Ongelofelijk weer: in Brazilië zijn
genetisch gemanipuleerde muggen vrijgelaten in de natuur, i.p.v. de
hele populatie steriel te maken en daarna uit te laten sterven,
overleefden een aantal gentech muggen en die kunnen zich zelfs
voortplanten...... Volgens deskundigen is dit gevaarlijk daar de
nakomelingen wel eens heel sterk zouden kunnen zijn en een nog
grotere muggenplaag worden (met grotere ziekteverspreiding)
Op een Frans eiland en
op Saba heeft het bedrijf Oxitec genetisch gemanipuleerde
muggen vrijgelaten als bestrijding van gevaarlijke lokale
muggen..... Ook in Florida is een groot aantal muggen uitgezet, wel
van een ander bedrijf en dat in 2016 en 2017, waar een jaar later
muggen werden gevonden die een virus overdragen dat de hersenen doet
zwellen......
Onbegrijpelijk dat men deze
Frankenstein experimenten toestaat..... Overigens wist Oxitec dat
een klein aantal muggen zouden overleven, echter er moest een prestatie
geleverd worden en wel zo snel mogelijk......
Sommige wetenschappers stellen dat het wel heel toevallig is dat het zika-virus in 2016 de kop opstak, na een eerder gevoerd experiment met gentech-muggen die op grote schaal werden losgelaten........
Daarover gesproken in de VS is het de laatste maanden af en aan bal over de ziekte van Lyme, overgedragen door teken, waar men stelt dat het Pentagon heeft geprutst aan teken, om ze als wapen in te zetten.....
Nogmaals: niet te geloven dat men dit soort experimenten toestaat......
Het volgende artikel over deze zaak
werd geschreven door Aaron Kesel en werd eerder geplaatst op ActivistPost en door mij overgenomen van Anti-Media:
Yale Study: Wild Mosquitoes Retained Genes of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes
September
15, 2019 at 9:03 am
Written
by Aaron
Kesel
(AP) — In
Brazil a genetic engineering test of mosquitoes appears to have
failed, with genes from the mutant mosquitoes now mixing with the
native population, Nature reported.
This comes as mad scientists in the U.S. are finding they are getting
bitten back by messing with nature after running their own program to
genetically modify mosquitoes.
The
experiment involved a company called Oxitec which took male Aedes
aegypti mosquitoes
and genetically engineered them to have a dominant lethal gene. The
idea was first proposed in 2016, according to
an article by Science
Magazine that
discussed the plans to release the GM insects.
According
to the hypothesis when the genetically modified mosquitoes mated with
wild female mosquitoes, the gene was supposed to drastically cut down
the number of offspring they produced. Further, the few that were
born should have been too weak to survive a long period of time.
A
team of Yale students then studied the genomes of both the GM strain
and the wild species before the release, then again six, 12 and 27 to
30 months after the release began.
Around
450,000 modified males were released in Jacobina, Brazil every week
for 27 months straight, totaling tens of millions, according to
the Yale study.
Sure
enough, by the end of the test there was clear evidence that genes
from the transgenic insects had been incorporated into the wild
population. Although the GM mosquitoes only produce offspring about
three to four percent of the time, it seems that those that are born
aren’t as weak as expected. Some appear to make it to adulthood and
breed themselves.
In
theory, if the experiment worked it would have cut down the
population of mosquitoes in an area estimated up to as much as 85
percent. This of course if successful would translate to fewer
bug-borne diseases, like — dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and malaria
in humans and animals alike.
However,
that’s not what the final results were according to Yale
University. Yale explains that some of the native bugs, they found,
had surprisingly retained genes from the engineered mosquitoes; and
even worse, the experiments made them more resilient.
According
to New
Atlas there
are now three different strains of mosquitoes mixed together in
Jacobina and other places of Brazil.
The bugs in the area are now made up of three strains mixed together: the original Brazilian locals, plus strains from Cuba and Mexico – the two strains crossed to make the GM insects. This wider gene pool could make the mozzies more robust as a whole.
“The
claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the
general population because offspring would die,’’ Jeffrey Powell,
senior author of the study said. “That obviously was not what
happened.”
Other
researchers released genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in a
controlled environment, into a high-security laboratory in Terni,
Italy earlier this year, NPR reported.
Another
research firm called Target Malaria research consortium
also released 6,400
GM mosquitoes in West Africa, Burkina Faso, this year, which
was condemned by
the Civil Society, a group of organizations. The tests were funded by
organisations linked to the Gates Foundation, Facebook, and –
indirectly – the Pentagon, as part of a project to eradicate
malaria, The
Guardian reported.
The release of GM mosquitoes in the village was an unethical experiment, as Target Malaria acknowledges that there are no direct benefits to the local population of this particular GM mosquito release, in terms of malaria control. This was not an early stage trial of the GM mosquitoes intended to be tested later for their impact on malaria, but a release of an entirely different GM mosquito.
Thus, there was no justification for making the releases. According to the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, which is based on the Nuremberg Code and outlines the internationally agreed ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, such research “may only be conducted if the importance of the objective outweighs the risks and burdens to the research subjects” (Article 16).
Indeed, the release of the GM mosquito in Burkina Faso poses risks, including the incidental release of some biting female GM mosquitoes during the experiments.
While Target Malaria claims that the number will be small, nevertheless, since GM female mosquitoes can bite humans and spread disease, the release of biting females still poses some risk to local people.[ii]
Yale’s
study is especially alarming because here in the U.S. the same
company Oxitec was approved in
the U.S. by the Food Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016, to
genetically modify mosquitoes to fight against the Zika virus. This
trial allowed the release of mosquitoes in the state of Florida for
testing purposes in Key Haven, Monroe County.
Oxitec
also obtained funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to
develop the GM insects. It’s worth noting that Bill Gates
has said just
this year that “mosquitoes are the number one killer.”
Gates
also released a swarm of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting audience
at a TED
conference in
2009 to prove a point.
But
Oxitec’s experiments don’t end in the U.S. and Brazil, the lab
was also approved to
release its hellish X-Files like
mosquitoes in France and the Netherlands in 2017.
The Oxitec trials have led to a situation that is largely out of control. The company has released its patented insects although it was known before that some insects could survive in the environment. The expectations of their investors were more important than the protection of health and the environment. There is no insurance and no fast-track mechanism to prevent severe damage in a worst-case scenario.
This incident must have consequences for further applications of genetic engineering. Preventing the spread of genetically engineered organisms within natural populations has to become a priority.
Florida
isn’t the only state that we may have to worry about releasing GM
mosquitoes. In 2017 it was reported that the EPA officially
registered another company named MosquitoMate’s Asian Tiger
mosquito with a five-year license to sell their lab mosquitoes in as
many as 20 states, Nature reported.
In
2017, that same year, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and
Prevention reported that mosquitoes carrying disease could invade as
much as 75% of America in a paper published in
the Journal
of Medical Entomology.
Last year, the CDC stated that the number of illnesses caused by
mosquito, tick, and flea bites has tripled in the United States over
the last 13 years, CBS reported.
It’s
of particular interest to express that a mosquito-borne virus that
causes brain swelling and can be fatal in humans was recently
detected in Florida, according to the Florida
Department of Health in
Orange County. It may be a coincidence, but the research by Yale
indicates that it may not be, but this was after Florida released GM
mosquitoes in 2017-2018.
After
being bitten by an infected mosquito, it takes four to 10 days to
develop symptoms of the Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus, according
to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In severe cases involving brain inflammation, symptoms start with the
sudden onset of headache, high fever, chills, and vomiting. The
infection can then progress, causing disorientation, seizures, and
coma, Yahoo
News reported.
If
that’s not enough, in 2018, the first reported mosquito-borne
disease called the Keystone virus was thought only to be transmitted
to animals, but jumped to infect humans according to doctors.
Where
there have been negative results, there have also been positive
results achieved by
researchers at London’s Imperial College using “gene drive”
technology to successfully eradicate a whole population of
malaria-carrying mosquitoes in their lab by making the insects
infertile.
However,
as Hellen Wallace wrote in Scientific
American in
2011, “the release of genetically modified (GM) insects should
follow a precautionary approach, because what appears well understood
in the lab can have unintended consequences when released on a large
scale into the environment.”
It’s
worth noting that this isn’t the first time that GM mosquitoes has
come into question in Brazil. In 2016, the Mirror reported in
a brave headline: “Was Zika outbreak caused by release of
genetically modified mosquitoes in Brazil?”
The Mirror wrote
the following that mirrors Yale’s study.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito sub-species that carries both the Zika virus and dengue was the type targeted with genetically modified mosquitoes.
The aim was to release only male Aedes mosquitoes into the wild and they would in turn produce offspring with their virus carrying female counterparts.
This offspring would then die off before breeding again due to the GM coding in their genes.
Ironically,
the Mirror further
noted that the first cases of Zika were seen in Brazil in 2016 with
“up to 1.5 million people thought to be affected by the virus”
after the first GM experiment.
Perhaps
screwing with nature isn’t the brightest of ideas as scientists
could inadvertently without knowledge or in the cases of government
programs — like Project 112, Operations Drop
Kick,
Big Buzz, May Day, Whitecoat, Big Itch and Bellweather, be creating
or modifying deadly diseases that could haunt our future. As Sarah
Laskow writing for Atlas Obscura stated, “While
Brazil Was Eradicating Zika Mosquitoes, America Made Them Into
Weapons.”
As Activist
Post reported in
July, United States House members expressed concern in a bipartisan
vote that the Pentagon may have unleashed biological weapons or
entomological warfare in the form of ticks or other insects that
caused the spread of Lyme disease. So what’s stopping anyone from
maliciously genetically modifying the ticks’ cousin mosquitoes as a
bioweapon? Not much.
If
you are concerned about being bitten by mosquitoes, the CDC
recommends to avoid being bitten you should wear long-sleeved shirts
and trousers, stay in places with air conditioning or that use window
and door screens, use insect repellents approved by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), and treat your clothing with an insecticide.
