时间:2019-01-17 作者:英语课 分类:2016年NPR美国国家公共电台8月


英语课

Florida Keys Opposition Stalls Tests Of Genetically Altered Mosquitoes


DAVID GREENE, HOST:


The fight against the Zika virus has a new weapon, a genetically engineered mosquito. It's recently been approved by federal regulators and may soon be available in parts of the United States that are confronting the virus, like Puerto Rico and Miami. The Florida Keys do not have a major Zika problem at this point. But that is where the Food and Drug Administration this month approved trial releases of these mosquitoes. Not everyone is thrilled with this idea. And local opposition has put those trials on hold, as NPR's Greg Allen reports.


(GAVEL STRIKE)


UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I call the meeting to order - the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.


GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Mosquito control in the Florida Keys is serious business. It's one of the top mosquito control agencies in the world. Six years ago, the district began looking at new technology into combating a mosquito that's a serious disease threat, the Aedes aegypti. It was responsible for a dengue epidemic in Key West in 2009 and 2010 that infected more than 90 people.


It's also the mosquito that carries the Zika virus. The problem is Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have become resistant to some pesticides. Keys Mosquito Control District director Michael Doyle says new technology developed by a British company, Oxitec, gets much better results than spraying with pesticides.


MICHAEL DOYLE: What we're doing now kills probably 50 - maybe 60 - percent of the adult females that are the ones carrying diseases. Everything they've done is - they're getting 90-plus percent.


ALLEN: Oxitec's developed a genetically modified mosquito. When the males are released and mate with females, the offspring die before reaching adulthood. This month, when the FDA gave Oxitec the go ahead to test its GM mosquitoes in the Keys, it seemed in the nick of time. Miami, just up the Overseas Highway from the Keys, already has 30 cases of locally acquired Zika - most in the Wynwood neighborhood. Mosquito Control board commissioner Jill Cranney-Gage says Zika gives new urgency to the trials proposed for the Keys.


JILL CRANNEY-GAGE: Zika is here. It's coming. We see what's happening in Wynwood. This board has to do everything that they can to protect the health and safety of these residents and our tourism and our economy.


ALLEN: But after five years of fighting the genetically modified mosquitoes, vocal opponents in the Keys say Zika is no reason for them to change their minds. Megan Hall, who lives on Sugarloaf Key, worries that it's unproven technology that could have negative unforeseen consequences for people and the environment.


MEGAN HALL: Personally, I'm not afraid of Zika. I know it's a huge problem in a lot of places. And I don't discount it, OK? I know it's terrible - what's going on in Brazil and all these places - Puerto Rico. But this is not an emergency.


ALLEN: Because of the vocal opposition, the Keys Mosquito Control board hasn't yet approved the trials, instead putting it on the November ballot as a nonbinding referendum. If the board decides, ultimately, to give the trials the green light, the earliest they would likely start would be next spring. But Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry says the company has asked the FDA to consider allowing a test release of the mosquitoes on an emergency basis somewhere, perhaps, in Miami.


HADYN PARRY: We could do that. We're ready to deploy. We could do that very quickly, you know, within about a month.


ALLEN: The Keys Mosquito Control board yesterday agreed to allow Oxitec to use its facility on Marathon Key to breed adult males for release elsewhere. A spokesman for Miami-Dade County says no discussions about using mosquitoes there have taken place yet. Another possibility is Puerto Rico, where the Obama administration on Friday declared Zika a public health emergency. Greg Allen, NPR News, Marathon Key, Fla.



学英语单词
acral hyperplasia
alliably
allowable density of harmful gas
anaerobic biological
antifix
antimerger act
audiphones
brown spot
bus station
buttlicker
Campbell, C.
Campherenol
cantilever valve
Castle Malwood
celebicus
clouere (la clouere riviere)
colombian monetary units
colopodacus obovataus
compensation for stoppage
day indicator unlocking yoke
decaled
Dexafed
dried sweetened milk
ecological bonitation
embery
enforceable approach
enveigling
ESD type boiler
essential amino-acid therapy
eudaemonistic
extended memory
fish-worship
following mechanism
fothering
further education funding council for england (fefce)
geological measuring instrument
germ ring
gladewater
Gumbelina
helicopter assault
housing main body
International direct dial code
jamais vu
jerkinesses
kippered blackcod
limply
long tonforce
look-at-mest
maxillary cartilage
mensch
metallic disk rectifier
meteorological data
method of joint
microbism
microfluctuations
mid field
mirror writing
multikilojoule
naadam
narrative organization
network control program
nonterminated
open deck space
outgoing gauge
overcompliments
pearl mica (margarite)
phygocytin
physiological phenomenon
pizzaless
Platalea leucorodia
premenstrual dysphoric disorder
proiectus taiwanensis
proxygene
puech
quick-look record
Ramus digastricus
repi
retail banking
search engine optimization
self-relative computer
servility
shaanxiensis
sizing test
smoke color
sodium methylarsonate
spore-bearing bacteria
symmetrical triangles
tandem electrostatic generator
testis
tourist tax
toxteth
underailable
unspiritual
variable assembly line
variant of ALGOL-68
vertical deaerator
virginly
walpole's buffer solution
werie
white hopes
window closing
wudu'