Risk and regulation
Many institutions around the world have now given regulatory approval for the import and testing of Oxitec’s insect products. A summary is given below.
Open field tests of Oxitec’s pink bollworm strain (Pectinophora gossypiella), a major pest of cotton, have been conducted in the USA since 2006. Open field trials with Oxitec’s Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been conducted in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Brazil and permits for mosquitoes have also been applied for in several other countries.
Oxitec and its collaborators comply with all relevant regulations worldwide and it is at the forefront of contributing constructively to public and governmental initiatives on the safety and risk assessment of genetic control methods against insect pests in both human health and agriculture. Oxitec is a member of one of the major projects in the field of guidance for the deployment of genetic control methods against mosquito vectors in disease endemic countries: MosqGuide, funded by the World Health Organization. This is a rapidly developing field and new publications are regularly available. A reading list is provided below for further information.
Field trial Guidance
- USDA Transgenic Insect Permit Guidance
- North American Plant Protection Organisation Standards Guidelines for the Importation and Confined Field Release of Transgenic Arthropods in NAPPO Member Countries (2007)
- Benedict M, D’abbs S, Dobson S, Gottlieb M, Harrington L, Higgs S, James S, James A, Knols B, Lavery J, O’Neill S, Scott T, Takken W and Toure Y (2008) Guidance for Contained Field Trials of Vector Mosquitoes Engineered to Contain a Gene Drive System: Recommendations of a Scientific Working Group. Vector Borne and Zoonotic Disease 8(2) 127-167.
- Alphey L, Benedict MQ, Bellini R, Clark G, Dame D, Service M, and Dobson S (2009) Sterile insect methods for control of mosquito-borne diseases – an analysis, Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases.
- Mumford J, Quinlan MM, Beech C, Alphey L, Bayard V, Capurro ML, Kittayapong P, Knight JD, Marelli MT, Ombongi K, Ramsey J, Reuben R (2009) MosqGuide: A project to develop best practice guidance for the deployment of innovative genetic vector control strategies for malaria and dengue. Asia Pacific Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology 17(3) in press.