A Florida government mosquito-control agency has confirmed that approximately 800,000 Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were raised in a laboratory, said to be sterilized with X-rays, and released from drones over part of Fort Myers, Florida, in what officials describe as a mosquito population-control experiment.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are known vectors of dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever.
The mosquitoes are irradiated at 12 Gy per minute (12,000 mGy/min), while a human chest X-ray delivers only 0.1 mSv total—so the mosquito dose rate is 120,000 times higher than the dose a person receives in a chest X-ray.
The Florida operation was conducted at the historic Edison and Ford Winter Estates tourist site, which includes gardens, museums, and public walkways visited by civilians and families throughout the year.
Local reporting stated the release was part of an ongoing partnership between the mosquito-control district and the estates property.
The Lee County Mosquito Control District was created by the Florida Legislature in 1958 as an independent special district funded primarily through local property taxes.
That means local Florida residents are effectively funding the development and expansion of drone-based mosquito release operations over populated areas.
The mosquitoes were released using drone technology as part of the so-called Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) program.
The program’s stated goal is to suppress mosquito populations by flooding an area with sterilized male mosquitoes that mate with wild females, producing eggs that allegedly do not hatch.
Officials claim only male mosquitoes were released because male mosquitoes do not bite humans.
However, studies show these techniques still end up producing both female mosquitoes (which do bite, potentially spreading disease) and eggs that do end up hatching.
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