FACT: The technology has not been provensafe for the environment or public health.Oxitec Myth:
GE mosquitoes are safe forhumans and the environment.
Oxitec’s GE
Aedes aegypti
mosquito contains thecompany’s patented technique or controlling survivalo the insect offspring. Oxitec claims this mosquitowill reduce the population o wild mosquitoes andstifle the prevalence o dengue ever.
3
The companyclaims that its GE mosquitoes are “sterile.”
4
Actu-ally, the mosquitoes do reproduce, but they pass on alethal gene that theoretically causes the offspring todie beore reaching adulthood.
5
However, Oxitec’s datashow that 3 to 4 percent o the GE mosquito offspring survive, with unknown impacts on the environment.
6
Oxitec claims that the technique is sae because onlymales are released, rather than the biting anddisease-spreading emales.
7
But GE male and emalemosquitoes would need to be identifed and separated.
8
Since mosquito pupae are tiny, sorting them or alarge-scale release leaves plenty o room or error.
9
The company expects each batch to contain less than1 percent emales.
10
This means that biting GE emalemosquitoes could be released, with unknown impacts.Lab-bred GE mosquitoes can evolve resistance to thelethal gene.
11
And, the ftness o the GE and wild mos-quito progeny is unknown.
12
Other serious questionsinclude whether bites rom emale GE mosquitoescould cause allergies and whether diseases transmittedby mosquitoes could evolve to become more dangerous.
13
Issue Brief • January 2012
Food & Water Watch • 1616 P St. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036 • www.foodandwaterwatch.org
T
he Brish company Oxitec has released millions of genecally engineered (GE)mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands, Brazil and Malaysia. Now Oxitec wants to releaseits mosquitoes in the Florida Keys in 2012.
1
The company claims these altered mosquitoes will bale dengue fever.
2
However, basicsafety quesons remain unanswered, and the limited informaon made public by Oxitecraises serious concerns about what they are not telling the public.
GeneticallyEngineeredMosquitoes
PHOTO BY J. GATHANY / U.S. CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
2
Even if these futuristic bugs successfully wipe out theentire population of the target
A. aegypti
mosquito,another species will likely ll the ecosystem void.The Asian tiger mosquito — one of the world’s moreinvasive species—is also a known vector for denguefever and other diseases. Allowing tiger mosquitoes tobecome the dominant species would only make a newdengue fever carrier more prevalent.
14
FACT: Local communies have not been
adequately involved in Oxitec’s releasesof GE mosquitoes and have not had theopportunity to give informed consent.Oxitec Myth:
Communies have beeninvolved in the approval process.
In Malaysia, Oxitec conducted a public consultation,which raised serious concerns from several non-protsand the opposition political party, but the release pro-ceeded anyway.
15
In the Cayman Islands trial, the pub-lic was told that the mosquitoes were sterile withoutalso being told that they were genetically engineered.
16
Oxitec has been sluggish in publishing results fromits trials. In fact, the only published results are fromthe rst 2009 Cayman open-air release, just releasedin October 2011.
17
FACT: There is currently no clear federalauthority over GE mosquitoes in theUnited States.Oxitec Myth:
Regulatory authority isaccountable and will keep the public safe.
In 2009, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s(FDA’s) Center for Veterinary Medicine issued guid-ance on the regulation of GE animals, in which itannounced its intent to collaborate with other agen-cies on future guidance for how best to regulate GEinsects.
18
This guidance, however, is still pending.Food & Water Watch has contacted local, county andstate health and environmental authorities in Florida,as well as federal agencies, seeking information aboutthe reported Oxitec application to release GE mosqui-toes in the Keys. No information was received fromthe FDA or the Centers for Disease Control, and theU.S. Department of Agriculture stated that it sent aletter of no jurisdiction to Oxitec, because the agencydoes not have the authority to regulate the insects.
19
While it does appear that Oxitec has a pending ap-plication, no agency appears to know who is activelyresponsible for considering it.
20
A Keys Mosquito Control District biologist has saidthe agency is “satised” with safety, and the district isready to press ahead with a release, perhaps as earlyas spring 2012.
21
A lack of regulatory oversight means that no one iswatching out for the unintended consequences on hu-man health or the environment. The stakes are high,and we need more information before any further re-leases of GE mosquitoes are permitted.
FACT: Oxitec (“Oxford Insect Technologies”)
is a for-prot company with something to
sell.
22
Oxitec Myth:
Oxitec’s primary aim is tohelp cure dengue fever.
Oxitec’s “products” are a suite of nine GE insectsdesigned to address various health or agriculturalconcerns.
23
But, Oxitec has competition in the denguefever control business. Australian research points toa type of common bacteria that naturally infects mos-quitoes, which can stop dengue transmission.
24
Per-haps that is why Oxitec is rushing to lay claim to thesolution, with another experimental release of its GEmosquitoes.
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Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes
The British company Oxitec has released millions of genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands, Brazil and Malaysia. Now Oxitec wants to release its mosquitoes in the Florida Keys in 2012.
The company claims these altered mosquitoes will battle dengue fever. However, basic safety questions remain unanswered.
The company claims these altered mosquitoes will battle dengue fever. However, basic safety questions remain unanswered.
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