Add Water and Stir? EPA Could Approve GMO Mosquitoes for Consumers’ Backyards

A U.K.-based biotech company is seeking U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval to sell genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes directly to U.S. consumers as a “biopesticide.”

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

A U.K.-based biotech company is seeking U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval to sell genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes directly to U.S. consumers as a “biopesticide.”

If the EPA approves the company’s product registration application, Oxitec could sell boxes of GM Aedes aegypti mosquitoes — under the brand name “Friendly” — directly to consumers across the U.S. in stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s, according to GMO Free USA.

After customers add water to the boxes, the GM mosquitoes hatch and take flight.

According to Oxitec:

“Friendly males carry a self-limiting gene that when passed on, prevents their offspring from surviving to adulthood. With regular releases of Friendly males, the number of offspring … is reduced, resulting in a reduction in the pest insect population.”

Critics say Oxitec has failed to scientifically show that its GM mosquitos are safe for human health, endangered species and the environment.

GMO Free USA Founder and Executive Director Diana Reeves told The Defender:

“It is mind-boggling that the EPA would consider the commercialization of a biopesticidal organism that has potentially consequential impacts on human health, endangered species and our environment without thorough study. No such studies have been performed.”

There would be no informed consent — meaning anyone bitten by a GM mosquito would be unaware of any risks associated with the insects.

GMO Free USA urges citizens to tell the EPA to deny Oxitec’s application — and to do it today because the public comment deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST today, Dec. 2. “We’ve made it quick and easy for the public to submit a comment on the EPA docket,” Reeves said.

The nonprofit’s comment template tells the EPA that the agency must conduct studies to see how the GM mosquitos might affect the environment and endangered species before the agency considers allowing Oxitec to sell its GM mosquitoes for use by consumers.

The EPA also should call for independent peer-reviewed studies on GM mosquitoes’ impact on human health.

‘Time and time again, I have caught them in lies’

Oxitec has a long history of pushing its products, regardless of informed consent issues and a lack of scientific evidence showing the products are safe.

In 2020, the EPA granted Oxitec an experimental use permit to release 750 million GM mosquitos in the Florida Keys in April 2021, despite concern and outrage from Florida residents and environmentalists. Oxitec received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the trial.

Since then, Oxitec has released more GM mosquitos in Monroe County, Florida, which encompasses the Keys, as an experimental means of mitigating the spread of Zita and Dengue.

In 2022, Oxitec claimed the project was a “success” — but critics said the company failed to provide proof.

“There is no evidence of any benefit from a recent experimental release of 1.5 billion mosquitoes in Monroe County, Florida,” Reeves said.

Barry Wray, executive director of the Florida Keys Keys Environmental Coalition who has fought Oxitec’s GM mosquito projects in Florida for years, told The Defender there are “serious questions” about Oxitec’s credibility.

“No information comes out of Oxitec that isn’t basically ordained by Oxitec or performed by Oxitec,” Wray said. “So you have no transparency whatsoever. And time and time again, I have caught them in lies.”

For instance, Wray shared with The Defender an email obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in which Roy Bailey told EPA officials that Oxitec’s technology “can eradicate Zika virus and other mosquito carrying diseases.”

Bailey was a former finance chair of the Texas Republican Party, according to Type Investigations. He exerted political pressure on the EPA to promote Oxitec’s GM mosquitos, Wray said.

According to Reeves, “The company’s representatives have misled or outright lied to the public, time and again,” she said. “They are neither transparent nor trustworthy. And now they want to commercialize these GMO mosquitoes nationwide, without offering a single shred of data from the experiments they conducted in the Florida Keys.”

Oxitec started as a research spinoff from Oxford University in the U.K. Although its headquarters are still in the U.K., it’s now U.S.-owned. In 2015, the Intrexon Corporation, a U.S. synthetic biology company, bought Oxitec for $160 million. In 2020, Intrexon sold Oxitec to Third Security, a venture capital firm.

Third Security’s Chairman and Senior Managing Director Randal J. Kirk is a billionaire known for developing controversial GMO products, including apples that don’t turn brown and GMO salmon, Forbes reported.

Kirk is the “controlling owner” of Oxitec, Wray said.

Oxitec and the EPA did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment.