Community Involvement

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:00:00 -0500

A group of students, including IGERT fellows Gabriel Zilnik and William Klobasa, lead by IGERT-associated faculty member, Dr. Mike Cobb, conducted two separate but related surveys of people in the Florida Keys to get a clear assessment of their views related to transgenic mosquitoes at the special request of the Florida Keys mosquito control group, including Dr. Mike Doyle. Gabe and Will also collected additional qualitative data about how the controversy has impacted the local community, and spoke with local media and key stakeholders. In both studies, a majority supported using GE technologies to control mosquitoes. More importantly, only a small percentage of respondents in either survey are opposed; the same percentage, or more, was neutral rather than opposed. Both reports were made available online on the NCSU IGERT website on February 14, 2013: http://geneticengsoc.ncsu.edu/ncsu-study-a-majority-of-key-west-residents-support-release-of-gm-mosquitoes