nature, why don’t we look towards working with Mother Nature to sort our ‘so called problems”. Just look at the fabulous things Biomimicry is doing.

    Reply
  7. Preeth Ganapathy via Facebook

    Dec 28, 2011 at 1:18 am

    what..? errrr….

    Reply
  8. Amanda Earthmothergypsy via Facebook

    Dec 27, 2011 at 9:57 pm

    So we are going to be bitten by a GE insect that leaves behind “stuff” in our bodies–what will that do to us?
    And the loss of other species that depend on the mosquitoes for survival………….. 🙁 I may not like the blood suckers, but this is going a bit too far imho.

    Reply
  9. Sheryl Mickan via Facebook

    Dec 27, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    What a stupid thing to do!!!!

    Reply
  10. Andrea @ Frugally Sustainable

    Dec 27, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    So…this is extremely disturbing!

    Reply
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