Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Breeding in Brazil, Despite Biotech Assurances

gizmodo.com

36 points·walterbell··9 comments

> lab tests conducted by Oxitec prior to the experiment suggested that around 3 to 4 percent of F1 offspring would survive into adulthood, but it was presumed these lingering mosquitoes would be too weak to reproduce, rendering them infertile

I'm not an expert in this type of thing, but that seems like a remarkably cavalier attitude towards the sterility of your transgenic mosquitoes.

This is straight out of Jurassic Park: "Life will find a way".

It appears that against the scientists' expectations, the mosquitos failed to read the manual

Hope this doesn't turn into another human made disaster.

What is the proposed disaster mechanism here, in your worst case scenario?

Worst case scenario is a hybrid mosquito made from the three species the scientists combined.

The species could theoretically, in the worst scenario, be much more aggressive and hard to kill, etc. It’d enable it to spread disease much more efficiently and kill many more people.

These GM mosquitos are about to be released in Florida (750 million in 2021-2022) and Texas, https://grist.org/science/first-gmo-mosquitoes-to-be-release...

Seems like the same mitigation strategy that was used against the non-GM bugs could be reused against the GM ones.

If it doesn't work, do it harder.

(2019)

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