r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 23h ago

Biotechnology Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8
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u/BeardedDragon1917 22h ago

This genetic modification technology is very cool, but it is certainly not the only way of eliminating malaria in a country. Doing it themselves means that Burkina Faso will be developing their own economy, creating good jobs for their citizens, and avoiding future dependence on the United States. No matter what your attitude towards the west is, it should be clear by now that a country cannot depend on the foreign aid programs of the United States to fund its growth. As I said before, Traore is very big on building self-sufficiency in Burkina Faso, and he is also a outspoken anti-imperialist who views fighting the influence of the West and the IMF to be one of his top priorities.

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u/Vanaquish231 16h ago

Again such as what? What can Faso do to combat malaria? Actually fuck it let's swap the question, why would you choose to decline additional help. We are talking about lives here.

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u/BeardedDragon1917 14h ago

Do you really think that we have no ways of combating mosquitoes other than genetically modified males? Do you think that nobody tried to address this problem before the Bill Gates foundation?

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u/Vanaquish231 14h ago

Other than pesticides, and straight up dealing with the later infections, no not really.

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u/googleduck 5h ago

Yes plenty of people have tried to address the problem, moron. Yet the malaria deaths continue. Perhaps those methods aren't sufficient?

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u/Professional-Day7850 2h ago

Flip the order of your questions.

People tried to address the problem. Problem is still there. So those others ways don't seem to work that well.

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u/BeardedDragon1917 2h ago

These genetically modified mosquitoes were never meant to be a singular magic bullet against malaria. They are meant to be used alongside other methods of mosquito eradication, like spraying pesticides, draining their breeding grounds, and introducing natural predators. Not even Bill Gates is suggesting that you can’t eliminate malaria without this technology. A high tech solution might seem attractive, but if it’s a solution that can be shut off at the whim of a foreign government or NGO for political reasons, they don’t want to risk that. A lot of African leaders are extremely skeptical of aid programs, both because they can be used as geopolitical leverage against them, and because relying on foreign aid harms the growth and development of their nations economies.

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u/Gastronomicus 20h ago

but it is certainly not the only way of eliminating malaria in a country

There is literally no other way to do it other than massive pesticide applications and draining wetlands, two very problematic western approaches that effectively destroy natural ecosystems and many beneficial organisms as collateral damage.

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u/Harvestman-man 15h ago

Massive pesticide applications won’t do it. That worked in the US since there wasn’t all that much malaria in the US to begin with, but Burkina Faso has been using DDT to control mosquitos for decades, and now there are DDT-resistant mosquito populations and malaria is still around.

Mosquitos evolve, they’re animals with fast reproductive cycles.

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u/Gastronomicus 14h ago

I agree, I'm mostly pointing to the methods that they do already use. Large-scale applications work better when the breeding habitats are also eliminated, which is what happened across the USA, though it was never nearly as entrenched there as it is elsewhere which made things easier.

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u/Jealous_Response_492 22h ago

The pesticide alternatives come with there own associated risks, hence the genetic modification being preferable.

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u/supreme_harmony 16h ago

This genetic modification technology is very cool, but it is certainly not the only way of eliminating malaria in a country.

Could you list these alternatives and how they are superior to the solution proposed by Gates?

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u/BeardedDragon1917 15h ago

People have been draining the habitats that mosquitoes breed in, spraying pesticides and introducing predators for quite a long time. This genetically modified mosquito technology is meant to work in tandem with those methods. It’s not a magic bullet that’s going to solve the problem all by itself, and Burkina Faso’s reluctance to sign onto the program isn’t stupidity or ego, it’s a very well earned distrust of the west when it comes down to foreign aid programs.

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u/supreme_harmony 13h ago

Thank you for the reply.

Unfortunately draining the habitats mosquitoes breed in is not a viable strategy in Burkina Faso. That would mean draining all swamps, regulating all rivers, and collecting all rainwater and removing all lakes in a country where they have no resources to build paved roads to most settlements. It is not even close to happening and it would be disastrous if it would.

Spraying pesticides is equally not going to happen and even if it did it would lead to much worse effects than malaria, hence why its not being done.

Which means the alternatives you are proposing perform worse, are harder to carry out, and they are not even going to happen.

I don't see from your reasoning how shutting down this programme is a good decision. It will simply lead to many innocent people dying. And you are even arguing for it. Sad.

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u/BeardedDragon1917 12h ago

It would be great if the research foundations involved would actually publish the full DNA sequences and breeding protocols they’re using to make these genetically modified mosquitoes. Then places like Burkina Faso can breed and release the insects locally, without depending on a pipeline controlled by a foreign lab. As it stands, the leaders of Burkina Faso know better than to build public health infrastructure that can be shut off at the whim of a Western government or NGO. That caution isn’t paranoia or ego; decades of “development aid” that came bundled with strings attached, resource extraction, and political interference has made many in Africa extremely skeptical of foreign aid. When you’ve been on the receiving end of structural adjustment, forced dependency, and aid-as-leverage for half a century, you don’t jump at the chance to let Bill Gates and the UK biotech industry control your mosquito supply.

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u/supreme_harmony 11h ago

Here is the DNA sequence: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070056051A1/en
Here is the paper describing how to create the mosquito strain: https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-5-11
And here is a paper describing how you can order your own colony and breed them: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2018/7814643

Took me about 10 minutes to gather this.

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u/deceitfulillusion 22h ago edited 20h ago

Traore is a good leader but clearly not a pragmatist. I’m not sure how realistic it is for Burkina faso to develop a domestic mosquito control industry in a fast and cost effective time period. It is genuinely impossible to get rid of mosquitoes in the conventional manner since they breed like flies (which they technically are) and they can breed basically anywhere with water lol, and have a laughably short incubation period meaning they grow from larvae to adult in like 5 days.

Not saying he should accept Bill Gates’s offer by itself, but historically leaders have never had a local plan B when they reject a plan A From an international party.

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u/googleduck 5h ago

What would you say you think the odds are that in 10 years Burkina Faso has solved the malaria problem without the help of the West or outside philanthropy and in doing so has created a thriving industry around it? I would love to set up a bet with you, I'll give you 2:1 odds and any amount.

Man, it sincerely makes me sick to my stomach to see you anti-West people cheer on dictators and the deaths of poor people for some ideological line in the sand. Nothing would make you happier than millions of poor Africans dying to give a useless middle finger to the US or whatever. Disgusting.

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u/EconomicRegret 12h ago

Has any country developed because of chronic foreign aid? (Not talking about humanitarian/emergency aid in times of crisis).

All countries, including Western ones, that developed did so through investments from within and/or from abroad, and taxes with representation leading to better governmental spending. While donors require that their foreign aid money be used to buy products from their own countries, thus undercutting/bankrupting businesses in recipient countries. And that aid money makes recipients' government more caring about the donors, than their own citizens, while neglecting to raise taxes from them, thus not beholden to them.

Source: "Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo (a Zambian economist)