evidence: Why a U.S. Company Plans to Release 2.4 Billion Genetically Modified Mosquitoes [...] The Environmental Protection Agency has cleared the release of 2.4 billion genetically-modified mosquitoes in California and Florida. The mosquitoes, created by biotech firm Oxitec, will be non-biting Aedes aegypti males engineered to only produce viable male offspring, per the company. Oxitec says the plan will reduce numbers of the invasive Aedes aegypti, which can carry diseases like Zika, yellow fever and dengue. [...] The experiment is an extension of a pilot project that the EPA approved in 2020, the company says. In 2021, Oxitec released 144,000 genetically-modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. It also released mosquitoes in Brazil, claiming that after 13 weeks, the technology suppressed 95 percent of Aedes aegypti.