The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District announced that it will now wait for the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to determine if they will allow the release of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Keys. Therefore, it’s very important for you to comment on the FDA website about Mosquito Control’s plans.

Commenting on the FDA site is not difficult and we urge you to do so at your earliest convenience. Here’s what to do:

1. Write out your comments before you go online. You can do this in any computer program you wish. Your comments should include any and all environmental, public health, economic, or ethical questions you may have with this genetic modification experiment. The petition itself is calling for an environmental impact statement which should look at those parameters.
2. Go to the FDA website on regulations.gov. The link is here. If that doesn’t work, search www.regulations.gov for “FDA-2015-P-1433.” The petition you will get to is under the name Michael Welber, who filed the petition. (Note: the site will be down for maintenance on Saturday morning.)
3. To the right of the page will be a square box that says “Comment Now” If you use that method you can type your comment directly into the box or cut and paste those comments into the box. This is what they call a web submission and is the preferred method.
   If it is an actual document that you are submitting you can also do that through the comment now button using the browse function. The FDA prefers pdfs simply because they are more secure and cannot be altered easily once they are in the system. However, any type of document will likely work.
4. If you don’t want to submit an electronic document you can mail paper comments to the FDA as well (with the docket FDA-2015-P-1433 identified on the document). This is the address:

FDA
Division of Dockets Management
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

Please contact the FDA with your comments on the petition as soon as possible. Mosquito Control is waiting for the FDA’s ruling so it’s urgent that you let the FDA know about your concerns, and don’t forget to share this information with others!