Genetically-modified mosquitoes might save thousands of human lives, but is the risk too high?

In the unofficial mosquito capital of Canada, most people do whatever they can to avoid the clouds of biting, whining pests. Steve Whyard, on the other hand, is creating mosquitoes by the thousands.

Inside his Winnipeg lab, the University of Manitoba biologist is soaking larvae of one of the insects most dangerous strains in a special solution to silence two of the bugs genes.

The result is an army of sterile males with potential to infiltrate and decimate whole populations of mosquitoes.

Thats good news for the battle against summer insects. And, more significantly, could finally give humans the upper hand on illnesses like malaria and dengue fever that kill hundreds of thousands annually. But the experiment also launches Canada into a controversial new field bioengineering mosquitoes that critics fear might also wreak havoc on humans.

A British companys proposal to release millions of its genetically modified insects into a Florida Keys community in the near future has stirred up vocal opposition, with 150,000 people signing a petition to oppose the project.

They are going to use my kids, my neighbours and my community as a guinea pig, says Mila de Mier, the Key West realtor who launched the petition. Im not a scientist, but I do have common sense. How many times in nature do you get unintended consequences?

Many scientists do not share Ms. De Miers worries of inadvertent environmental calamity, and Prof. Whyard says his technique avoids the GM controversy entirely.

But some kind of disruptive technology would seem called for to counter what remains the worlds deadliest animal.

Despite significant progress over the last decade, the malaria delivered by anopheles mosquitoes is still to blame for 600,000 deaths a year, predominantly among young children and pregnant women. Dengue fever spread by the Aedes aegypti species the one targeted by the UKs Oxitec and Prof. Whyart kills 25,000 people annually and sickens up to 100 million more, with cases soaring 30fold in the last five decades.

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Genetically-modified mosquitoes might save thousands of human lives, but is the risk too high?