Billions of GE Mosquitoes May Soon Be Released in California and Florida

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to allow the release of billions of genetically engineered mosquitoes in California and Florida has several environmental and public health groups worried about the potential impacts of the experimental releases on public health and the environment. The EPA move follows last year’s pilot field trial in the Florida Keys where, starting April 2021, the British biotechnology company Oxitec and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control released half a billion of these transgenic mosquitoes. The purpose was to test if they could help reduce populations of Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species that can carry viruses that cause deadly diseases like yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika — none of which are major concerns in the United States.

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