A child under 5 dies from malaria about every two minutes world-wide. Yet radical environmentalists are mobilizing against an important measure to stop mosquitoes from spreading the disease.
Target Malaria is a Gates Foundation-supported research effort to develop genetically modified sterile mosquitoes. Its approach is to drive modified genes through a mosquito population to produce sterile females or cause the breeding of only males. The goal is to reduce mosquito populations so much that the malaria parasite cannot be spread from person to person.
This spring Target Malaria ran a carefully controlled experimental release in Burkina Faso. The test followed years of research and similar successful releases in Latin America and the Caribbean. None of that mattered to the coalition of 40 leading environmental and “civil society” organizations demanding the project be shut down immediately.
The activist opposition to Target Malaria is part of a larger and growing campaign against all modern genetic technologies and pesticides used in both in disease control and agriculture. The campaign has been promoted in recent years by United Nations agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, as well as by European governments and European Union-funded nongovernmental organizations.
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It is hard to tell whether they champion these policies out of sheer nostalgia or because they would prefer a planet with fewer people. Allowing millions to die from preventable diseases and inadequate nutrition is certainly one way to achieve that goal.
Read full, original post: Environmental Extremists Favor Mosquitoes Over Mankind
