US health regulators have cleared the way for a trial of genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida that could reduce mosquito populations, potentially offering a new tool to fight the local spread of Zika and other viruses.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday said that a field test of Intrexon Corp’s genetically engineered mosquitoes would not have a significant effect on the environment. The announcement came as Florida officials grapple with the first cases of local Zika transmission in the continental US.
Florida health authorities have identified 16 Zika cases spread by local mosquitoes and are ramping up aerial pesticide spraying of a Miami neighborhood where all of the people are believed to have been infected.
Pregnant women are most at risk from Zika, which can cause a rare birth defect in fetuses called microcephaly. The Zika outbreak was first detected last year in Brazil and has spread rapidly in the Americas.
Intrexon’s Oxitec unit has been working for years to start a trial in the Florida Keys to assess the effectiveness of its mosquitoes to reduce levels of the insects that carry diseases, including Zika, dengue, Yellow Fever and chikungunya.
The Oxitec method involves inserting an engineered gene into male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. When they mate with female mosquitoes in the wild, they produce offspring that cannot survive to adulthood.
The FDA has been reviewing Oxitec’s application for use of its technology as an investigatory new animal drug. Its environmental assessment helps clear the way for the company to begin a clinical trial in Key Haven, Florida, that would test whether the genetically modified mosquitoes will suppress the wild populations over time.
Results of that trial would be used to support approval of the company’s technology, a process that could take more than a year. Similar testing in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands have shown that the Oxitec mosquitoes can reduce local A aegypti populations by more than 90 percent.
To begin the trial, the company must first await the results of a vote in the Nov. 8 general election seeking community approval.
Oxitec chief executive Hadyn Parry said in a conference call that the vote is non-binding and the decision about whether to proceed is up to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, the local body responsible for mosquito control.
Community support in the vote is not guaranteed.
In Key Haven, a suburb of large, waterfront homes near Key West where the trial is slated to take place, yard signs have popped up declaring “no consent” to the release of genetically modified mosquitoes.
Kathryn Watkins, a Key Haven resident recruited by trial opponents, is seeking election to the board overseeing the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.
“It just has everyone scared,” Watkins said, adding that local residents see themselves as unwilling test subjects.
“The genetically modified male has to mate with a wild female, and the wild female has to bite us in order to lay eggs,” she said.
“They are using us in this trial without consent,” she added.
As his company awaits the vote, Parry said he intends to ask the FDA for an emergency-use authorization that would make the product available to help battle Zika in the US.
The FDA has approved several diagnostic products under this designation.
It is not likely to be granted under current statutes.
FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said there is no “fast-track” designation for new animal drugs, and emergency-use provisions in the applicable law do not apply to animal drugs.
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS