Hawaii Group Seeks Help Fending Off Lab-Engineered Mosquitoes

Hawai‘i Unites Rally to Protect the ‘Āina (Maui 1/14/23).

By Tina Lia

Hawaii Unites is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of our environment and natural resources.

In 2023, we took Hawaii state agencies to court to stop the release of millions of bacteria-infected mosquitoes in the fragile ecosystems of East Maui.

We lost. And now millions of experimental mosquitoes continue to be released on Maui and also on Kauai. The agencies involved have not provided the public with safety or efficacy data.

The release of lab-altered mosquitoes is expected to increase significantly in the coming weeks.

The Hawaii Department of Health plans to publish a statewide proposal calling for the release of lab-altered mosquitoes across all islands to “control mosquitoes of public health concern.”

The multi-agency partnership overseeing the mosquito releases recently announced that the state Department of Health is creating an environmental assessment, expected to be released early this year. No additional details about the proposal have been disclosed.

Hawaii Unites is working to build a broader coalition to confront this issue. We’re calling on high-profile organizations and activists to support the effort through legal assistance, media outreach and collaborative activism.

These lab-altered mosquito releases are a dangerous experiment. The agencies involved are exploiting sacred lands while enabling the profit-driven biotech industry to use the Hawaiian Islands as a testing ground.

Biotech plans include mosquito gene drives, CRISPR gene-edited mosquitoes and the manufacturing of lab-altered mosquitoes in Hawaii.

We are in a ‘David and Goliath’ battle

Our 2023 case focused on the experimental nature of the lab-altered mosquitoes and on the state’s failure to study the serious risks to people’s health and to the islands.

Our documented concerns about the lab-altered mosquitoes include:

• Accidental release of female mosquitoes that bite, breed and spread disease.
• Peer-reviewed studies showing increased disease-spreading capability.
• Unintended horizontal transmission of bacteria.
• Population replacement.
• Wind drift of mosquitoes to unintended areas.
• Lack of documented biosecurity protocols and pathogen screenings.
• Risks to the health of our environment and to the island’s people and animals, including the native birds, which the project claims to protect.

Tropical disease and vector expert Dr. Lorrin Pang testified on behalf of Hawaii Unites, presenting detailed evidence of inadequate environmental impact studies and warning that the project could cause irreversible harm to Maui’s fragile ecosystems.

Pang has decades of leadership experience in mosquito-borne disease mitigation. He has authored more than 75 peer-reviewed papers, over 40 of them on mosquito-borne illnesses.

Hawaii Unites took the case to the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii, where the courts ultimately ruled in favor of the state agencies.

Please join us in taking a stand. We are in a “David and Goliath” battle to protect these islands, and we need your help to save the ‘āina from this rapidly escalating agenda.

Together, we can set a precedent to stop these biotech experiments from threatening the health of our communities worldwide. Contact Hawaii Unites to join forces in this important movement.

For more information, please visit HawaiiUnites.org and our Substack newsletter.

Tina Lia is the founder of Hawaii Unites, the environmental organization challenging the State of Hawaii’s release of lab-altered mosquitoes on the islands.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children’s Health Defense.

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