Since its discovery in Tanganyika, Africa, in 1952, chikungunya virus outbreaks have occurred occasionally in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, but recent outbreaks have spread the disease over a wider range.

In December 2013, chikungunya was confirmed on the Caribbean island of St. Martin with 66 confirmed cases and suspected cases of around 181. This outbreak is the first time in the Western Hemisphere that the disease has spread to humans from a population of infected mosquitoes. By January 2014, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported that cases were confirmed on the British Virgin Islands, Saint-Barthélemy, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. In April 2014, chikungunya was also confirmed in the Dominican Republic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By the end of April, it had spread to 14 countries in all, including St. Lucia, and Haiti where an epidemic was declared.

By the end of May 2014, over ten imported cases of the virus had been reported in the United States by people traveling from areas where the virus is endemic to Florida.

Chikungunya was one of more than a dozen agents the United States researched as potential biological weapons before the nation suspended its biological weapons program.

Link to above information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya

Chikungunya virus is spread by two mosquito species: Aedes aegypti (primarily) and Aedes albopictus, both found in Florida. While the virus is not currently found in the state, introductions are possible if a CHIKV infected visitor or returning traveler is bitten by Florida mosquitoes in the early stages (the first week) of their illness. Infected mosquitoes can then spread the virus to other people they bite.

Source for above information: http://www.floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/mosquito-borne...

What is the current situation?

In December 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported local transmission of chikungunya in Saint Martin. Local transmission means that mosquitoes in the area have been infected with chikungunya and are spreading it to people. This is the first time that local transmission of chikungunya has been reported in the Americas.

Link: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/watch/chikungunya-saint-martin

A painful mosquito-borne virus spreading quickly through the Caribbean is causing alarm in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, where health officials are scrambling to respond to a surge of new patients.

Chikungunya, a virus more commonly found in Africa and Asia and transmitted by the same daytime-biting aedes aegypti mosquito that causes the more deadly dengue fever, was first detected in the eastern Caribbean five months ago.

"These mosquitoes know no borders," said Phyllis Kozarsky, a physician with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-usa-haiti-chikungunya-...

Wolbachia as a biological control agent against mosquito-borne diseases

A number of recent independent studies have shown that wMelPop and other Wolbachia strains can also confer resistance against a wide range of insect viruses as well as important human pathogens such as dengue and chickungunya viruses, Plasmodium gallinaceum, Plasmodium berghei or Brugia pahangi (Hedges et al. 2008, Teixeira et al. 2008, Kambris et al. 2009, 2010, Moreira et al. 2009a, Glaser & Meola 2010).

Integrating community concerns in the scientific approach

"Community acceptability is critical to the future use and success of this program and public engagement, collaborative partnerships and community and regulatory authorisation have been recognised as an 'ethical requirement' of this type of project." (Newman et al. 2006, Lavery et al. 2008, D McNaughton, unpublished observations).

The most common community concerns related to the safety of the approach and its capacity for transfer, namely: is the Wolbachia approach safe for people? Is it safe for animals and other organisms? Is it safe for the environment (D McNaughton, unpublished observations)?

Can Wolbachia affect/be transferred to humans? Baseline data

A major concern the community repeatedly expressed was whether Wolbachia could be transferred to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes (D McNaughton, unpublished observations). Wolbachia are specialized endosymbionts that infect insects as well as spiders, mites, terrestrial crustaceans (Breeuwer & Jacobs 1996, Bouchon et al. 1998, Taylor & Hoerauf 1999, Oh et al. 2000, Bandi et al. 2001, Rowley et al. 2004). Wolbachia have never been found in humans or other mammals, neither in birds, reptiles or fish. When Wolbachia were first discovered in the 1930's they were suspected of being potential human rickettsial pathogens and were tested accordingly (Hertig 1936).

To implement or not to implement?

Assessing experimentally the potential consequences that could happen over a long-term period and large geographic scale could be a daunting task. Many questions related to long-term consequences can only be assessed once the release is done.

Source: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02...

So, will these scientist be able to get the proverbial genie, back into its bottle, once it has been released?

Unfortunately, no peer-reviewed scientific proof of the safety of such biotechnologies can be offered. Long-term effects have not been at all measured, and once these insects are released, they can not be recalled. Here are but a few of the questions and issues regarding GM mosquitoes (or any GM insect for that matter). For Oxitec:

Will Oxitec need to acquire the free and informed consent of residents in Key West for the release of the GM mosquitoes? With the previous release of the mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands, there was no public consultation taken on potential risks and informed consent was not given from locals.

What could happen to the ecosystem and local food chain with the major decrease in the Aedes aegypti mosquito population?

The truth is that we have no idea what the future holds for genetic modification and the potential impacts it has on the environment and public health. We know that the Wolbachia mosquitoes contain Wolbachia to replace the naturally occurring mosquito population, but what does that really mean for humans? We simply do not know the potential outcomes that could arise from such experiments.

Link: http://naturalsociety.com/genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-release...

Genetically modified mosquitoes were released in East End on Grand Cayman in 2009 as part of a research study on the eradication of dengue fever by the UK-based company Oxitec in partnership with the Mosquito Research and Control Unit. Although there was some local notification in the district and a GIS TV programme was produced about the release the experiment remained very low profile with very little information about the project in the public domain.

Link: http://www.caymannewsservice.com/science-and-nature/2012/02/02/gm-m...

Luke Alphey, chief scientific officer of Oxitec, says he "completely rejects" the notion that there was anything secretive about the trial, which was well-known within the island's population of 50,000, he says, "but just not picked up internationally."

Link: http://news.sciencemag.org/2010/11/gm-mosquito-trial-strains-ties-g...

“The fact that Oxitec is hiding data from the public has undermined its credibility,” said Eric Hoffman of Friends of the Earth US. “Oxitec’s assertions cannot be trusted. Trials of its mosquitoes must not move forward in the absence of comprehensive and impartial reviews of the environmental, human health and ethical risks. Such trials must also await the establishment of a clear and well-designed regulatory framework, which does not yet exist.”

Link: http://www.caymannewsservice.com/foi/2012/01/12/cayman%E2%80%99s-gm...

Oxitec is a customer of Ansteadbrook management consultancy, established in 2004 by Colin Ruscoe, former site manager at Syngenta Crop Protection. Ruscoe is Chairman of the British Crop Production Council. Ansteadbrook’s other customers include Syntech Research (where Ruscoe is Director for Europe and Africa) and Syngenta Seeds.

Syntech Research provides product development and regulatory services to the agricultural, biotechnology and food industries as well as government bodies and agricultural commodity suppliers.

In June 2005, Oxitec was awarded US$4.8m as part of an international consortium within the Grand Challenges for Global Health initiative, led by the Gates Foundation (in partnership with the Wellcome Trust, US Foundation for National Institutes of Health and Canadian Institutes for Health Research)

In 2005 Ruscoe joined the Executive and Scientific Committees of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) to develop commercial partnerships and apply grants (including $50m from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to discover and deliver new chemical products and information systems for elimination ofinsect vectors of malaria and dengue. Oxitec obtained it s consortium funding from the Grand Challenges in Global Health, led by the Gates Foundation, in 2005.

Link: http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/O...

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Thank you for this article. It reminds me of a veterinary article that I read years ago. Has everyone heard of Canine Parvovirus ? It's a nasty bug that rots the digestive tract of young pups and elderly or otherwise immune system compromised dogs. Most people don't know that this is not (as was believed for many years) spread here from chimps.

A team of veterinarians researched and traced the origin of the virus to an animal shelter, I believe in Britain. It started as a MUTATION OF THE FELINE LEUKEMIA VACCINE.

Wrap your mind around that. A vaccine created to immunize a CAT from feline leukemia MUTATED into a deadly, evil canine virus.

Messing with mother nature scares the shit out of me.

"Messing with mother nature scares the shit out of me."

Thanks LuMax; it is indeed scary.

This just in; more scary science:

"GM lab mosquitoes may aid malaria fight"

Researchers at Imperial College London, led by Prof Andrea Crisanti and Dr Nikolai Windbichler, have transferred a gene from a slime mould, into the African malaria mosquito; Anopheles gambiae. This gene produces an enzyme called an "endonuclease" which chops up DNA when it recognizes a particular sequence.

When sperm are produced normally, in mosquitoes or in humans, 50% contain an X chromosome and 50% a Y chromosome. When they fuse with an egg these produce female and male embryos, respectively.

In the new mosquitoes, the X-attacking endonuclease is turned on specifically during sperm formation. As a result, the males produce almost no X-containing sperm - or female offspring. More than 95% of their progeny are male.

Malaria continues to kill hundreds of thousands of people annually, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa - http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27765974

Africa Hardly Attracts Media Attention Despite Pressing Concerns

Virgil Hawkins, author of Stealth Conflicts; How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored (Ashgate, October 2008), provides a useful map representing conflict death tolls between 1990 and 2007 where the square area of continents/regions corresponds to their proportion of conflict death tolls - In addition to the conflict deaths, there have been over 9 million refugees and internally displaced people. While refugee numbers in recent years have declined, the number of internally displaced has risen.

If this scale of destruction and fighting was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the situation.

Yet here, as mentioned in the media section of this web site, and noted by Virgil Hawkins, the western mainstream media does practically nothing to raise this awareness (or, perhaps it is not deemed important enough to report extensively about) - http://www.globalissues.org/article/84/conflicts-in-africa-introduc...

Male fertility under threat as average sperm counts drop

Studies have suggested that environmental factors, such as endocrine disrupters - chemicals that upset hormone balances in the body might be behind the trend - These effects can be passed down generations by the way they impact inherited DNA, she added - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9722963/Male-fertility...

Genetically Modified Organisms and the deterioration of health in the United States

What is an endocrine disruptor?
The endocrine system controls the body's chemical messages through hormones. Hormones are secreted directly into the blood by the endocrine glands: pineal, hypothalmus, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, ovaries and testes. The glands release carefully measured amounts of chemicals into the bloodstream to regulate important functions including growth and development, reproduction, healthy weight, mood and organ performance.
An endocrine disruptor is a chemical that either mimics or blocks hormones and disrupts the body's normal functions. This disruption can happen through altering normal hormone levels, halting or stimulating the production of hormones, or interacting directly with the organ the hormone was meant to regulate. Because hormones work at very small doses, endocrine disruption can occur from low-dose exposure to hormonally active chemicals.
Low doses over long periods of time may lead to very serious illnesses - http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/NancySwanson.pdf

Can we, or are we prepared, to ignore the possibilities, that these Genetically Modified (GM) Mosquitoes will turn out to be the perfect hosts (carriers) of this "endonuclease" gene; having been transferred from a "slime mould", from a London laboratory and, then passed on to the human population?

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