Still no word on planned

GMO mosquito release

 

BY TERRY SCHMIDA

 

Several generations of mosquitoes have hatched and died since the Florida Keys Mosquito District first voted to postpone voting on a controversial plan to release of hundreds of thousands of genetically modified male Aedes aegypti into air above Key Haven.

 

Yet the project remains stalled, as board members await written word from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under whose purview the project falls.

 

“As of this time, we’re just waiting for the Environmental Assessment to approve the final vote to approve the Investigational Agreement with [British biotech firm] Oxitech”, said bug board spokeswoman Beth Ranson. “We still don’t know when that will happen, so we don’t know when the vote will take place.”

The Mosquito Control District was first scheduled to vote to approve the controlled release back on March 23. However the vote to approve or disapprove the project never happened, and again at its April 21 meeting, the board stopped short of a tally.

 

“They felt that a lot of the concerns and questions by the public would be addressed in the assessment and that the board could make the best informed decision upon reviewing the assessment”, Ranson said in April.

 

The district’s plan was to breed the skeeters with non-GMO insects, hopefully reducing the risk of dengue fever and reliance on insecticides in Monroe County.

 

But opposition to the project has been slowly gaining momentum since the board first started discussing the idea years ago.

 

At the April 21 meeting, A number of Key Haven residents showed up to voice their disapproval, citing concerns about potential side effects, such as the inadvertent release of female GMO mosquitoes. Some fear these females could then breed with their male counterparts, creating uncertainty, rather than simply mating with non-modified males and dying off, as planned.

 

Just one member of the audience supported the measure.

 

A small number of Dengue Fever cases have been reported in the Keys in recent years.

However, board Chair Jill Cranney-Gage assured attendees at the April meeting that the anticipated environmental assessment would alleviate “many of the public’s concerns.”

 

The bug board next meets on the afternoon of June 16, in Marathon.

 

A list of frequently asked questions is posted at http://keysmosquito.org/question-answers-on-gm-mosquitoes/

 

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