While everyone is concerned with death in the form of a pandemic and protests and police brutality, the Environmental Protection Agency has okay'ed the drop of genetically modified mosquitoes onto the general public. But health experts in the field of research are questioning the safety and viability of releasing these creatures.
In an article for The Conversation that was republished on brproud the authors write:
However, it is difficult to assess how EPA regulators weighed and considered public comments and how much of the evidence used in final risk determinations was provided solely by the technology developers.The closed nature of this risk assessment process is concerning to us.There is a potential bias and conflict of interest when experimental trials and assessments of ecological risk lack political accountability and are performed by, or in close collaboration with, the technology developers.This scenario becomes more troubling with a for-profit technology company when cost- and risk-benefit analyses comparing GM mosquitoes to other approaches aren’t being conducted.
However, proponents of the idea note that the safety precautions are not problematic since the bugs were already used in the Cayman Islands, Brazil, and other places. But these reports on the "success, only come from manufacturers of the mosquitoes, which is concerning since many times a company will fudge their safety reports just to get something approved.
The process was repealed once before in Florida by locals who thought the idea was too unsafe. Hopefully we can do so again until we have long-term experimental data on human effects.
HELP STOP THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS!
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