佛罗里达群岛获准释放7.5亿只转基因蚊子

佛罗里达群岛获准释放7.5亿只转基因蚊子

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.

一项在2021年和2022年向佛罗里达群岛释放7.5亿多只转基因蚊子的计划最终获得了当地政府的批准，但遭到了许多当地居民和一个环保组织联盟的反对。这项提案已经获得了州和联邦政府的批准。

"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·汉森说：“面对我们国家和佛罗里达州面临的所有紧急危机——Covid-19流行病、气候变化——政府动用税收和政府资源进行实验，国际技术评估中心和食品安全中心的政策主任杰迪汉森在周三发表的一份声明中说。

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，美国环境保护署批准了这项试点项目，目的是测试转基因蚊子是否可以替代喷洒杀虫剂控制埃及伊蚊。这是一种携带多种致命疾病的蚊子，如寨卡病毒、登革热、基孔肯雅热和黄热病。

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.

这只名为OX5034的蚊子经过改造，产生的雌性后代在幼虫阶段就会死亡，而幼虫还没有孵化出来，还没有长到足以叮咬和传播疾病的地步。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，因此不携带疾病。

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).

根据Oxitec公司的说法，这种蚊子也被批准从2021年开始投放到德克萨斯州的哈里斯县。Oxitec是一家美国公司，总部设在英国，开发了这种转基因生物。

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

在对转基因蚊子对人类和环境健康的影响进行了多年调查之后，环境保护局批准了Oxitec的请求。

"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首席执行官格雷·弗兰德森在当时的一份声明中说：“这是一个令人兴奋的发展，因为它代表了来自多个国家的数百名充满激情的人的开创性工作，他们都希望保护社区免受登革热、寨卡、黄热病和其他媒介传播疾病的侵袭。”。

A long fight in Florida
佛罗里达的一场持久战

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个州机构一致批准该项目后，佛罗里达州颁发了实验使用许可证。但花了十多年时间才获得批准。

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，由埃及伊蚊传播的登革热在当地暴发，使得佛罗里达州关键的蚊虫控制区迫切需要新的选择。尽管从空中喷雾、卡车喷雾和背包喷雾到食蚊鱼的使用等各种努力，但当地使用杀幼虫剂和杀虫剂控制埃及伊蚊的努力基本上没有效果。

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。尽管埃及伊蚊只占其蚊子数量的1%，但佛罗里达州关键蚊虫控制中心通常每年投入超过100万美元，相当于其总资金的十分之一。

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，该地区向Oxitec寻求帮助。该公司已经研制出一种名为OX513A的雄性蚊子，除非它生长在含有抗生素四环素的水中，否则它在成年前就会死亡。

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已经在开曼群岛、巴拿马和巴西进行了实地测试，Oxitec报告说每次释放的成功率都很高。例如，在巴西的一个城市地区进行的一项试验使埃及伊蚊减少了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，当蚊子即将到来的消息在佛罗里达群岛传开后，公众的反应迅速:超过10万人在Change.org上签署了反对该提议的请愿书;如今，这一数字已超过24.2万。