Africa Says No to Bill Gates’ GMO Mosquitoes: Burkina Faso Suspends Controversial Malaria Project: Burkina Faso has slammed the brakes on a billion-dollar biotech experiment many claimed was the future of malaria eradication. On August 23, the country’s military-led government suspended the Bill Gates–backed Target Malaria project and ordered the destruction of genetically modified mosquitoes released into the wild. The decision didn’t come out of nowhere. For years, scientists and philanthropists insisted gene-edited mosquitoes were a silver bullet against malaria, a disease that kills over 600,000 people annually—most of them in Africa. But in Burkina Faso, public skepticism never disappeared. Local critics called the project “unpredictable,” “irreversible,” and a dangerous gamble with ecosystems and human health.
Africa Says No to Bill Gates’ GMO Mosquitoes: Burkina Faso Suspends Controversial Malaria Project: Burkina Faso has slammed the brakes on a billion-dollar biotech experiment many claimed was the future of malaria eradication. On August 23, the country’s military-led government suspended the Bill Gates–backed Target Malaria project and ordered the destruction of genetically modified mosquitoes released into the wild. The decision didn’t come out of nowhere. For years, scientists and philanthropists insisted gene-edited mosquitoes were a silver bullet against malaria, a disease that kills over 600,000 people annually—most of them in Africa. But in Burkina Faso, public skepticism never disappeared. Local critics called the project “unpredictable,” “irreversible,” and a dangerous gamble with ecosystems and human health.
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