What is really going on here?
Photo: AJY

Voices speak out against the radical plan.

GM MOZZIE PLAN CRITICISED

A CSIRO-backed plan to release genetically modified mosquitoes in Queensland to ‘combat dengue fever’ has sparked concern from scientists, who suggest it could interfere with existing control programs and increase the risk of insecticide resistance.

Dr. Perran Ross, a mosquito expert and scientist at the University of Melbourne, penned a report on some of the concerns associated with the plan of the Gates-backed firm.

“We should be very concerned about this release going ahead as planned,” said Dr. Ross.

“I’m not opposed to GM technology in general, but I am opposed to the approach they’re using, taking a foreign mosquito strain and then releasing that straight into the wild.”

For those who haven’t heard, Oxitec Australia, a collaboration between British biotechnology firm Oxitec and CSIRO, has applied to sell a GM strain of Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the ‘main culprit for transmitting dengue and other viruses’.

Biotech firm backed by Bill Gates wants to release GM mosquitoes in Australia

The strain, called OX5034 A. Aegypti, reportedly prevents female mosquitoes from surviving into adulthood. Only female mosquitoes bite, spreading diseases to animals in the process.

Oxitec is proposing to sell the mosquitoes for Queensland residents to release. After release, they would breed with local A. Aegyptimozzies, supposedly reducing populations.

The OX5034 A. Aegypti strain is engineered from mosquitoes originating from Mexico. Though Oxitec has conducted field trials in the United States and Brazil, where the strain is commercially available, releases have not yet been tested in Australia.

Australian mosquitoes are uniquely susceptible to insecticides such as pyrethroids, Ross says in his critique of the plan.

“There’s insecticide resistance almost everywhere else in the world. If you’re releasing a mosquito strain from a different country … there’s that risk that it might introduce genes that cause insecticide resistance.”

Climate adaptation was another concern, Ross details.

“If you take mosquitoes from Mexico and bring them to Australia, you might get some genes that make them more tolerant to dry climates or other conditions. We don’t really know what the effect of that is going to be, but it is a potential risk.”

An Oxitec Australia spokesperson said the sale of the strain would “be available to protect Australian communities” and released only after it passed “…stringent government and regulatory approvals and undergoes extensive community engagement and consultation”.

Former Liberal Senator Gerard Rennick has written to Australia’s Health Minister with serious concerns about the plan in Queensland.

“This trial and the potential effects it could have on both our ecosystem and on human health and safety are of great concern. Mosquitoes are vectors for many disease-causing microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, and protozoan parasites,” Rennick wrote in his letter to health boss Mark Butler.

“The potential ecological impacts of releasing a new genetically modified mosquito strain are wide-ranging. There is considerable uncertainty about how these mosquitoes will interact with local ecosystems which could lead to unintended consequences that are impossible to control.”

As always, the Australian public were given little-to-no say on the plan, apart from a (always largely ignored and rushed) submission period.

For if allowed in Australia, the plan could indeed have many unintended consequences.

DANGERS OF THE PLAN

Oxitec is attempting to paint a narrative that their trials have been a major success.

Australians shouldn’t worry, they say, because everything is done ‘by the books’.

However, when we look at Oxitec’s past trials in Africa, critics argued the plan actually impoverished communities and used them as testing grounds without adequate transparency or consent.

Forewarnings for Africa and the failed Target Malaria Project are an indication of this, as explored in a briefing by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), GeneWatch UK and Third World Network.

“Oxitec has repeatedly claimed that the experiments successfully wiped out nearly 90% of the Aedes aegypti mosquito population,” the report reads.

“However, these claims are not supported by the evidence that has become available on the releases, which were denounced as a failure by the Cayman Islands government”.

Definitely a report everyone should check out. Typical of a Bill Gates-funded experiment to go wrong in Africa and other third-world nations..

There are also concerns, as noted, that Oxitec GM mosquitoes could interfere with success of existing Wolbachia programs, which have virtually eliminated dengue in far north Queensland.

“My major concern is the interference with the Wolbachia approach,” said Ross in his criticism of the plan.

Since 2011, mosquitoes infected with naturally occurring Wolbachia bacteria have been released in the state’s north as part of a World Mosquito Program initiative. The Wolbachia prevents the mosquitoes from transmitting viruses.

“Wolbachia has eliminated dengue as a public health problem over the last decade there,” said Prof Cameron Simmons, Executive Director of Global Delivery at the World Mosquito Program, when asked about the success of the program a few years ago.

So why, if this type of problem has already been managed, does the Bill Gates-funded firm need to release genetically modified mozzies now?

Is ‘elimination’ really what it is all about?

Or could there be another agenda under the surface here?

As always, your thoughts are welcome in the comment section below!