What's Eating You Kid?

The public comment period closes at 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Monday, December 2, 2024. Please submit your comment today. The pre-written comment text is editable. We encourage you to edit it to make it your own.

Oxitec, 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.

If you’ve been following us, you’ll know we’ve been fighting Oxitec for over a decade. If you’re only hearing about this now or if you need a refresh on the issue, check out our podcast: tinyurl.com/GMOMosquitoesPart1

BACKGROUND

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.

WHY GMO MOSQUITOES?

Again, our podcast answers this question. Listen here: tinyurl.com/GMOMosquitoesPart1

Oxitec claims their GMO Aedes aegypti mosquitoes will reduce wild Aedes aegypti populations by mating with the local population and producing offspring that die before they are able to reproduce. But a 2019 Yale study of a Brazilian experiment, published in the journal Scientific Reports, found that the GMO mosquitoes bred with local Aedes aegypti and produced hybrid mosquitoes that may be more aggressive, more difficult to eradicate and may actually increase the spread of mosquito-borne disease!

OXITEC’S OBJECTIVE

Oxitec, and its billionaire investors like Randall J Kirk and Bill Gates, want to make a lot of money, whether you like it or not. And they want it now.

Upon EPA application approval, Oxitec would be able to sell boxes of GMO Aedes aegypti mosquitoes as a biopesticide, branded and advertised as Friendly™ Aedes aegypti, directly to uninformed consumers across the United States in stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s. Consumers add water to the boxes and the genetically engineered Aedes aegypti hatch.

Oxitec’s GMO mosquitoes will not respect boundaries. If your neighbor unwittingly buys a box and hatches the GMO mosquitoes, these insects will travel into your yard and throughout your neighborhood.

OUR MESSAGE TO THE EPA

The EPA must reject Oxitec’s application for commercialization.

We demand:

• Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for Oxitec’s GMO mosquitoes for all of the varying micro-climates throughout the U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
• Endangered Species Act (ESA) analyses
• Independent peer-reviewed studies on human health impacts
• The public release of data from all of Oxitec’s previous experiments in the Florida Keys

We have no idea what the long-term consequences of releasing GMO mosquitoes will be. Human health and endangered species could be at risk. And for what? The cheerleaders for GMO mosquitoes falsely claim they will reduce mosquito-borne diseases and reduce or replace toxic chemical pesticide spraying.

But here are the facts:

• There are virtually no cases of Aedes aegypti transmitted disease in the United States. Dengue, chikungunya, and Zika outbreaks have occurred in U.S. states and territories, including Florida, Hawaii, Texas, and Puerto Rico, but the numbers are small and not all were locally transmitted. There have been zero cases of locally transmitted diseases from Aedes aegypti in most U.S. states.
• There have been no studies and zero evidence of the ability of GMO mosquitoes to reduce disease transmission. Oxitec admits that its product doesn’t reduce mosquito-borne disease. But this hasn’t stopped Oxitec allies from misleading regulators and the public by making false disease-reduction representations.
• GMO mosquitoes will not reduce or eliminate pesticide spraying. When municipalities spray, they’re targeting all disease-transmitting mosquito species, not just Aedes aegypti, which only represent a small subset of local mosquito populations. So chemical pesticide applications would continue, even if GMO Aedes aegypti could hypothetically reduce local Aedes aegypti populations.

Oxitec cannot be trusted. Oxitec’s executives have repeatedly lied to the public over the years and refused to produce information requested by the public and independent experts. The company resorted to corrupt, backdoor political lobbying to get experiment approvals from the EPA, FDACS, and FKMCD.

We must demand that the EPA reject Oxitec’s application for commercialization.