Greg Odogwu
Genetically Modified Organisms have raised concerns in our clime, the same way they have in other countries of the world – where a clear line is drawn between the pro and the anti-GMO citizens. Nonetheless, this modern biotechnological technique is still at its infancy here. As of the moment, we can only boast of the development of the PBR cowpea as the only genetically modified food crop to be approved by the Nigerian government.
For those who might have missed the news, the research was done to address the deadly Maruca Vitrata attacks on cowpea, or beans, as the staple food is called in Nigeria. The GMOs are generally made for medical, environmental, or commercial reasons. These are organisms that have had their characteristics changed through the modifications of their DNA. Their genomes are changed in a way that does not happen naturally, and in doing so, their natural characteristics are changed and newly engineered features are superimposed on them. Laboratory techniques are used to achieve this, by taking pieces of the DNA from the same species, or a different species, or synthetically creating them.
Common examples of the GMOs are GM crops used in agriculture – like the PBR cowpea, BT cotton, etc. – and GM model organisms used in medical research. Any organism could be genetically modified, but laws restrict the creation of genetically modified humans, and the production and distribution of the GMOs is tightly regulated across the globe.
But there is a new issue which presently troubles the environmental world. A genetically modified male mosquito named 0X5034 has received both state and federal approvals to be released into the Florida Keys, in the United States of America, from now till 2022, against the objection of many local residents and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups.
Approved by the Environment Protection Agency (equivalent to our NAFDAC), the pilot project is designed to test if the genetically modified mosquito is a viable alternative to spraying insecticides to control the Aedes aegypti – a species of mosquito that carries several deadly diseases, such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The GM mosquito has been altered to produce female offspring that die in the larval state, well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease. Only the female mosquito bites for blood, which she needs to mature her eggs. Male feed only on nectar, and are thus not a carrier for disease.
The mosquito is also approved to be released into Harris County, Texas, beginning in 2021, according to Oxitec, the US-owned, British-based company that developed the GMO. The EPA granted the company’s request last month, after years of investigating the impact of the genetically altered mosquito on human and environmental health.
In 2009 and 2010, local outbreaks of dengue fever, which is spread by the Aedes aegypti, left the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District desperate for new options. Despite an avalanche of effort – from aerial, truck and backpack spraying to the use of mosquito-eating fish – local control efforts to contain the Aedes aegypti with larvicide and pesticide had been largely ineffective and costly too. Even though Aedes aegypti is only one per cent of its mosquito population, Florida typically budgets more than $1m a year, a full tenth of its total funding, to fighting it.
In 2012, the district reached out to Oxitec for help. The company had developed a male mosquito, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline. Batches of the sterile GM mosquito (christened 0X513A) would be allowed to live and mate with females; however, their male and female offspring would inherit the “kill” programming and die, thus limiting population growth.
According to standard practice, the GM mosquito has been field-tested in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil, with Oxitec reporting a large success rate with each release. The company claims that a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%.
The question is, why then are environmentalists shouting at the top of their voice that GM mosquito is dangerous? In a statement released by the International Centre for Technology Assessment and Centre for Food Safety, its policy director, Jaydee Hanson, said, “The administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment, except without the island. What could possibly go wrong? We don’t know, because they unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks.”
What is more, media reports quoted angry Florida residents who said they did not want to treated as “guinea pigs” for the “superbug” or “Robo-Frankenstein” mosquito. It is a situation that reminds one of the same concerns in Nigeria when it comes to experimentation and commercialization of GMOs.
Nevertheless, I personally found out that, perhaps some of the concerns are not entirely baseless. Which is why I am suggesting a more holistic public relations approach by the government and the private biotech companies before deploying this new technology. GMOs are scary because, by nature, humans hate what they cannot understand, and seem to fear what they cannot control.
From 2013 to 2015, the English biotech company had released millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into neighborhoods in Jacobina, Brazil, in an effort to reduce the number of native disease-carrying mosquitoes. But, according to new findings, unexpectedly some of the gene-edited mosquitoes passed on their genes to the native insects, fueling concerns that they created a more robust hybrid species.
It is a situation one can describe as an unanticipated glitch. Oxitec had released around 450,000 genetically modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into Jacobina each week for 27 months. These mosquitoes were altered such that they carried a “lethal gene”. This method has successfully reduced native mosquito populations in Brazil by up to 85%, their researchers had said.
But now a group of researchers not involved with Oxitec is raising questions as to whether this method went as planned. They took genetic samples of the native population of mosquitoes in Brazil six, 12 and 27 to 30 months after the company released the GM mosquitoes.
They found that some of the genes from the GM mosquitoes had transferred to the native population. In other words, some of the offspring had survived and were strong enough to reproduce. This new population is a hybrid of Brazilian mosquitoes and the GM mosquitoes that were created from strains in Cuba and Mexico, according to the study published in the journal, Scientific Reports.
“The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die,” senior author Jeffrey Powell, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, said in a statement. “That obviously was not what happened.”
The disclosure now seems to vindicate the Florida natives who fear “Robo- Frankenstein” and “Jurassic Park” scenarios. And this is why I think the people who live in areas of release must be carried along for their on-the-ground knowledge and for their right to have input in decisions that may have unforeseen future impacts on their lives. Local community input should be consulted at every stage of the process, not after the permit has been granted, and research concluded.
GMOs made with even more powerful genetic technologies like CRISPR gene-editing and gene-drives are being created in the laboratory and considered for open-environmental release. The public needs to know that the risks and benefits of these decisions will likely impact us all, and host communities even more.
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