Mosquitoes, Vaccines and Bill Gates

Let me begin this article with an AP Fact Check. According to the AP (A Bill Gates-tied mosquito project is not responsible for recent US malaria cases | AP News) the cases of malaria that have recently popped up in the United States were NOT related to Bill Gates, his funding of "mosquito research" related disease prevention (Gates-Funded World Mosquito Program Engages in Gain-of-Function Research - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics), or Oxitec's (another Gates supported company) release of genetically modified mosquitoes for the past several years in Florida where the outbreaks occurred (see the previous two articles). The AP has noted that the Gates foundation does fund malaria work and GMO mosquitoes but states it's funding for Oxitec's genetically altered mosquitoes that are being released in Florida (where those mosquitoes are released) does not include any modifications related to malaria and so they could not be the cause.

The AP really did it's homework here and also requested comment from Oxitec and noted they said it was "scientifically impossible" that they had anything to do with this coincidence. Apparently the gene editing in the Oxitec mosquitoes (that Gates has nothing to do with) is about fighting Dengue fever and Zika virus and they also only release male genetically altered mosquitoes so clearly none of this could have anything to do with the mosquitoes being worked on elsewhere that vaccinate against malaria (though these mosquitoes do exist as you can see in this story from NPR - Why mosquitoes were the vaccinators in a new malaria vaccine trial : Goats and Soda : NPR). Just in case anyone has any further doubts, the AP even talked to an entomologist at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory at the University of Florida and he said that the Oxitec mosquitoes "have nothing at all to do with malaria, and it's absurd to claim otherwise.

Now that you are all aware that it is obvious that Bill Gates and his support for genetically altered mosquitoes to "fight disease" and the malaria vaccine mosquitoes, I want to share a few important points.

First - did you know that "they" have developed a mechanism to vaccinate people through mosquitoes? As noted in the above, mosquitoes that act as flying syringes for malaria vaccines are a real thing. I have no evidence that they have been released anywhere but you do not spend the money to develop a product like this if you do not plan to use it. That leads to the question, how does Bill Gates plan to get informed consent from people potentially vaccinated by flying syringes? Will the mosquitoes carry legal documents with them with side effect lists and a spot to sign before they bite you? Or perhaps he simply does not care about informed consent... who knows?

The second issue I see is that it appears that the guy funding mosquito work all over the place is the only one that actually knows what is being funded and where. I ask this sincerely, but how do we the people know which GMO mosquitoes are biting us and how do we know the impact of the mosquitoes' edited genes on the person bitten? This matters because if the mosquitoes' bites can transfer enough material into the person that was bitten's body to vaccinate how do we know the impact of these gene modifications more generally? Maybe there is no impact but has anyone studied it or are we just going to play God with genetics and hope it doesn't have consequences?

I also feel I'd be remiss to point out that the fact check and everything else about this story requires that we trust what "they" are telling us. I'm not suggesting Oxitec or Gates would ever lie but can we agree that they qualify as interested parties? Or that we have not seen to many random cases of malaria popping up in the US typically?

From a scientific and evidentiary perspective I can certainly agree that we do not have evidence to prove that Gates or Oxitec had anything to do with the malaria cases. That said, isn't it sad that the "conspiracy theories" being bandied about the internet that the AP is attempting to debunk hold ANY credibility? The trust for our public health system and people that claim to champion it is destroyed. For my part I admit I cannot prove any relationship exists but I completely understand why people would ask the question. Further, I think we all need to use this as an opportunity to draw focus on the idea that people like Gates and our federal government ARE creating numerous other means of vaccinating people that would either completely ignore informed consent laws/regulations or that would circumvent it. Mosquito borne vaccines, transmissible vaccines through the food supply (I've written about this extensively but here's another article - Researchers aim to develop edible plant-based mRNA vaccines (news-medical.net), and even vaccines that are absorbed when you breathe (mentioned briefly in this article published by NIH - Development and Delivery Systems of mRNA Vaccines - PMC (nih.gov) are all being created and all are transmissible without informed consent.

Trust in public health has been destroyed for good reason. We now need accountability and reform to begin what will be a decades long process of rebuilding.

Photo by Cameron Webb on Unsplash