First GMO Mosquitoes: Now Oxitec Wants to Release GMO Moths in New York

RINF | Oct 4, 2014

Will the crazy GMO-creations ever come to a halt? Are our crops not enough for biotech? GM mosquitoes developed by Oxitec, a UK company, were already released in other countries as a means to control disease. The company is also trying to release them in the Florida Keys, while working to release GM olive flies in Spain. But it gets even more bizarre – now Oxitec wants to release GM moths in New York.

GeneWatch UK has been following Oxitec’s moves and has noted that the company’s GM experiments have not undergone environmental assessment risks at all. The company is a spin off from a multinational seed company, with deep ties to Syngenta. Oxitech claims to be in the business of pest control, but another theory is that they are in the business with other eugenicists for pest creation.

Open release experiments using Oxitec’s GE Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are ongoing in Brazil and Panama. Though the GE mosquitoes being released in these experiments differ from Oxitec’s GE agricultural pests in that both sexes of the GE mosquitoes are genetically engineered to die at the late larval/pupal stage.

There is no guarantee that this type of genetic manipulation of the natural world would not result in serious ramifications up and down the food chain. For example, if one species of mosquitoes replaces another, more virulent breed of mosquitoes are likely to fill the void, possibly causing further crop damage, and even the spreading of viral disease in humans.