Viruses and the GM Insect "Flying Vaccine" Solution for Malaysia

Update followup report 9 Sept 2012

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

GM mosquito trial results in Cayman prove ineffective in tackling dengue

Activist Post

GM insect company Oxitec today published results of its trials of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands in 2010 (1). The results were originally submitted to the journal Science in January 2011 but have now finally been published in Nature Biotechnology (1). The paper shows that Oxitec has no clear baseline for claims made in the press that it achieved an 80% reduction in the target population of mosquitoes, and that to achieve the claimed effect it significantly increased the number of adult GM mosquitoes it expected to release and also released additional GM pupae at locations spaced at 70 to 90m apart across the release site

Full Report Here

Follow up report
Sun, Jun 24th, 2012

Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Released Into The Wild

Australian research scientists have developed a strategy for fighting Dengue fever, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes that affects more than 50 million people annually and causes fever and crippling joint and muscle pain—and in some cases even death.

Dengue kills FAR more people worldwide than influenza, yet it is rarely even mentioned by Western media.

A bacterium named Wolbachiapipientis naturally infects many insect species and has the ability to interfere with its host’s reproductive ability in such a way that entire populations become infected within just a few generationsⁱ. When Wolbachia infects mosquitoes, the mosquitoes’ ability to transmit Dengue virus is almost completely blocked.

Full report here 

Updated reports 2112 2010

Click Here for The Debate

GM mosquitoes: 'Cayman Islands unreliable model'

By G Vinod

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian public are in the best position to decide if the soon-to-be-released genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes is the most effective method to combat the dengue menace.

GeneWatch United Kingdom (UK), a non-profit group that monitors genetic engineering issues worldwide, however, said adequate information must be provided by Oxitec Limited, the producers of the GM mosquitoes.

Its director, Helen Wallace, said that Oxitec cannot use the Cayman Islands' project in 2007, which it touted as a success, as a model for the latest experiment. This is because the island did not have biosafety regulations in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the GM mosquitoes.

“The Cayman Islands is not even a member of the Aarhus Convention or Biosafety Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity which would require it to consult the public and produce an environmental risk assessment before releasing GM mosquitoes into the environment.

“Cayman Islands appears to have been used by Oxitec to bypass the regulatory requirements that apply in the US or the European Union (EU),” she said.

The Malaysian government is keenly promoting the GM mosquito project using the Cayman Islands as the model to justify the proposed release in stages of the GM mosquitioes into several parts of the country, saying that the Cayman project had managed to reduce the Aedes population by 80%.

Wallace, however, dismissed the figures, saying that there has been no documented proof to substantiate the claims by Oxitec.

“The company now says it is producing an environmental impact assessment following the Cayman Islands project, but nothing has been made public. It still has not addressed concerns over the impact of the long-term release of GM mosquitoes,” she said.

Company making losses

Oxitec, which had been running at a loss since 2008, had thus far been evading scrutiny by the Malaysian public, said Wallace.

Click here to Read related article on Viruses and the GM Insect "Flying Vaccine" Solution by Brandon Turbeville Activist Post