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Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases. Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood. "This is essentially using a mosquito as a drug to cure disease," said Michael Doyle, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, which is waiting to hear if the Food and Drug Administration will allow the experiment.
Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the U.S., but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 signed a Change.org petition against the experiment.
Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks. "I think the science is fine, they definitely can kill mosquitoes, but the GMO [Genetically Modified Organism] issue still sticks as something of a thorny issue for the general public," said Phil Lounibos, who studies mosquito control at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory. "It's not even so much about the science—you can't go ahead with something like this if public opinion is negative."
[More after the break.]
The article goes on to report that the disease is carried by Aedes aegypti, a tiger-striped invader whose biting females spread these viruses. This mosquito is working its way north and Key West is particularly vulnerable. All it would take for an outbreak is for a few visitors to the area to get bit by these mosquitoes which would then become hosts and spread the disease through out the area.
There are no vaccines or cures for dengue, ... or chikungunya, which causes painful contortions. ... dengue sickens 50 million people annually worldwide and kills 2.5 percent of the half-million who get severe cases, according to the World Health Organization. Chikungunya has already overwhelmed hospitals and harmed economies across the Caribbean after infecting a million people in the region last year.
Key West is under continual spraying to try and suppress this species, but the cost is high and the pesticides are becoming less and less effective. The hope is that these GMO mosquitoes would breed with the locals and kill off the offspring and lead to their eradication. Problematically, the males (which do not bite) are selected by hand for release and the potential exists for females to be released as well.
Enter Oxitec, a British biotech firm launched by Oxford University researchers. They patented a method of breeding Aedes aegypti with fragments of proteins from the herpes simplex virus and E. coli bacteria as well as genes from coral and cabbage. This synthetic DNA has been used in thousands of experiments without harming lab animals, but it is fatal to the bugs, killing mosquito larvae before they can fly or bite.
[...] FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said no field tests will be allowed until the agency has "thoroughly reviewed all the necessary information."
[...]"What Oxitec is trying to spin is that it's highly improbable that there will be negative consequences of this foreign DNA entering someone that's bitten by an Oxitec mosquito," said Lounibos, "I'm on their side, in that consequences are highly unlikely. But to say that there's no genetically modified DNA that might get into a human, that's kind of a gray matter."
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-millions-gmo-insects-loose-florida.html
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday January 26 2015, @02:32AM
How is this different from all the 'foreign' DNA we're exposed to every single day, from every living thing (and every formerly-living thing) we touch, eat, sniff, or are bitten by?? How about all the bacteria that both you and the world are loaded with, which mutate all the time and are constantly producing hitherto-unknown DNA??
Your immune system doesn't know or care if the DNA came from a natural mosquito or out of a test tube or from outer space -- it'll react and destroy it all the same, much as it does the thousands of 'harmless' viruses (that's why they're harmless) you're exposed to every day -- and a virus is basically a mutation-prone chunk of DNA.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @04:29AM
> How is this different from all the 'foreign' DNA we're exposed to every single day
One short answer is that by transplanting it into a new organism that opens up new pathways for transmission. For example a virus that the mosquito hosts might pick up the transgenic coral DNA and transmit it to a human or some other organism while that would never have happened before because no such virus exists in the original coral organism. Just because we are exposed to some 'foreign' DNA on a regular basis doesn't mean we are exposed to all foreign DNA on a regular basis.
But the long answer is that your entire argument is based on the idea that there is no such thing as unknown unknowns, that our knowledge of nature is complete and since we haven't figured out a problem with this yet that there are no problems. As previously cited, history is littered with examples of why that hubris is a loser's game.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Monday January 26 2015, @05:46AM
Your skepticism is cute and all, but while you preach caution people are dying from terrible diseases. Diseases we could have prevented, if we'd acted instead of staring at our navels, stuck in an unsatisfiable condition that boils down to "we don't know everything, so we can't do anything."
Vaccines like the one for yellow fever have some terrible, rare side effects. Including death. Guess what: we give them out anyway, because the disease is worse. From what we do, definitely, know, right now, I guarantee you the 70 million to zero side effect ratio (even if that second number is small but nonzero) vastly outweighs allowing these diseases a potential foothold in our country.
The rubber meets the road here. It seems you're a theorist, and I can usually respect that, but it's time for the experimentalists to take over.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 26 2015, @09:25AM
The rubber meets the road here. It seems you're a theorist, and I can usually respect that, but it's time for the experimentalists to take over.
I agree here. This is not a frivolous "let's cross mosquitoes and cabbage for Science!" The goal is the elimination of considerable suffering. And when you have stakes, a vague "It could be bad", especially when combined with ridiculously tenuous scenarios, just isn't good enough a reason to not do something.