Almost 4,000 cases of dengue were reported in the US in 2024, a 360% increase over the average of 830 cases per year over the previous decade. Florida, California, and Texas all saw locally acquired transmission of dengue in 2024. Puerto Rico declared dengue a public health emergency. Ten locally acquired malaria cases were reported nationwide in 2023, the first reported in twenty years. Yellow fever mosquitoes remain present in the US even though the disease itself is gone for now.
The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease exists. It has worked in the wild. It has stalled at the FDA for more than a decade. The gap between the two is the story.
The Gene Drive That Works
In 2000, University of Oxford biologists demonstrated a gene-drive mechanism in fruit flies using a protein called tTAV. The gene is kept switched off in lab conditions via tetracycline, which is absent in the wild. Oxitec was founded to commercialize the technology, engineering the gene into male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
The lethal gene kills only female offspring while males survive to pass the gene on for a few generations. The math is simple: fewer females means fewer eggs, which means fewer mosquitoes overall. In the Cayman Islands, sustained releases cut a wild Aedes aegypti population by 80%. In Juazeiro, Brazil, a field trial reduced the population by about 95%.
The Screwworm Precedent
The USDA previously used the ‘sterile insect technique’ to fight screwworm, sterilizing male insects with radiation since the 1950s. That campaign cleared the pest from the US in the 1960s and pushed it back to the southern tip of Panama. The effort is estimated to have saved American cattle farmers close to $800 million per year.
Texas detected the US’s first case of screwworm in 60 years in June 2026, likely aided by cattle smuggling from Central America. Containment efforts are ongoing with billions of dollars in damages.
The FDA’s Claim on DNA
When Oxitec first applied, the USDA rejected the application and directed it to the FDA in a year and a half. The FDA claimed jurisdiction over genetically modified animals as veterinary drugs. Its guidance stated that ‘altered genomic DNA in an animal is a drug … because such altered DNA is an article intended to affect the structure or function of the body of the animal.’
Oxitec’s application sat with the FDA for another five years after that redirection.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs the gene-drive technology that works against the FDA’s failure to act, and is against the regulatory delay that protects no one while letting disease spread. The FDA’s claim that altered mosquito DNA is a veterinary drug is a reach that puts the agency’s authority above the public good. When a regulator treats a mosquito like a pill, the regulator loses sight of who is actually served by its rules.
The precedent is plain. The sterile-insect technique cleared screwworm from the United States in the 1960s and saved American cattle farmers close to $800 million per year. That approach worked without the FDA’s permission. The gene-drive technology works too, and it has already cut mosquito populations by 80% in the Cayman Islands and by 95% in Juazeiro, Brazil. The FDA should approve it.
Instead, the agency has let the application sit for more than a decade. That is the gap between the technology and the FDA. The paper’s position is against regulation that protects the biggest players and raises the cost of entry for small ones. Here the FDA is acting against even the smallest player that might use this technology. The paper would want the FDA to approve the technology quickly, with narrow oversight aimed only at any real risk to people or the environment, rather than a broad claim that treats mosquito DNA as a drug. The reader should watch for any sign that the FDA is acting to protect its own authority rather than the public health it is supposed to serve.
Key Facts Box
- Dengue cases in the US: nearly 4,000 in 2024, 360% increase over the average of 830 per year over the previous decade
- Dengue locally acquired in: Florida, California, Texas
- Puerto Rico: dengue declared a public health emergency
- Malaria cases nationwide: 10 locally acquired in 2023, first reported in twenty years
- Cayman Islands: 80% reduction in Aedes aegypti population
- Juazeiro, Brazil: 95% reduction in Aedes aegypti population
- Cattle farmers saved: close to $800 million per year
- Oxitec application redirected to FDA in 2010
- Application has sat with FDA for more than a decade
The technology exists. It has proven itself in the field. It is waiting on a regulator that treats mosquito DNA the same way it treats a pill.
Puerto Rico declared dengue a public health emergency. The FDA has not approved the technology that could end it.
The FDA’s guidance is clear. So is the paper’s position.
Source material: “The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease exists,” worksinprogress.co.
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