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/Xploited_HnterGather 22h ago edited 21h ago

It's more likely because their culture is more superstitious and particularly about humans changing the nature of things. Their culture has deep reverence for nature and sees humans as a part and not some God of it.

So on a philosophical level they say no to this thing. Ironically I think this means if you sent the message of modified mosquitoes with missionaries you would get more traction than with scientists or politicians.

Disclaimer: This is just my speculation based on what I know or think I know. Of course be guided by your own sound reasoning.

Edit: Also I'd like to add that I support those people's right to govern themselves irrelevant of my or Bill Gates opinion.

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u/McToasty207 20h ago

And yet I suspect they eat domesticated plants and animals, which are similarly man made.

Its a position many hold but its one that fundamentally ignores how much change humans have made to our foodscources.

Many wildtype crops are completely inedible, and somewhat posionous.

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u/Expert-Diver7144 20h ago

Why do you believe this person

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u/Punman_5 19h ago

Nothing they said is wildly incorrect.

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u/Expert-Diver7144 18h ago

How do you know? They’ve left no evidence.

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u/Punman_5 18h ago

I used common sense

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u/Hot_Demand_6263 17h ago

You should stop doing that.

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u/Expert-Diver7144 16h ago

that’s just called guessing

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u/help_me_im_stupid 12h ago

We should trade usernames.

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u/Dapperrevolutionary 20h ago

Big difference between natural methods of alternation and artificial methods

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u/sunjay140 20h ago

There's no difference at the genetic level.

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u/Abedeus 20h ago

Appeal to nature fallacy. Also, it's hardly "natural" if humans forced the changes on purpose. The only difference is efficiency.

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u/Dapperrevolutionary 20h ago

Disagree. Humans are natural and used natural methods. That kind of change is still natural. Once we include unnatural tools like gene editing however that's not the case.

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u/Alive-Beyond-9686 20h ago

Selective breeding is gene editing. Whether it's done in a lab or in the field, it's still "man made".

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u/Dapperrevolutionary 20h ago

Disagree. Animals selectively breed themselves all the time by selecting for certain traits in partners, that's just the natural process.

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u/rainzer 19h ago

using your logic, gene editing is natural humans naturally using their natural discovery to naturally select what genes pass on.

np, naturally

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u/STEELCITY1989 19h ago

"But why male models?"

"Are you serious i just told you..."

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u/Klinky1984 18h ago

That's not how evolution works. Environmental pressures play a much bigger role than conscious decision making, and these changes often take a long time to manifest. Environmental changes or bad adaptations can cause negative outcomes to occur as well, such as huge antlers that then get you stuck in trees or suddenly the climate shifts and the fruit tree your species relied on dies off and so do you. Those that do adapt pass on their genes strengthening the adaptation. It's more random and less choice driven than you're stating.

Humans making a conscious choice to sustain species and genes through selective breeding is the opposite of natural evolution. "Survival of the fittest" no longer applies, unless you consider "fittest" to mean "is capable of being engineered into something humanity deems useful to it". I don't think any plant or animal is making such choices consciously on their own without human involvement.

You can also look at human medicine as completely going against natural evolution, as typically the way serious disease was "eradicated" was having large die offs of humanity until those who had mutations that protected them proliferated. Obviously that is less than ideal (to sane people, antivaxxers on the other hand).

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u/Punman_5 19h ago

Domestic and plants and animals are GMOs

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u/Abedeus 19h ago

Arsenic is natural.

Toxins and poisons are natural.

Something being "natural" doesn't make it good or bad. How it's used is important.

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u/einmaldrin_alleshin 5h ago edited 4h ago

If you ask me, anything that goes beyond traditional selection processes should be considered artificial, as in made by humans.

But calling plants natural that were bred under radiation exposure, in synthetic growth medium, under artificial light and with manual pollination is completely ridiculous.

Edit: a word

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u/McToasty207 20h ago edited 10h ago

The mechanism is different but the end result is the same.

Functionally modern corn and ancestral corn are completely different, and the reason for that difference is changes to the plants genome.

Thats genetic engineering no matter how you split it

https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/evolution/corn/

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u/steak4take 19h ago

Your speculation is hilariously racist and informed by nothing at all. Did you just make all that up? Based on current research, Burkina Faso is a mostly Muslim Country. How did you talk about “their culture” without mentioning their religious majority?

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u/pinkfootthegoose 17h ago

it's a variation of the noble savage trope.

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u/Complex-Bee-840 5h ago

That is not what racism is, Jesus Christ.

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u/steak4take 5h ago

Yes, it definitely is. Have a look at the rest of the people calling out this "noble savage" diatribe.

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u/CMidnight 20h ago

Ya, let's drop the noble savage bullshit. It has nothing to do with superstition or reverence for nature. They said no because they believe the conspiracy theories about Gates. That isn't something unique to Burkinabe either.

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u/DaaraJ 19h ago

That is also a gross oversimplification that ignores decades of interventions by Western states and NGOs that essentially amounted large-scale social and economic experiments, the consequences of who's failure falls on the poor people the experiments are meant to help. Just in Burkina Faso's recent history was the Gates Foundation's push to get smallholder farmers to switch from traditional, locally developed cotton cultivars for Bt cotton seeds sourced from western seed companies. The resulting cotton crop produced bolls of inferior quality (shorter fiber length and lower micronaire) that resulted in farmers losing income.

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u/FactAndTheory 19h ago

That is also a gross oversimplification that ignores decades of interventions by Western states and NGOs that essentially amounted large-scale social and economic experiments

The sum total of aid provided to African nations pales in comparison to the wealth extracted from it on an annual basis, and most of it is structured specifically to keep the domestic power structures which maintain this system of extraction in place. It's not aid, it's food rations for effectively enslaved nations.

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u/Lower_Nubia 15h ago

Extracted from it how? When De Beers buys diamonds from Botswana, is that extraction?

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u/steak4take 9h ago

Oh look, a racist making a spurious claim. What’s next - you’ll feign ignorance and then tell us you’re only asking questions?

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u/Lower_Nubia 5h ago

A racist? Wild the internet just lets you say stuff.

I can pretty clearly prove that “pales in comparison to the wealth extracted” is just nonsense. It’s why I asked the question and … got no response except being lied about.

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u/fungushumongous 19h ago

That’s very interesting. I spent about 8 months in Burkina and it holds a special place in my heart. Do you have a source for this issue with GMO cotton being inferior to the locally cultivated variety? I have a friend whom I still speak to in Burkina and he has been trying to start up a small farm on family land outside Ouagadougou. I’m sure he’d be interested in this info.

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u/DaaraJ 19h ago

https://www.dw.com/en/burkina-faso-abandons-gm-cotton/a-19362330

https://www.africanews.com/2016/04/12/burkina-faso-phasing-out-gmo-cotton-citing-poor-quality/

I'm sure he's aware of the bt cotton drama fwiw. It was pretty big news in 2016 especially considering BF's reputation for producing high quality cotton

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u/fungushumongous 19h ago

Well will give me a reason to start up a convo anyway. Thanks!

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u/blikkiesvdw 16h ago

The simple and real answer.

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u/PsychologicalSet8678 7h ago

Western brain cannot stop thinking like a fucking meme. Zero critical analysis skills. Just parroting absolute batshit insane things, like Burkinafaso being suspiscious of Gates is about "Conspiracy Theories" not these billionaire western riches being parasite, extracting more wealth from Africa while virtue signalling about thier "help".

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u/FactAndTheory 19h ago

It's more likely because their culture is more superstitious and particularly about humans changing the nature of things. Their culture has deep reverence for nature and sees humans as a part and not some God of it.

This has a super "white guy psychoanalyzing the superstitious Africans" vibe to it. Peoeple in Burkino Faso have Netflix. The kids watch TikTok in between classes. Etc. The stuff about Bill Gates is because alt right conspiracy theories about him have been on talk radio for over a decade now, and the current political class in Africa right now has a big chunk of conspiratorial attitudes in it, aided not least of which by a very real history of covert and hostile European and Chinese conspiracies in their countries.

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u/Organic-Difference49 16h ago

Why don’t you opt in for the same experiment to be done where live? Today’s great ideas may turn out to be tomorrow’s dumb idea. He has been doing all of these experiments on people for many years and nothing to right home about them. There are mosquitoes in Florida and other southern places. Let him try it there first, if he’s allowed to, show the results then he will be believed. Africans are not guinea pigs to be experimented on, period.

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u/No-Good-One-Shoe 8h ago

You're right.  We should stop trying to solve the problems where they happen. 

We should also experiment on how to stop bear attacks in Australia. 

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u/Reimiro 13h ago

There are no anopheles mosquitos in Florida, or very few. Eradicating malaria is not going to be tomorrow’s dumb idea-sorry. I have a feeling you have no idea if this subject and maybe you should refrain from commenting, like most if the commentary here. My apologies.

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u/Expert-Diver7144 20h ago

This really feels racist I won’t lie. I don’t think it’s intentional but this is a modern country with educated leadership. They’re not spooked by technology, they are tired of being expiremented on a whim.

There’s a huge anti GMO movement in the United States, is our culture more superstitious?

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u/pinkfootthegoose 17h ago

There’s a huge anti GMO movement in the United States, is our culture more superstitious?

I think there is an intentional misrepresentation of why people reject GMOs. For me I don't categorically reject them I am very suspicious of the incestuous relationship between those corporations that seek to develop GMOs and the regulators that are supposed to safeguard consumers. I am under no illusion that corporations developing GMOs are doing it for good since they are motivated by profit and profit alone.

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u/Location-Actual 20h ago

I think it's more the fact that previous white saviours carried out sterilisations on the population. I can't remember which African country, it was in the 60's.

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u/blackturtlesnake 20h ago

I think the key reason is that Burkina Faso just wants more malaria nets and public health initiatives instead of being used as living guinea pigs for tech oligarchs.

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u/under_psychoanalyzer 20h ago

They're already doing this in California. He would not be a guinea pig.

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u/rainbowlolipop 20h ago

Everyone uses the nets to go fishing. This isn't a white man swoops in to save them thing. We should ask them what they want and provide those things so they can build themselves up.

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u/blackturtlesnake 20h ago

What they want is self-sufficiency. The former French colony of Upper Volta became the nation of Burkina Faso after a Marxist lennenist revolution under Thomas Sankara, who promoted a policy of independence from neocolonial influences and transformed health and food production in 4 short years until he was assassinated by French backed neocolonial collaborators.

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u/meneldal2 15h ago

If the French didn't do it the US would have most likely. It wasn't a good time to be communist

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u/daviddjg0033 8h ago

11th century Mossi people conquered a vast amount of territory thanks to their mastering of the horse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara I can see why he was assassinated https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Burkina_Faso_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat My worry for the region is Russia. Wagner soldiers replaced the French in Sahel countries.

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u/rainbowlolipop 18h ago

Damn, that's a shame. Such a beautiful place and people. Fucking colonizers.

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u/duncandun 15h ago

Where do they go fishing?

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u/rainbowlolipop 11h ago

google it yourself

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u/duncandun 11h ago

I’m asking because Burkina Faso is fucking landlocked

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u/Jenny_Saint_Quan 17h ago edited 17h ago

Me when I have no knowledge on how White people experimented on Black people.

Edit: I don't think it's wrong to assume that the person I'm commenting to is in digital Blackface.

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u/traditional_genius 16h ago

Releasing mosquitoes like this is an awful idea from an ecological and evolutionary perspective as well. Unfortunately, the white man has always thought they have the solution and refuses to listen.

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u/Scrotie_ 16h ago edited 15h ago

What? No… the current leader of Burkina Faso is just anti-West, due to the decades upon decades of European colonialism and interference in their political system.

Gotta remember this is the homeland of Thomas Sankara who was a Pan-African Marxist who was assassinated likely due to his anti-west sentiments.

Ibrahim Traore is college educated with a degree in science and geology, so it’s not like he’s some bush warlord…

He likely for better and worse does not want to be beholden to western interests via aid - he’s instead aligned BF with China and other alternative economic paths for the country. They’re bringing in agricultural equipment, EV’s, and improved infrastructure all without western aid.

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u/Amazing-Treat-8706 19h ago

I think you are partially right but as important is the fact that there is a whole long history of white people colonizing “savage” peoples in Africa and introducing “better ways” of doing things that we not in fact better for indigenous people who had developed their own ways of doing things, technologies, language and culture. So Africans, indigenous people around the world, are generally rightfully wary of powerful white westerners dropping themselves into societies they are not actually familiar with. Essentially Burkina Faso is saying to Gates, we’re not interested in being a guinea pig for your “brilliant” ideas. Go test your bioengineering out on yourself, on your own people before you try to fix us.

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u/Amazing-Treat-8706 19h ago

Ok and also the most advanced bioengineered foods I.e American style processed and engineered foodstuffs are extremely unhealthy, widely eaten in advanced nations who are riddled with obesity, cancer, heart disease, depression, etc etc. and then only the most privileged can afford super expensive “all natural”, organic, whole, real food.

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u/drivingagermanwhip 18h ago

it's not superstition to think tech philanthropist interventions usually cause far more problems than they solve, it's just an inescapable observation

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u/Fast-Ring9478 21h ago

It is like nobody even read the article. They tried it for years and now it has reached a point where it has worsened the spread, so they’re stopping. The condescension in this thread is unreal. It is like Bill Gates and Pfizer started their own cult lol

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u/CriticalNovel22 21h ago

It is like nobody even read the article. They tried it for years and now it has reached a point where it has worsened the spread, so they’re stopping.

The article does not say that at all.

The closest it comes to this is,

As reported by Bloomberg, campaigns in Africa accuse Target Malaria researchers of worsening the spread.

Egountchi Behanzin, a French-Togolese activist who frequently publishes pro-Russian statements online, declared on X that the halting of the project "financed by Bill Gates and the US Army" was a success.

It also says, 

Since seizing power in 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s administration has increasingly sought to limit foreign involvement in domestic policy, particularly projects tied to high-profile Western philanthropists such as Bill Gates.

Officials argue that Burkina Faso needs “locally developed, safer alternatives” rather than experimental technologies imposed from abroad. The suspension also aligns with the military government’s populist agenda, which often casts Western-funded initiatives as undermining sovereignty.

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u/goodoldjefe 21h ago

Do we know for sure that Traoré isn't actually 50,000 mosquitoes in a trench coat?

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u/Immediate_Map235 21h ago

Officials argue that Burkina Faso needs “locally developed, safer alternatives” rather than experimental technologies imposed from abroad. The suspension also aligns with the military government’s populist agenda, which often casts Western-funded initiatives as undermining sovereignty.

show me the lie

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u/Pleasemakesense 21h ago

it is this part "They tried it for years and now it has reached a point where it has worsened the spread, so they’re stopping." and I believe you quoted the wrong part, because it is unrelated to what he said

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u/Kenevin 21h ago

Let me take you up on that.

The suspension also aligns with the military government’s populist agenda, which often casts Western-funded initiatives as undermining sovereignty.

So, here, you are informed that this change just so happens to coincide with the interest of the ruling authoritarian government, who use "western interference" as a propaganda point to control their people. Knowing this, when you read the first sentence again, it should paint it under a new light. Let's look at that sentence now.

Officials argue that Burkina Faso needs “locally developed, safer alternatives” rather than experimental technologies imposed from abroad. 

Safer: As opposed to? See, that word here is meaningless, it just meant to cast aspersion on technologies from "abroad". How do we know that? Because they haven't offered any new local ideas.
Experimental: See above.
Imposed: Ah yes, Bill Gates has been forcing you all these years.
Abroad: Ouhhh, scary scary foreign things.

Right off the bat, there's 4 problems with that phrase. .

Then you move back to the context set in the 2nd phrase and you realize that this is just isolationism in order to maintain power (Think North Korea).

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u/SirPseudonymous 19h ago

this is just isolationism in order to maintain power

They're actively building a broader regional union and working with China, instead of just letting France loot them.

Your entire premise is racist and completely unhinged: you see a periphery state that's finally, after almost 40 years since France assassinated its leader and imposed a dictatorship on it that looted the country for France, freed itself and is taking the steps necessary to insulate itself from the material control mechanisms that the imperial powers use to keep periphery states vulnerable and exploitable, and immediately retreat into the non-falsifiable certainty that anything good they do must be about "maintaining control" instead of actually accomplishing an agenda.

Liberation is their actual goal, improving their material conditions is their actual goal, these aren't some devious 5d chess "mwahahahah, if we do good things then surely people will obey us!" schemes because we live in a world where the CIA is still an infinite magic money and guns fountain where all you have to do to get rich and hold power is be evil as shit and help the US and Europe loot your own country.

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u/Kenevin 16h ago

No, you just see things as binary. Because of a surface level reply, you call me racist?

Shameful, I won't ever read your comment, now.

"Oh look, this man gave an Eli10 answer to a question, since he was being brief, hes clearly a racially motivated bigot"

Yeah, there's nothing in between. You're so clever and righteous.

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u/SirPseudonymous 16h ago

You gave a thought terminating cliche that's never been true, which you believe in because it aligns with your chauvinist beliefs and because you've been bombarded with people telling it to you since you were a child.

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u/Kenevin 16h ago

Thats called projection. You actually terminated all thought by opening up a conversation with a stranger by calling them a racist and then doubling down.

Keep telling me about me, since we've never met or interacted, you are sure to score some points somewhere, eh?

Like you're calling a man with a black wife and black children racist, while reducing the entire poppulation of a country down to their race as the only reason why someone would be critical of their authoritarian government.

Jokes on you, the real racist is you.

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u/Fast-Ring9478 21h ago

Likening a “populist” movement’s government to the authoritarian regime of North Korea because they decided to stop being lab rats for a billionaire’s medical and ecological experiments. You are so right.

Don’t you think it is a bit naïve to be arguing these points with such an absolutist view when we only have information being reported publicly? Given the time frames for all these events, it is completely reasonable to think there would have been some actual evidence to suggest the spread has increased, but the article completely brushes over that so as to insinuate it is baseless.

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u/Kenevin 20h ago

I was being condescending, so I gave the most extreme example I could think of.

Anyway: Tactics are the same, it's just the degree of implementation that differs, no matter how you choose to frame the strawman you chose to respond to

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u/Expert-Diver7144 20h ago

You understand a great many African countries have a favorable position on Russia due to historical support from the nation and colonization by western nations? Why is it framed as it the activist shouldn’t be believed because they post pro russian statements.

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u/Ok_Night_2929 21h ago

To be fair, the article brings up multiple reasons why the Burkina Faso government would want to stop the program, and a single line that states the genetically modified mosquito population has actually worsened the spread, with no evidence or explanation to as how. Other articles explain that the significant push back from the government comes from their opposition to Gene Drive technology, which was the ultimate goal of the project, but so far all the mosquitos released were sterile and thus not adding to the population problem. So clearly there were other reasons for the government opposition, which is worth being discussed here

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u/Zephyr256k 20h ago

but so far all the mosquitos released were sterile and thus not adding to the population problem.

I think it's worth asking how we know they're all sterile.

What's the success rate for the technique they're using?
How is that measured?
What's the degree of uncertainty?

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u/ClayDavis_Shiiiiiiii 21h ago

“Nobody even read the article”.

Ironic

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u/brunckle 4h ago

Source: Trust me, bro

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u/MuyalHix 20h ago

Actual reason is that if you have lived in one of these countries, you know that "humanitarian help" rarely comes for free. There's always some strings attached.

Maybe in this case it doesn't, but almost always when another country comes offering charity, they only do it because they know they'll get something in return.

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u/ThroawayJimilyJones 19h ago

Long story short: they don't like to have fun. Could fight epidemic with an army of mutant mosquito, but nope, gotta "respect nature and hug trees"

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u/GitmoGrrl1 17h ago

Children don't govern themselves. They need responsible adults to do that.

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u/JFHermes 21h ago

I'm not particularly religious but I also don't trust some random scientists to genetically engineer mosquitoes. The idea itself seems like a call to hubris. It's a pandoras box type situation in that you can't fix it if a mistake is made.

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u/d3l3t3rious 21h ago

Yes it's all by random scientists, they are chosen with no regard for their field of expertise. The mosquitoes were genetically modified by a geologist funnily enough!

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u/WhatDidChuckBarrySay 21h ago

They’ve been doing this for years to control mosquito populations in general. Look it up.

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u/JFHermes 21h ago

He added that “This technology is highly controversial, unpredictable, and raises ethical concerns. More specifically, the impacts of gene-drive organisms on health and ecosystems remain unknown and potentially irreversible.”

Perfectly reasonable take. They are the ones with skin in the game, Bill Gates is not.

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u/WhatDidChuckBarrySay 21h ago

They do this in Florida.