Bill Gates is now breeding 30 million bacteria-infected mosquitoes per week in a factory in Colombia and he is threatening to “scale and deliver” the mosquitos to “communities around the world.”
The Microsoft founder and self-appointed World Health Czar has spent $185 million so far in setting up the mosquito factory as part of his World Mosquito Program (WMP).
The stated goal of the project? To use the mosquitos — which are infected with a bacteria that causes infertility — to target native mosquito populations that supposedly cause dengue, zika, and other viral infections in humans.
Gates—who’s been lambasted by Indian Parliament for unethical “cervical cancer vaccine” trials, posted the video below to his YouTube channel. In the video description Gates gives the broad strokes of how the WMP operation in Medellín — the featured locale for the marketing ploy — breeds mosquitos purposefully infected with the bacteria Wolbachia and then releases them “across the country to breed with wild mosquitos that can carry dengue and other viruses threatening to sicken and kill the population.”
SensorReceptor reports: On its face, the project’s goal is to have the lab-bred mosquitoes deliver the Wolbachia to native mosquito populations, causing said populations to become infected with the bacteria. The Wolbachia bacteria, which is found in 50% of all the insect species on Earth (including fruit flies, dragonflies, moths, butterflies, etc.), affects the ability for mosquitoes—in this case, the species Aedes aegypti, which originates in Africa—to reproduce.
The WMP video immediately below notes that if a male mosquito with Wolbachia mates with a female, her eggs won’t hatch; if a male without the bacteria mates with a female who has it, then her offspring will hatch and they’ll all have it; and if both the male and female have Wolbachia, then all of the offspring will also hatch and have Wolbachia.
Obviously the result of this interbreeding is, ultimately, a revamped community of mosquitoes replete with a Wolbachia infection in every single member. And, of course, the complete elimination of any males without the bacterial infection.
This is a good thing according to Gates and WMP because Wolbachia—supposedly—helps to diminish the amount of virus in a given mosquito population. (In Colombia, the target viruses are Zika, chikungunya, dengue, etc. In the ten other countries which the WMP is unleashing its bacteria-laden mosquitoes—including Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu—the target diseases largely overlap.) According to WMP, the organization thinks this is the case because its scientists have injected Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes with dengue virus and found that “the virus didn’t grow well in the mosquito.” The WMP video goes on to note that if the virus “can’t grow, it can’t be transmitted to other people.”
In his post explaining WMP’s efforts on Gates Notes, the former Microsoft CEO highlights a pair of studies supposedly showing the strategy working to prevent diseases. He references one randomized controlled trial (RCT) from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which claims to have found a reduction in the number of dengue cases in the city by 77% and dengue hospitalizations by 86%. Gates also touts a newer study from Medellín claiming to show a decline of 89% in dengue cases since Wolbachia mosquitoes started being released in 2015.
“[W]hat’s remarkable about the Wolbachia mosquitoes is that once enough of them are released to offer disease protection, it’s a solution that’s self-sustaining,” Gates says in his post. “Over time, families will be spared the heartbreak of losing loved ones and communities won’t need to spend money on prevention and treatment for these mosquito-borne diseases, freeing up funds for other health priorities,” the multibillionaire adds.
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