Key West: Public Debate Over GM Mosquitoes

 

Global Spread of Dengue

# 6224

 

 

Tonight in Key West Florida the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District will host a special town meeting to discuss their plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes created by UK’s Oxitec Company, to control dengue.

 

Here is the notice that appears on their webpage.

 

 

SPECIAL NOTICE: Town Hall Meeting about Genetically-Modified Mosquito on March 15th, at the Harvey Government Center, in Key West, from 5:30-7pm

The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District is pursuing trials for the release of genetically modified males in the control of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito responsible for the spread of dengue fever.  Due to the difficulty in controlling these mosquitoes, this technology could potentially assist in the reduction of both the mosquitoes and disease in Key West.  The District is still undergoing review from both Federal and State agencies for permitting. Please click here for more information on this technology.

 

 

As I wrote last October in Brave New Mosquito, Dengue is a rapidly expanding mosquito-borne virus that is estimated to infect around 50 million people every year. Tens of thousands die annually, and as yet, there is no effective vaccine.

 

After a 60 year absence, Dengue fever returned to southern Florida in 2009. 

 

More than a year ago I wrote about the controversial release of genetically modified mosquitoes (see The Cayman Island Mosquito Trials) by the Oxitec company in a bid to learn how to reduce these Dengue vectors.

 

Oxitec’s genetically altered terminator mosquitoes have been bio-engineered to carry a lethal gene that the males can pass on to their progeny that causes them to die in the larval stage.

 

And the early results were very promising.

 

An 80% reduction of mosquitoes in a 25 acre test area after 19,000 males mosquitoes were released over a 4-week period in 2010.

 

Since this  research was conducted quietly, with little advance publicity, these experimental releases have become somewhat controversial.

 

The plan in Key West is to release between 5,000 and 10,000 modified mosquitoes into an undisclosed 36 acre block near the Key West Cemetery. These male mosquitoes would be dusted with a florescent powder to enable tracking.

 

While still awaiting federal and state approval, already the battle lines are being drawn between those in favor of trying these novel control methods, and those opposed.

 

This report from The Key West Citizen last December.

 

 

Group wary of new insects

BY TIMOTHY O'HARA Citizen Staff
tohara@keysnews.com

An environmental group is questioning the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District's plan to introduce sterile mosquitoes into the Keys to battle the spread of dengue fever.

(Continue . . .)

 

 

Environmental groups, like the Friends of the Earth, are vehemently opposed to this project, claiming that this planned release of GMO mosquitoes could have unintended consequences on the local ecosystem.

 

The FOE Blog on December 21st warned:

 

Floridians face genetically engineered mosquito threat

 

 

The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District counters these concerns with a FAQ of their own on the dangers of Dengue, and the planned sterile male release project.

 

Dengue Fever FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Oxitec also has a short  FAQ page on their technology, which you can access here.

 

All of which promises to produce a lively town hall debate tonight in Key West. 

 

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Note: Due to a flare up of my Carpel tunnel syndrome, my blogging over the next couple of days may be lighter than normal.

Proposed GMO Mosquito Trials In Key West

 

 

 

# 6035

 

When it comes to deadly creatures on this planet, few can compare with the lowly mosquito.

 

Malaria is believed to sicken 200 million people every year, and claim nearly a million lives (cite). Dengue fever has seen an explosive spread over the past 50 years, and infects tens of millions of people every year.

 

Add EEE (Eastern Equine Encephalitis), West Nile Virus, Chikungunya, and a handful of other arboviral encephalopathies into the mix, and you have in mosquitoes a very efficient vector of death and disease.

 

Global Spread of Dengue

The burden of disease carried by mosquitoes is truly staggering, and many places once thought safe from these mosquito borne scourges are now threatened.

 

In 2009, after an absence of nearly 6 decades, Dengue fever was once again reported in Florida.  While the number of cases was small (just over 60 cases in 2010), the concern is that this once-eradicated disease will re-establish itself in the sunshine state.

 

In order to spread, Dengue requires the right mosquito vector.  And the two species best suited to transmit the virus are the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which also can spread such diseases as West Nile, Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Chikungunya.

 

Map showing the distribution of dengue fever (red) and the distribution of the Aedes aegypti mosquito (cyan)  in the world, as of 2006. Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture.

 

Map showing the native habitat (blue) and recent spread (green) of the Aedes albopictus mosquito.

 

Complicating matters, as these species continue to encroach on new populations, many are developing signs of resistance to insecticides and insect repellants (see Declan Butler On Growing Mosquito Insecticide Resistance & From the `Nature Bats Last’ Dept). 

 

Which has led many scientists to look for novel ways to control mosquitoes without the use of potentially dangerous chemicals.

 

Over a year ago I wrote about the controversial release of genetically modified mosquitoes (see The Cayman Island Mosquito Trials) by the Oxitec company in a bid to learn how to reduce these Dengue vectors.

 

Oxitec’s genetically altered terminator mosquitoes have been bio-engineered to carry a lethal gene that the males can pass on to their progeny that causes them to die in the larval stage.

 

And the early results were very promising.

 

An 80% reduction of mosquitoes in a 25 acre test area after 19,000 males mosquitoes were released over a 4-week period in 2010.

 

Now, according to a report yesterday in The Key West Citizen, there are plans to conduct a similar test in the city sometime in 2012.

 

While still awaiting federal and state approval, already the battle lines are being drawn between those in favor of trying these novel control methods, and those opposed.

 

Group wary of new insects

BY TIMOTHY O'HARA Citizen Staff
tohara@keysnews.com

An environmental group is questioning the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District's plan to introduce sterile mosquitoes into the Keys to battle the spread of dengue fever.

(Continue . . .)

 

 

The plan is to release between 5,000 and 10,000 modified mosquitoes into an undisclosed 36 acre block near the Key West Cemetery. These male mosquitoes would be dusted with a florescent powder to enable tracking.

 

But some environmental groups, like Friends of the Earth, are vehemently opposed, claiming that this planned release of GMO mosquitoes could have unintended consequences on the local ecosystem.

 

The FOE Blog on December 21st warned:

 

Floridians face genetically engineered mosquito threat

 

 

The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District counters these concerns with a FAQ of their own on the dangers of Dengue, and the planned sterile male release project.

 

I’ve a few excerpts posted below.

 

Dengue Fever FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What are the likely impacts on the environment and on humans?

The main impact on human health will be to reduce the number of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that can spread dengue.

 

There is no permanent change to the wild mosquito population and therefore unlikely to have any impact on the environment compared to the currently used alternatives.

 

Aedes aegypti is not originally native to Key West, though it has been present on and off in the last few decades.  It is not a keystone species, there are no birds, fish or other insects that feed exclusively on it and therefore reducing the number of Aedes aegypti is most unlikely to have any impact on the environment. Additionally, the released mosquitoes will die in the environment and their progeny will die so this is a 'self limiting' approach. i.e. there is no permanent change to the wild mosquito population.

 

Oxitec has a short  FAQ page on their technology, which you can access here. Oxitec’s GM process isn’t the only bid to modify mosquitoes to reduce disease transmission. 

 

Earlier this year in A Mosquito STD To Fight Dengue I wrote about a project to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacteria commonly found in fruit flies that – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear - inhibits a mosquito’s ability to transmit Dengue Fever.

 

Nearly a year ago in Queensland, Australia researchers began releasing thousands of Wolbachia infected mosquitoes each week into the remote communities of Gordonvale and Yorkeys Knob.

 

Within a matter of a few months the Wolbachia infected mosquitoes overran the uninfected mosquito population in these two test environments.

 

Although extremely encouraging, more tests are needed, including confirmation that this process works against all dengue serotypes. The Gates Foundation is providing further funding to support the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes in Australia, Vietnam and Thailand.

 

While it has required impressive skill and technology to bring these `Brave New Mosquitoes’ to the point of being ready for field tests, the bigger challenge may well lie in getting an increasingly wary and skeptical public to accept their release.

Brave New Mosquito

 

 

# 5932

 

Global Spread of Dengue

 

Dengue is a rapidly expanding mosquito-borne virus that is estimated to infect around 50 million people every year. Tens of thousands die annually, and as yet, there is no effective vaccine.

 

The explosive growth of Dengue around the world is well illustrated by the following graph from the World Health Organization.

 

What this graph doesn’t indicate is another doubling of dengue cases has taken place over the past 5 years

Nearly a year ago I wrote about the controversial release of genetically modified mosquitoes (see The Cayman Island Mosquito Trials) by the Oxitec company in a bid to learn how to reduce these Dengue vectors.

 

Oxitec’s genetically altered terminator mosquitoes have been bio-engineered to carry a lethal gene that the males can pass on to their progeny that causes them to die in the larval stage.

 

And the early results were very promising.

 

An 80% reduction of mosquitoes in a 25 acre test area after 19,000 males mosquitoes were released over a 4-week period in 2010.

 

Since this  research was conducted quietly, with little publicity, some public concern has since risen. The Cayman Island government produced this short video explaining the process in an attempt to allay any fears.

 

 

 

 

Oxitec has a short  FAQ page on their technology, which you can access here.

 

This research was published yesterday in the Nature Biotechnology journal.

 

Field performance of engineered male mosquitoes

Angela F Harris, Derric Nimmo, Andrew R McKemey,Nick Kelly, Sarah Scaife, Christl A Donnelly, Camilla Beech, William D Petrie & Luke Alphey

 

 

Yesterday the New York Times and The BBC both carried extensive stories on this research. Of the two, the NYT’s article adopted a bit more of a cautionary tone. 

 

Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

By ANDREW POLLACK

Published: October 30, 2011

 

While the BBC article simply states that the World Health Organization is `cognizant that genetic engineering is a technology that carries the potential for risks as well as benefits’, and is working on guidelines.

 

GM mosquitoes show fever promise

By Richard Black  30 October 2011

 

Both articles provide useful background.

 

Oxitec’s GM process isn’t the only bid to modify mosquitoes to reduce disease transmission. 

 

Earlier this year in A Mosquito STD To Fight Dengue I wrote about a project to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacteria commonly found in fruit flies that – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear - inhibits a mosquito’s ability to transmit Dengue Fever.

 

Around the beginning of the year scientists in Queensland, Australia began releasing thousands of Wolbachia infected mosquitoes each week into the remote communities of Gordonvale and Yorkeys Knob.

 

The hope being that infected mosquitoes would eventually supplant the uninfected native mosquito population.  Helping this project along is the way that Wolbachia is transmitted among mosquitoes. 

 

You see . . .  among mosquitoes, Wolbachia is essentially an STD, a sexually transmitted disease.

 

The bottom line:  Within a matter of a few months the Wolbachia infected mosquitoes overran the uninfected mosquito population in these two test environments.

 

While extremely encouraging, more tests are needed, including confirmation that this process works against all dengue serotypes. The Gates Foundation is providing further funding to support the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes in Australia, Vietnam and Thailand.

 

While there are safety issues that must be addressed - and getting the public to accept genetically modified  mozzies may be an issue - the creation of a Brave New Mosquito may someday contribute to the reduction of Dengue, Malaria, and other mosquito-borne diseases around the world.

 

At least, that’s the hope.

A Mosquito STD To Fight Dengue

 

 

Global Spread of Dengue

 

# 5782

 

Last March in A Sexually Transmitted Disease Cure I wrote about attempts in Australia to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacteria commonly found in fruit flies that – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear - inhibits a mosquito’s ability to transmit Dengue Fever.

 

It is thought that Wolbachia infection may up-regulate the mosquito’s immune system and interfere with viral replication, or perhaps it competes with the virus for vital nutrients in the host. 

 

Or perhaps some other mechanism is at work . . .

 

But what is known is that carrying the Wolbachia bacteria greatly inhibits the ability of some species of mosquitoes to carry and transmit the dengue virus.

 

Around the beginning of the year scientists in Queensland, Australia began releasing thousands of Wolbachia infected mosquitoes each week into the remote communities of Gordonvale and Yorkeys Knob.

 

The hope being that infected mosquitoes would eventually supplant the uninfected native mosquito population.  Helping this project along is the way that Wolbachia is transmitted among mosquitoes. 

 

You see . . .  among mosquitoes, Wolbachia is essentially an STD, a sexually transmitted disease. 

 

When an infected male mosquito mates with an uninfected female, the resultant fertilized eggs will fail to mature due to an abnormality known as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). Only the offspring from the union between already infected parents survive.

 

Since the Wolbachia infection is passed down from one generation to the next, that is expected to give the Wolbachia infected mosquitoes quite an evolutionary advantage.

 

Yesterday, in a pair of studies published in the Journal Nature, we learn of the promising early results of this field experiment. 

 

First, a paper that describes the ability of the wMel Wolbachia strain to infect caged mosquitoes and to block transmission of serotype 2 (DENV-2) Dengue.

 

The wMel Wolbachia strain blocks dengue and invades caged Aedes aegypti populations

T. Walker,P. H. Johnson,L. A. Moreira,I. Iturbe-Ormaetxe, F. D. Frentiu, C. J. McMeniman, Y. S. Leong, Y. Dong, J. Axford, P. Kriesner, A. L. Lloyd, S. A. Ritchie, S. L. O’Neill & A. A. Hoffmann

 

 

Next up, the results of the field release of hundreds of thousands of infected mosquitoes in Australia.

 

Successful establishment of Wolbachia in Aedes populations to suppress dengue transmission

A. A. Hoffmann, B. L. Montgomery, J. Popovici, I. Iturbe-Ormaetxe, P. H. Johnson, F. Muzzi, M. Greenfield, M. Durkan, Y. S. Leong, Y. Dong, H. Cook, J. Axford, A. G. Callahan, N. Kenny, C. Omodei, E. A. McGraw, P. A. Ryan, S. A. Ritchie, M. Turelli  & S. L. O’Neill

 

 

The bottom line:  Within a matter of a few months the Wolbachia infected mosquitoes overran the uninfected mosquito population in these two test environments.

 

While extremely encouraging, more tests are needed, including confirmation that this process works against all dengue serotypes. The Gates Foundation is providing further funding to support the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes in Australia, Vietnam and Thailand.

 

Other attempts to defeat Dengue and Malaria include the development of genetically modified Mosquitoes. For more on that field of endeavor, you may wish to revisit:

 

The Cayman Island Mosquito Trials

The Latest Buzz On GM Mosquitoes 

Malaysia: `Terminator’ Mosquito Field Test On Hold

The Cayman Island Mosquito Trials

 

 

 

# 5077

 

Over the past few years mosquito borne diseases have spread at an alarming rate, and have moved back into areas that had eradicated them decades ago.

 

Dengue, malaria, Chikungunya, and several types of encephalitis are transmitted by mosquitoes, and together they threaten the health and lives of hundreds of millions of people each year.

 

Global Spread of Dengue

 

Although the use of insecticides has helped to control their spread, over the years many of these weapons have either gradually lost their effectiveness or have been withdrawn from our arsenal over health concerns.

 

Scientists around the world have been working on several alternative solutions, and while not without controversy, the development of GM (genetically modified) mosquitoes is beginning to show real promise in mosquito control.

 

Over the past several months , in The Latest Buzz On GM Mosquitoes  and Malaysia: `Terminator’ Mosquito Field Test On Hold I wrote about the planned tests of the so-called terminator mosquito, which has been bio-engineered to carry a lethal gene that it will pass on to its progeny that will cause them to die in the larval stage.

 

Created by the Oxitec company, a firm created in 2002 as a spin out from Oxford University, the OX513A mosquito is the furthest advanced of several genetically modified mosquito projects they have in the pipeline for the control of Dengue.

 

Oxitec has a short  FAQ page on their technology, which you can access here.

 

The plan was to do a test release of several thousand GM mosquitoes in hard-hit Malaysia, but critics and activists  mounted a vigorous campaign to dissuade the Malaysian government from proceeding.

 

They fear that the introduction of an `artificial’ mosquito into the environment could somehow spark unintended, and harmful, consequences.

 

While a Malaysian test is still in the works, those delays enabled the Cayman Islands to become the first test bed for these modified mozzies. 

 

Early results, as you will see, have been very promising, with a reduction in mosquitoes in test areas of up to 80%.

 

First a report from the Cayman News Service, followed by an informative 5-minute promotional video explaining the use of these GM mosquitoes from the Cayman Island Government Information Service.

 

 

Mosquito boss says GM project is safe

Posted on Sun, 11/21/2010 - 18:15 in Science and Nature

(CNS): The release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Grand Cayman poses no threat to people says the director of the MRCU. A project which is seeking to suppress the stinging dengue carrying pest using male insects which have been genetically altered to be infertile have reduced the mosquito population without using chemicals. The trial has attracted considerable attention, however, because the details of the release seemed to have stayed under the radar. Government did produce a short documentary segment about the project in which the MRCU partnered with the UK firm Oxitec Limited but little information has been circulated in the public domain. Dr Bill Petrie has said people have noting to fear from the trial.

(Continue . . . )

 

 

 

 

Although clearly designed as a public relations tool to reassure a public that has become increasingly leery of anything genetically modified, these reports provide us with a fascinating and detailed look at what may turn out to be a new and effective way to control mosquito borne diseases.

 

Since I’m not a geneticist, or a scientist of any stripe, I can’t speak directly to the safety and wisdom of GM mosquitoes. 

 

But as a bite-weary blood meal for thousands of hungry mosquitoes over the years, I certainly hope these scientists and researchers are on the right track.