FDA, Delay U.S. GMO Mosquito Experiment, Possibly Linked to Zika Outbreak in Brazil

British biotech company Oxitec wants to conduct an experiment in the Florida Keys, using genetically modified (GMO) mosquitoes meant to decrease the disease-carrying mosquito population. However, there are concerns that its experimenting elsewhere, as in Brazil, may be responsible for the serious Zika outbreak.

Oxitec’s website says as soon as it gets the Ok from the FDA, "male mosquitoes would be released up to 3 times a week," in the Florida Keys, and “project results will be made available to the public."

Addressing concerns the public might have about this experiment being conducted in the US, Oxitec’s website states that it has already conducted studies of the “Aedes aegypti… in several countries, including the Cayman Islands, Malaysia, Panama and Brazil," and that the population of these insects was reduced “by over 90%," with “no noted adverse events or effects [emphasis added].

However according to Truthout there are legitimate concerns noted by UK Parliament's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology about “unintended and wide ranging impacts on the environment and human health," from these experiments with mosquitoes carrying what is called a “kill switch gene.”

Although Oxitec had hoped to begin its Florida experiment last year, the FDA is still deciding.

Sign this petition to nsist the FDA hold off on any approval of the proposed GMO mosquito experiment in the U.S. until more is known about the long term effects from trials conducted in other countries.





To the US FDA:


We, the undersigned, and others have legitimate concerns about the unintended and wide-ranging impacts these GMO experiments could be having on the environment and human health.


There has been concern expressed regarding the following specific issues, noted in a statement by UK’s Parliament, from several sources, as reported in Truthout.


... environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace suggest that GM insects could have unintended and wide ranging impacts on the environment and human health due to the complexity of ecosystems and the high number of unknown factors, making risk assessment difficult. They have raised several concerns about the release of GM insects:
1. New insects or diseases may fill the ecological niche left by the insects suppressed or replaced, possibly resulting in new public health or agricultural problems.
2. The new genes engineered into the insects may "jump" into other species, a process called horizontal transfer, causing unintended consequences to the ecosystem.
3. Releases would be impossible to monitor and irreversible, as would any damage done to the environment.


Truthout notes other concerns about “accidental release” of female mosquitoes that could "pass on their synthetic DNA to humans through their bites,” adding that "Oxitec is not very good at releasing males only.“


According to their own research, about .03 percent of the specimens they release are female - a potential problem, because with millions upon millions of insects set to be released, not only could those females breed, but they could bite other bugs, animals or humans.


Other concerns noted in Truthout’s report include some expressed by Dr. Joseph Mercola, written in his digital publication:



1. The potential exists for these genes, which hop from one place to another, to infect human blood by finding entry through skin lesions or inhaled dust. Such transmission could potentially wreak havoc with the human genome by creating "insertion mutations" and other unpredictable types of DNA damage.
2. According to Alfred Handler, a geneticist at the Agriculture Department in Hawaii, mosquitoes can develop resistance to the lethal gene and might then be released inadvertently. Todd Shelly, an entomologist for the Agriculture Department in Hawaii, said 3.5 percent of the insects in a laboratory test survived to adulthood, despite presumably carrying the lethal gene.
3. Tetracycline and other antibiotics are now showing up in the environment, in soil and surface water samples. These GM mosquitoes were designed to die in the absence of tetracycline (which is introduced in the lab in order to keep them alive long enough to breed).
They were designed this way assuming they would NOT have access to that drug in the wild. With tetracycline exposure (for example, in a lake) these mutant insects could actually thrive in the wild, potentially creating a nightmarish scenario.


Truthout says about the above that


It turns out that Dr. Mercola could be spot on with his idea about these mosquitoes having the potential to come across tetracycline in the wild. A recent EnviroNews World News article demonstrates how Minnesota's lakes and rivers, are now known to be trashed with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs.


In conclusion, Truthout says so far the millions of mosquitoes released have been without the knowledge of people - or “guinea pigs” - living in mostly poverty-stricken areas and now “that the horse has already been let out of the barn,“ some are expecting “more comprehensive research...to be done on the long-lasting ramifications in those areas first…before any more of these 'frankenskeeters' are put on the loose."


According to ABC News.com, Shelly Burgess, a spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration said in 2012 that "…no genetically engineered animals of any species that FDA regulates will be released in the United States, including for the purposes of field trials, without appropriate regulatory oversight."


US citizens are counting on the FDA to protect the population from any currently unforseen or uncertain consequences of these so far, mostly unregulated experiments. Therefore we, the undersigned, insist the FDA hold off on its approval of the release of these GMO mosquitoes in the US until safety can be guaranteed.

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