Bill Gates Turns Mosquitoes Into ‘Flying Syringes’, But Who Controls What They Inject?
A Bill Gates-funded center has bred mosquitoes capable of injecting parasites into unsuspecting humans under the pretext of vaccinating against malaria. But are they truly harmless?
The Gates Foundation-backed Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands has developed a method of malaria vaccination using mosquitoes to deliver live-attenuated Plasmodium falciparum parasites.
The mosquitoes act as ‘flying syringes’ to deliver malaria vaccines – or potentially other substances. But concerns have been raised that recipients could be unaware of the process and be vaccinated without their consent.
How It All Began
- In 2008, Gates pledged $168 million to develop a next-gen malaria vaccine. Jichi Medical University in Japan received funding to genetically modify mosquitoes that can pass a malaria vaccine protein into a host.
- In 2016, Gates announced a joint $3.7-billion initiative with the British government to combat malaria.
- By 2018, Gates-funded Oxitec was developing genetically-modified male mosquitoes whose offspring with wild females would die before adulthood.
- In both cases, scientists raised concerns over the lack of comprehensive studies of environmental, health and ethical risks.
Once Pandora’s Box is Open, It Cannot be Closed
- If issues of human consent and ethics are overlooked, insects could be used as ‘vectors’ for other biological agents.
- But who guarantees they carry life-saving vaccines and not harmful pathogens? It would be impossible to verify the exact contents of the ‘flying syringes’.
Mosquitoes as Deadly Weapons
- Insects have previously been studied as potential carriers of viruses and bacteria.
- Nazi Germany reportedly developed malaria-carrying mosquitoes as bio-weapons at Dachau.
- The Pentagon is said to have conducted similar studies in overseas bio-labs, including in Ukraine, according to assassinated Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
- Kirillov revealed that US biolabs in Ukraine studied viruses transmitted by mosquitoes, including dengue fever. That was also referenced in a lawsuit filed by Cubans following the 1981 dengue epidemic in the country, where the only area unaffected was around the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay.