This outbreak sent mosquito control into hyperdrive, and the local Department of Health launched massive education campaigns that urged residents to dump any standing water and use bug spray liberally. These efforts appeared successful: There hasn't been a confirmed case of dengue in the Keys since November 2010.
This dearth of recent infections is a rallying point for the concerned Conchs at the table. "There haven't been any reported cases in almost two years, but they're trying to use [dengue fever] as the reason they need to release Oxitec's mosquitoes," says Kelly Young, a blond, soccer-mom-looking lady. "There's no validity to that argument."
Chris Sweeney
Michael Doyle, executive director of Florida Keys Mosquito Control, in front of one of the four helicopters used to wage aerial assaults on mosquitoes.
Courtesy of Oxitec
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are the only species in the South Florida capable of spreading dengue fever.
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An elderly woman with a refined British accent who didn't want to reveal her name worries that decimating the population of one mosquito species could damage the local food chain and ecosystem. "Everything has a purpose," she says.
Mila de Mier, a real estate agent who organized this get-together and started a petition against the experiment, rattles off a litany of concerns at a machine-gun pace in her thick Spanish accent. "They're going to spend our money for us to become guinea pigs," she says. "We want this place to remain natural, to be the way it is. We don't need their mosquitoes... Mr. Doyle wants to be a pioneer. He wants to be the first in the U.S. to do this type of experiment."
Biddle raises his soft voice to tamp down this dizzying powder keg of a roundtable. "Mosquito Control is not an enemy; they're good people," he says, a sentiment that everyone, including de Mier, nods in agreement with. "I'm not against this technology. What I am against is corporations like Monsanto and now this Oxitec company cutting corners and not listening to the scientific community."
Although the mosquito control department had been kicking around the idea of releasing modified skeeters for two years, it wasn't until a newspaper article published this past winter that these Conchs became aware of it. Once Biddle, de Mier, and other critics began to complain, Oxitec and Doyle held a town meeting to discuss the issue and assure residents that the plan is safe. The crew at the table says the event was little more than a sales pitch. So they began doing their own research.
That's when they learned about some troubling controversies ignited by Oxitec's experiments.
Today, the mosquito control industry is an arms race.
After World War II, when developers forged into the swamplands, control efforts were concentrated on DDT, a powerful and notorious pesticide first tested in Florida. By the 1950s, however, scientists discovered that some mosquitoes had become resistant to it. Chemists pushed on and created potent alternatives, a few of which decimated anything and everything in their paths. But the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring left mosquito control efforts in a quagmire. How could they kill the mosquitoes without destroying entire ecosystems or making humans ill?
"Everything is becoming more smart-bombish. It's like the military in a lot of ways," Doyle says. "In the '50s, it wasn't that complicated. You got into a truck, and off you went. Now the industry is much more specialized. There are computer-aided drift models [to predict how pesticides will disperse in the wind], and you use a laser to calibrate your droplet size [for the sprays]. It's an intricate science."
Despite access to these sophisticated-sounding technologies, Doyle is in a lurch. Although there are effective chemicals for killing pests, he can't use many of them because of tighter regulations and greater public awareness, especially in an area as environmentally sound as the Keys.
The larvicide dropped by the helicopter is good for killing only mosquito larvae, not mature, flying mosquitoes. Doyle estimates that for larviciding to be effective to the point he desires, the mosquito control program would need to add 40 staff members. Efforts to kill adult mosquitoes, a tactic known as adulticiding, rely on chemicals dispersed by planes and trucks. For adulticides — some of which are derived from chrysanthemum flowers — to kill mosquitoes, a droplet actually has to hit a flying mosquito. Achieving this level of precision is pricey, and many of these chemicals are too potent to regularly dump over the Keys.
"There are some really toxic chemicals I could use but won't," Doyle says. "There are some that have a really big impact on marine life, but we're a marine sanctuary, so I'm not going to use those."
Anyway, Doyle explains, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the dengue-spreading species, live in and around homes, not out in wetlands and other open areas that are easy to blanket in a fog of killer chemicals and bacteria. "They're highly adaptive to human beings," he says. "They're almost like a parasite." Current efforts against this single species are focused on sending 18 full-time inspectors to thousands of properties throughout the Keys to make sure there's no standing water. If an inspector finds a few Aedes aegypti, he or she can use a handheld fogger to kill them. But to wage a successful war against Aedes aegypti that will get shock-and-awe-like results requires a game changer.
