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Nancy Klingener\/WLRN<\/p>\n
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Key Haven, a Florida neighborhood about a mile east of Key West, is where a test of Oxitec\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genetically engineered mosquitoes might take place later this year. Some neighbors have strongly dissented \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at public meetings and via yard signs.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n Nancy Klingener\/WLRN<\/p>\n Billy Ryan visits Roy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Trailer Park on Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stock Island every two months. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of his regular rounds as an inspector for the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just checking on the yards for the mosquito control,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he tells one resident, Marie Baptiste, as he heads into her yard. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OK?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d No problem, she tells him.<\/p>\n People who live in the Keys are used to seeing mosquito control inspectors. Since an outbreak of dengue fever in 2009, the inspectors have conducted routine house-to-house checks in areas where the Aedes aegypti<\/em> mosquito breeds.<\/p>\n And their eradication campaign \u00e2\u20ac\u201d part education, part enforcement \u00e2\u20ac\u201d has been effective. The last reported case of mosquito-borne dengue fever in the area was six years ago.<\/p>\n But that same species of mosquito can carry the Zika virus. And although there have been no locally transmitted cases of the virus reported in Florida yet, and no signs that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in local mosquitoes, state and local officials are more determined than ever to do what they can to protect residents from disease-carrying insects.<\/p>\n Ryan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eradication tools are pretty simple. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a turkey baster, a dipper \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which is a stick with a cup at the end \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and a plastic jar to collect samples. He also has pellets of larvicide to treat areas where the mosquitoes breed.<\/p>\n In the narrow side yard next to Baptiste\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trailer, Ryan finds a plastic barrel with a couple inches of water at the bottom, and spots some mosquito larvae bouncing around. Bingo. A. aegypti\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/em> favorite breeding ground.<\/p>\n i<\/p>\n \n Mosquito control inspector Billy Ryan climbs atop a stack of lobster traps on Stock Island, near Key West, to check a boat for water \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and for mosquito larvae.<\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n Nancy Klingener\/WLRN<\/p>\n hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n <\/p>\n toggle caption<\/b><\/b> Nancy Klingener\/WLRN<\/p>\n Mosquito control inspector Billy Ryan climbs atop a stack of lobster traps on Stock Island, near Key West, to check a boat for water \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and for mosquito larvae.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Nancy Klingener\/WLRN<\/p>\n Ryan takes a sample and shows the larvae to Baptiste, as he tips over the bucket.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to just flip this over, OK?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you ever see anything holding water \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or any little buckets or anything \u00e2\u20ac\u201d please turn them over, because we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to get Zika, or chikungunya or dengue fever. OK?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Baptiste agrees.<\/p>\n This level of attention has been effective in the Keys, thanks largely to cooperation from residents. But another approach that local and state officials are considering to get rid of mosquitoes hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been as popular.<\/p>\n The British company Oxitec wants to hold its first U.S. trial of genetically modified mosquitoes in Key Haven, not far from the trailer park.<\/p>\n The plan is to release about 3 million male mosquitoes that have been engineered to produce offspring that die young and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reproduce. According to Oxitec, experiments with this approach in other countries have reduced the population of A. aegypti<\/em> mosquitoes in the test areas by as much as 80 or 90 percent.<\/p>\n The U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s center for veterinary medicine issued a preliminary assessment in March that called the likelihood of any harm to humans, animals, or the environment of the proposed Oxitec experiment in Florida negligible or low. (Members of the public have until May 13 to file formal comments on the FDA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preliminary finding.)<\/p>\n Oxitec releases almost exclusively male mosquitoes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and only female mosquitoes bite humans, so only female mosquitoes can transmit dengue, chikungunya or Zika viruses. But Derric Nimmo, chief of mosquito research at Oxitec, acknowledges that the sorting process isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t perfect. About one in 10,000 of the released insects, he says, will be female. Still, he says, that shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry anyone.<\/p>\n <\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We looked at the females and we found there was no difference between being bitten by one of our females to being bitten by a normal female,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nimmo says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those female [mosquitoes] are still sterile so their offspring inherit the gene and they will not survive.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, at a public meeting of the mosquito control board this week, residents of the Keys had lots of questions and concerns. Assurances from Oxitec were not enough to persuade resident Michael Kane, for example, that the test is safe.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nature always adapts,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kane says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No matter how much you think you tweaked it, something else is going to happen. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be unintended consequences.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n After all the questions and comments, the board decided to allow residents of Key Haven to weigh in further, via a vote in August on whether or not to go forward with the Oxitec field test. Though the vote will be non-binding, three of five board members have said they will abide by the results \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at least in regards to Key Haven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" i Key Haven, a Florida neighborhood about a mile east of Key West, is where a test of Oxitec\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genetically engineered mosquitoes might take place later this year. Some neighbors have strongly dissented \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at public meetings and via yard signs. Nancy Klingener\/WLRN hide caption toggle caption Nancy Klingener\/WLRN Key Haven, a Florida neighborhood about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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