THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Experiments Using GM Fungus to Kill Mosquitoes in Burkina Faso Fail to Meet Biosafety Requirements
Conducted quietly, a three-year experiment took place in the village of Soumousso, Burkina Faso, to test the use of a genetically modified (GM) fungus to kill mosquitoes. Although the experiment took place from 2015 to 2017, media announcements were only made in May 2019, after the study was formally published in a US scientific journal. The GM fungus was developed by introducing a toxin from the lethal Australian Blue Mountains funnel-web spider into the M. pingshaense fungus to ostensibly increase the efficiency of the fungus to kill mosquitoes and stave off malaria.
The published results describe the experiments as having exposed mosquitoes to GM fungi in enclosures surrounded solely by mosquito netting. The researchers have declared the technology as “close to field ready” and that the GM fungus research and development “has progressed sufficiently for field application”. This project however raises serious legal, biosafety, ethical, political and human rights concerns and questions regarding the conduct of the experiments.
Serious doubts arise about the legality of the ‘semi-field’ experiments, as it appears that the experiments do not satisfy the legal requirements for containment as is required by Burkina Faso’s biosafety law. Additionally, there was a lack of any meaningful public consultations prior to the commencement of the release, also required by law. Further concerns are in regard to the absence of testing done to ensure the safety of the GM fungus to people and the environment, the lack of biosafety measures preventing potential escape and persistence of the GM fungus or infected mosquitoes from the experimental facility, and questions as to whether sufficient safety protection was provided for Burkinabe researchers who were exposed inside the facility.
Wider concerns include the misuse of Burkina Faso as an experimental testing ground for new and controversial GM technologies. Noteworthy in this regard is that this GM fungus project is part of an international effort to advance the use of transgenic approaches for malaria control. This includes the hugely controversial Target Malaria project that aims to test ‘gene drive’ mosquitoes in Burkina Faso.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister
10400 Penang
Malaysia
Email: twn@twnetwork.org
Websites: http://www.twn.my/and http://www.biosafety-info.net/
To subscribe to other TWN information services: www.twnnews.net
———————————————————————————————————–
GM FUNGI TO KILL MOSQUITOES: ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTS IN BURKINA FASO?
African Centre for Biodiversity
May 2020
https://www.acbio.org.za/en/gm-fungi-kill-mosquitoes-illegal-experiments-burkina-faso
Conducted silently and out of the public eye, a three-year experiment involving a new and potentially unsafe and risky genetically modified (GM) fungus to kill mosquitoes was performed in the village of Soumousso in Burkina Faso in 2019. When the study was published in a US scientific journal in May 2019, a media frenzy broke out, heralding the experiments as a breakthrough cure for malaria.
The GM fungus was developed by introducing a toxin from the lethal Australian Blue Mountains funnel-web spider into the M. pingshaense fungus, to ostensibly increase the efficiency of the fungus to kill mosquitoes and stave off malaria.
The use of GM fungi is offering a quicker route to the market than gene drive organisms, in a ‘new era of transgenic microbial control’. Indeed, the latest devastating locust infestation in East Africa has prompted calls for the use of GM fungus, with claims being made about the importation of non-GM and GM fungal biopesticides from China.
However, the GM fungus experiments raise many troubling legal, biosafety, ethical, political and human rights concerns, as detailed in the ACB’s new briefing.
Serious doubts arise about the legality of the so called ‘semi-field’ experiments, especially in regard to whether the experiments satisfy the legal requirements for containment, as is required by the biosafety law of Burkina Faso. By all accounts, the experiments represent open releases, which required compliance with legal provisions including meaningful public consultation and robust risk and safety assessment, which did not take place.
The ACB report raises concerns in regard to the lack of testing to ensure the safety of the GM fungus to people and the environment. Of particular concern is the lack of biosafety measures to prevent potential escape and persistence of GM fungi or infected mosquitoes from the experimental facility.
Wider neo-colonial concerns also arise, including the misuse and exploitation of Burkina Faso as an experimental testing ground for new and controversial GM technologies. Noteworthy in this regard is that this GM fungus project is part of an international effort to advance the use of transgenic approaches for malaria control, conducted alongside other developments already underway. This includes the hugely controversial, dangerous and heavily contested Target Malaria project that aims to test extreme forms of GM ‘gene drive’ mosquitoes in Burkina Faso. Indeed, some researchers are involved in both the GM fungus and Target Malaria’s gene drive projects.
This GM fungus project is yet another reductionist malaria control intervention that focuses solely on mosquito vector control and not wider social determinants of malaria. Malaria is a complex disease, and biomedical vector control interventions have only worked in particular contexts, and more so where social determinants of disease are also addressed – for example, countries where wider healthcare infrastructure was in place, where economic circumstances are sufficient to reduce exposure and cover costs of existing treatments, and/or where environmental or agricultural programmes have been conducive to mosquito control. Indeed, numerous countries have recently been successful in eradicating malaria (Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Argentina), or significantly reducing it (Myanmar), in large part due to improvements in healthcare infrastructure that have increased diagnostics, treatment and surveillance, in addition to other integrated approaches.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has cruelly highlighted: a focus on yet-to-be developed technological solutions in nations such as the global North has been extremely costly in directing emphasis away from existing measures that have thus far been more successful in staving off losses of life in many nations, including in Africa, the Caribbean and Asian countries.