佛羅里達群島獲準釋放7.5億只轉(zhuǎn)基因蚊子

佛羅里達群島獲準釋放7.5億只轉(zhuǎn)基因蚊子

A plan to release over 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes into the Florida Keys in 2021 and 2022 received final approval from local authorities, against the objection of many local residents and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups. The proposal had already won state and federal approval.

一項在2021年和2022年向佛羅里達群島釋放7.5億多只轉(zhuǎn)基因蚊子的計劃最終獲得了當?shù)卣呐鷾剩獾搅嗽S多當?shù)鼐用窈鸵粋€環(huán)保組織聯(lián)盟的反對。這項提案已經(jīng)獲得了州和聯(lián)邦政府的批準。

"With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida — the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change — the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a experiment," said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, in a statement released Wednesday.

基德·漢森說：“面對我們國家和佛羅里達州面臨的所有緊急危機——Covid-19流行病、氣候變化——政府動用稅收和政府資源進行實驗，國際技術(shù)評估中心和食品安全中心的政策主任杰迪漢森在周三發(fā)表的一份聲明中說。

Approved by the Environment Protection Agency in May, the pilot project is designed to test if a genetically modified mosquito is a viable alternative to spraying insecticides to control the Aedes aegypti. It's a species of mosquito that carries several deadly diseases, such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

今年5月，美國環(huán)境保護署批準了這項試點項目，目的是測試轉(zhuǎn)基因蚊子是否可以替代噴灑殺蟲劑控制埃及伊蚊。這是一種攜帶多種致命疾病的蚊子，如寨卡病毒、登革熱、基孔肯雅熱和黃熱病。

The mosquito, named OX5034, has been altered to produce female offspring that die in the larval stage, 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. Males feed only on nectar, and are thus not a carrier for disease.

這只名為OX5034的蚊子經(jīng)過改造，產(chǎn)生的雌性后代在幼蟲階段就會死亡，而幼蟲還沒有孵化出來，還沒有長到足以叮咬和傳播疾病的地步。只有雌性蚊子叮咬血液，她需要血液使她的卵成熟。雄性只吃花蜜，因此不攜帶疾病。

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 genetically modified organism (GMO).

根據(jù)Oxitec公司的說法，這種蚊子也被批準從2021年開始投放到德克薩斯州的哈里斯縣。Oxitec是一家美國公司，總部設在英國，開發(fā)了這種轉(zhuǎn)基因生物。

The Environmental Protection Agency granted Oxitec's request after years of investigating the impact of the genetically altered mosquito on human and environmental health.

在對轉(zhuǎn)基因蚊子對人類和環(huán)境健康的影響進行了多年調(diào)查之后，環(huán)境保護局批準了Oxitec的請求。

"This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases," Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen said in a statement at the time.

Oxitec首席執(zhí)行官格雷·弗蘭德森在當時的一份聲明中說：“這是一個令人興奮的發(fā)展，因為它代表了來自多個國家的數(shù)百名充滿激情的人的開創(chuàng)性工作，他們都希望保護社區(qū)免受登革熱、寨卡、黃熱病和其他媒介傳播疾病的侵襲。”。

A long fight in Florida
佛羅里達的一場持久戰(zhàn)

In June the state of Florida issued an Experimental Use Permit after seven state agencies unanimously approved the project. But it's taken over a decade to obtain that approval.

今年6月，在7個州機構(gòu)一致批準該項目后，佛羅里達州頒發(fā)了實驗使用許可證。但花了十多年時間才獲得批準。

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.

2009年和2010年，由埃及伊蚊傳播的登革熱在當?shù)乇┌l(fā)，使得佛羅里達州關(guān)鍵的蚊蟲控制區(qū)迫切需要新的選擇。盡管從空中噴霧、卡車噴霧和背包噴霧到食蚊魚的使用等各種努力，但當?shù)厥褂脷⒂紫x劑和殺蟲劑控制埃及伊蚊的努力基本上沒有效果。

And costly, too. Even though Aedes aegypti is only 1% of its mosquito population, Florida Keys Mosquito Control typically budgets more than $1 million a year, a full tenth of its total funding, to fighting it.

而且成本也很高。盡管埃及伊蚊只占其蚊子數(shù)量的1%，但佛羅里達州關(guān)鍵蚊蟲控制中心通常每年投入超過100萬美元，相當于其總資金的十分之一。

In 2012, the district reached out to Oxitec for help. The company had developed a male mosquito named OX513A, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline.

2012年，該地區(qū)向Oxitec尋求幫助。該公司已經(jīng)研制出一種名為OX513A的雄性蚊子，除非它生長在含有抗生素四環(huán)素的水中，否則它在成年前就會死亡。

OX513A had been field tested in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil, with Oxitec reporting a large success rate with each release. For example, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%.

OX513A已經(jīng)在開曼群島、巴拿馬和巴西進行了實地測試，Oxitec報告說每次釋放的成功率都很高。例如，在巴西的一個城市地區(qū)進行的一項試驗使埃及伊蚊減少了95%。

But when word spread in the Florida Keys that the mosquito was on the way, public backlash was swift: More than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the proposal; that number has grown to more than 242,000 today.

但是，當蚊子即將到來的消息在佛羅里達群島傳開后，公眾的反應迅速:超過10萬人在Change.org上簽署了反對該提議的請愿書;如今，這一數(shù)字已超過24.2萬。