Millions of genetically modified mosquitos may be released in the Florida Keys and while the prospect of this may seem alarming, scientists hope that once their proposal to do this gets approved, the move will help fight off two viral diseases.
Florida Keys Mosquito Control District executive director Michael Doyle said that the proposed move, which currently waits for the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is in essence using mosquitos to address problems with mosquito borne diseases dengue and chikungunya, two growing threats in the U.S.
Mosquito controllers said that they have very limited options for killing the particular species of mosquito responsible for spreading these viruses, Aedes aegypti. The problem with these two diseases is that they do not currently have known vaccine and cure.
Regular spraying of insecticide in the Keys has caused the mosquitoes to evolve and resist most of the insecticides that are used to eliminate them and there appears to be a new option for addressing this problem through the use of genetically modified mosquitoes.
British biotech firm Oxitec engineered male mosquitoes so they can prevent their mates from producing offspring and this could potentially reduce the number of mosquitoes that can spread diseases if there are enough female mosquitoes that would mate with these genetically modified males.
Despite that dengue and chikungunya have become a growing threat in the U.S, a number of individuals appear to be more frightened at the idea of getting bitten by the genetically engineered mosquitoes. Over 130,000 people have so far signed a petition at Change.org opposing the experiment.
Addressing fears of the public over getting bitten by the genetically modified organism, Oxitec said that only male mosquitoes, which do not feed on blood, would be released and should there be humans who would get bitten, there would be no genetically modified DNA entering their bloodstream.
"We are confident of the safety of our mosquito, as there's no mechanism for any adverse effect on human health. The proteins are non-toxic and non-allergenic," said Oxitec spokeswoman Chris Creese adding that the company has not yet received reports of human impacts that were caused by the mosquito bites given that 70 million mosquitoes have already been released in several countries.
Outside observers, however, are skeptical. Phil Lounibos, from the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, pointed out that the company's claim of no genetically modified DNA getting into humans is kind of a gray matter.
