Facing Zika pandemic fears, Florida Gulf Coast leaders ask US Dept of Health to greenlight GMO mosquitoes

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Faced with their first local case of the Zika virus, Pinellas County leaders…asked federal health officials to skip field trials on genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys and give them emergency authorization to release the “Franken-skeeters.”

In a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 16 state and county elected officials…asked for permission to use the mosquitoes under a federal law that addresses pandemics.

“We are writing in the wake of the first identified, non-travel related case of the Zika virus within our county’s borders,” the letter said. “We want to ensure that our county has every tool at its disposal to combat a potential spread of the virus.”

Earlier this month, the FDA concluded that the mosquitoes would cause no environmental damage, clearing the way for a field trial in … Key West. Oxitec, which manufactures modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, has released them in small communities in Brazil and the Cayman Islands, but nowhere in the U.S.

 

“I’m not a GMO fan just for the record, but this is one of the GMO technologies that is a really good one,” [Mayor Phil Stoddard] said. “I would really like the county to do exactly what Pinellas County is doing. We should have done this months ago.”

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Unleash GMO mosquitoes against Zika under emergency rule, Gulf Coast leaders urge

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