World health officials are looking more likely to deploy genetically modified mosquitoes to fight the Zika virus, even though some Americans believe the bugs are spreading the virus.
The World Health Organization on Friday called for a pilot project to study the modified mosquitoes, according to Reuters. The move comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration found that testing the mosquitoes is unlikely to harm humans and animals.
The idea is to develop a bug that can mate with other mosquitoes and make them sterile. That would help curb mosquito populations and therefore Zika because the virus is primarily spread through mosquito bites.
The British firm Oxitec, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Intrexon, is developing the mosquito aimed at reducing the population of Aedes aegypti, which carries Zika and other viruses such as dengue and chikungunya.
“This method is also better for the environment [compared to insecticides] because the Aedes aegypti we release … will not affect anything else in the environment,” said Derric Nimmo, Oxitec’s product development manager, during a recent call with reporters. “The males we release die. The offspring die.”
On March 11, the FDA issued preliminary findings that concluded the chances of toxic or allergic reactions in humans or animals from the bugs is negligible. The findings were part of a preliminary assessment into a potential trial of the bugs in Florida.
The agency also found the bugs would pose little risk to the ecosystem. It found during the trial that the bugs aren’t likely to jeopardize the habitats of any endangered species. The statement added that the mosquito isn’t a pollinator and so eliminating it wouldn’t affect plants.
However, the environmental impact statement addresses the impact only in the Florida area where the trial is taking place, not the widespread dissemination of the bugs.
Opponents to the bugs say that eliminating Aedes aegypti could wreak havoc on the ecosystem, with another bug filling the void.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth wrote in a brief that eliminating Aedes could lead to the Asian tiger mosquito taking its place.
“A 2009 study in Gabon found that the Asian tiger mosquito, in that instance, was more likely to spread dengue fever and the chikungunya virus than Aedes aegypti,” the brief said.
The apprehension to such mosquitoes comes at a time when the same skepticism faces genetically modified organisms in plants and crops. in July, Vermont will implement a state law that requires foods with GMOs to be labeled. On Friday, major producer General Mills said it would label all of its GMOs nationwide ahead of the Vermont law’s implementation.
Vermont is the third state to have passed such a law, alongside Maine and Connecticut.
An effort in the Senate this week to stop such state labeling laws failed.
Even though the lab-created bug method has received early nods from the WHO and FDA, it doesn’t mean that all Americans are on board.
A poll conducted last month found that 35 percent of Americans surveyed believe that genetically modified bugs caused the spread of Zika. About 19 percent don’t know and 43 percent believe that the bugs could minimize the spread of Zika.
The poll, conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was of 1,014 respondents.
WHO has fervently tried to tamp down such a notion, saying earlier this month that there is no evidence that genetically modified bugs spread Zika.
Meanwhile, Zika has spread to 59 countries and territories and doesn’t appear to be letting up. The virus causes a mild illness in most people, but health agencies strongly suspect it is linked to the birth defect microcephaly and brain disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome that causes temporary paralysis.
