For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Florida News page.
It’s usually exciting when national headlines take notice of the Florida Keys.

Sushi’s New Year’s Eve shoe drop on CNN, for example — Cool!

Genetically modified mosquitoes coming soon to a backyard near you, as reported in the New York Times? Not so much.

In 2009, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were released in the Cayman Islands by the private British firm Oxitec. It was the first time in history that genetically modified insects that can bite humans were released and it happened largely in secret, in a country with no bio-safety laws or regulations. Now Oxitec is planning to initiate the release of the GM mosquitoes in the Florida Keys as early as this spring.

These “suicide” mosquitoes have a gene that causes them to die and this gene is passed on to their offspring who are supposed to die before they reach adulthood. Over time, the mosquito population will decline and with it, the transmission of dengue fever — or so the theory goes. However, there are many concerns with this theory, not the least of which regards the very nature of genetic modification itself in trying to outsmart Mother Nature. We simply do not know what the unintended consequences of messing around with an organism’s DNA will be.

Nobody likes mosquitoes and certainly dengue fever is a concern, but what will happen to the local ecosystem when the mosquito population decreases or is eliminated entirely?