Sunday, 12 January 2025

Biotech Company Submits Application To EPA For Ability To Sell GMO Mosquitoes Directly To American Consumers

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According to GMO Free USA, a “UK-based biotech corporation specializing in genetically engineered insects, has submitted an application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the approval to commercially sell GMO mosquitoes directly to consumers across every state in America.”

The outlet says the EPA’s approval of the application by Oxitec would make the GMO mosquitoes available for consumers across the United States in stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s.

The company has billionaire investors, including Bill Gates. 

With EPA approval, Oxitec would sell boxes of GM Aedes aegypti mosquitoes under the brand name “Friendly.”

The GMO mosquitoes are categorized as a “biopesticide.”

“After customers add water to the boxes, the GM mosquitoes hatch and take flight,” The Defender noted.

Oxitec writes:

The Friendly technology platform delivers a targeted, non-toxic and environmentally sustainable solution for controlling pests that spread disease, threaten food production or harm ecosystems. Friendly males carry a self-limiting gene that when passed on, prevents their offspring from surviving to adulthood. With regular releases of Friendly males, the number of offspring – in most versions of the technology, specifically the damaging female offspring – is reduced, resulting in a reduction in the pest insect population. Friendly males, and offspring carrying the self-limiting gene, can be tracked through the linked fluorescent marker gene.

This method can be applied to all kinds of pests, from the mosquitoes that transmit such diseases as dengue and Zika, to moth caterpillars that destroy maize fields. Oxitec is now developing a Friendly tick, and the technology has the potential to be applied to animals beyond arthropods.

“We need your help urgently! Stop Oxitec’s GMO Mosquitoes from infesting America. Learn more and SIGN the petition by Dec 2!” GMO Free USA wrote.

From GMO Free USA:

In 2021, after years of public outcry and resistance, Oxitec was given the green light by the EPA, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) to conduct an uncontrolled experimental release of their GMO Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. The mosquitoes are categorized as a “biopesticide.”

On March 7, 2022, EPA managers approved Oxitec’s application for a second and larger round of experiments, ignoring safety concerns expressed by scientists, public health experts and environmental groups. The 2022 Experimental Use Permit (EUP) allowed the for-profit British corporation to release an estimated 1.5 billion GMO mosquitoes in Monroe County, Florida, and 2.5 billion GMO mosquitoes in Stanislaus, Fresno, Tulare, and San Bernardino Counties in California.

Luckily, regulators in California did not allow the risky and unnecessary experiments to move forward and Oxitec withdrew their California application. But in Florida, FDACS and FKMCD again ignored public concerns and allowed Oxitec to proceed.

The EUP allowed Oxitec to place boxes of larvae in the backyards of residents to release approximately 1.5 billion GMO mosquitoes into the Keys through April 30, 2024. The experiments have since concluded. Public interest groups requested and were promised relevant data on the impact of the experiments on mosquito populations and the environment. Despite our repeated requests, we have not received a single bit of data. Nothing. Not from Oxitec, FDACS, FKMCD, or the EPA. The public has been kept in the dark.

Now Oxitec wants to rush their GMO mosquito biopesticide product to market, into stores across America.

Before the EPA is legally able to consider any further releases of genetically engineered biopesticide mosquitoes, a public comment process is required by law. The EPA is required to notify the public when a pesticide registration comment docket opens. The Agency posted a public comment docket during the summer, but failed to notify the public. It was only after we, along with other concerned public interest organizations, asked about the process did they tell us that a public comment docket had been opened. But by that time, the deadline to comment had passed. After we protested, the EPA re-opened the public comment docket.

“It is mind-boggling that the EPA would consider the commercialization of a biopesticidal organism that has potentially consequential impacts on human health, endangered species and our environment without thorough study. No such studies have been performed,” GMO Free USA Founder and Executive Director Diana Reeves told The Defender.

The Defender reports:

Oxitec has a long history of pushing its products, regardless of informed consent issues and a lack of scientific evidence showing the products are safe.

In 2020, the EPA granted Oxitec an experimental use permit to release 750 million GM mosquitos in the Florida Keys in April 2021, despite concern and outrage from Florida residents and environmentalists. Oxitec received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the trial.

Since then, Oxitec has released more GM mosquitos in Monroe County, Florida, which encompasses the Keys, as an experimental means of mitigating the spread of Zita and Dengue.

In 2022, Oxitec claimed the project was a “success” — but critics said the company failed to provide proof.

“There is no evidence of any benefit from a recent experimental release of 1.5 billion mosquitoes in Monroe County, Florida,” Reeves said.

Barry Wray, executive director of the Florida Keys Keys Environmental Coalition who has fought Oxitec’s GM mosquito projects in Florida for years, told The Defender there are “serious questions” about Oxitec’s credibility.


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