GM Mosquito Release In Cayman Islands Ends Prematurely
There’s been a lot of buzz about GM mosquitoes to prevent the spread of the Zika virus. The Cayman Islands in the Caribbean took on a project to test their ability to ‘curb’ whatever those mosquitoes were supposed to be capable of doing: to prevent the spread of the Zika virus and dengue fever.
The UK-based genetic modification firm Oxitec, ‘creators’ of those GM mosquitoes, aka “bio-bugs,” apparently secured a mosquito release project for their GM male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to ‘impact’ the spread of dengue fever and Zika, which our friends at the Institute for Responsible Technology, under the leadership of Jeffrey Smith, opposed and obviously provided counter scientific information to Cayman authorities.
Something rather interesting happened, however: the project was stopped by the Mosquito Research and Control Unit, a few months after the project began. Apparently and according to MRCU, the project was stopped because it “appears to have fallen short” of its goal (?).
Oxitec was shutting down its operations and leaving the Caymans. The project cost the Cayman government $588,000.
According to Cayman News Service [1]
Nevertheless, it remains unclear how effective the project, which involved the release of millions of genetically modified insects into the environment, really was and whether the reason to curtail the programme related to a cost or efficacy issue.
However, “MRCU and Oxitec are considering a further, no-cost collaboration in 2019,” per a press release dated November 10, 2018.
However, this may not be the end of GM mosquitoes being released. Other countries, including the United States, are considering and/or doing it.
It will be interesting to learn what the Caymans found out, or realized, about their experiments.
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/11/gm-mosquito-release-in-cayman-islands-ends-prematurely.html
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