Genetically Modified Mosquitoes for Harris County?

May 28, 2020
Harris County could see a potential release of genetically modified mosquitoes next year, in 2021. On May 1, 2020 the EPA approved the Experimental Use Permit for British bio-tech company Oxitec to release these in the Florida Keys and the Houston area.
 
 
On May 20, CEER (Coalition for Environment, Equity & Resilience) scheduled a webinar to brief interested local groups and citizens about this issue. See link below for a recorded video of this webinar.
 
Below is information from the CEER briefing:
If this release gets all approvals, the City of Houston/Harris County would be the first major metropolis in the US to receive this mass release of genetically modified mosquitoes. Yet, many local folks don’t seem to know much about it. Our Harris County Public Health Department said this in an email:
“The Harris County Public Health Mosquito and Vector Control Division’s mission is to protect the residents of Harris County from mosquito-borne disease by controlling vector populations. We achieve this mission using an integrated approach combined with constant exploration of new, innovative methods and evaluations of our current strategies. One of the methodologies we have explored was the use of Oxitec mosquitoes and we engaged in discussions of what a potential project might look like, should we deem it appropriate. Oxitec applied for an Experimental Use Permit with the Environmental Protection Agency in the case that we would like to try the technique in Harris County.”
 
There are social and environmental justice concerns around the lack of transparency, the release site of the mosquitoes, the fact that Harris County residents cannot consent to essentially being human experiments and the impacts this may have on our local environment. Harris County Public Health says, “Since Oxitec’s application for the permit, we have been actively responding to COVID-19 in our community and therefore conversations have not resumed. Due to ongoing public health efforts related to the pandemic, we have no plans to move forward with this project at this time.”
 
The CEER webinar on May 20 featured representatives from environmental groups in the Florida Keys, Dana Perls with Friends of the Earth and Barry Wray with the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, who had fought a previous attempt to release these genetically modified mosquitoes. These groups again have serious concerns about the new planned release, including concerns about the lack of environmental impact studies, lack of human safety studies, lack of evidence of proven effectiveness, etc.
These environmental advocates pointed out there are existing, less risky methods of mosquito control that have documented and demonstrated effectiveness.
Here is the link to the recorded CEER May 20 webinar, which includes important presentation material:
 
Here is a related article on using a naturally occurring bacterium, Wolbachia (as opposed to experimental genetically modified mosquitoes), to combat virus diseases spread by mosquitoes: 
 
Submitted by Frank Blake, frankblake@juno.com