Zika Outbreak Epicenter in Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released in 2015

By Claire Bernish

The World Health Organization announced it will convene an Emergency Committee under International Health Regulations on Monday, February 1, concerning the Zika virus ‘explosive’ spread throughout the Americas. The virus reportedly has the potential to reach pandemic proportions — possibly around the globe. But understanding why this outbreak happened is vital to curbing it. As the WHO statement said:

A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes … is strongly suspected. [These links] have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika, from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.

WHO is deeply concerned about this rapidly evolving situation for 4 main reasons: the possible association of infection with birth malformations and neurological syndromes; the potential for further international spread given the wide geographical distribution of the mosquito vector; the lack of population immunity in newly affected areas; and the absence of vaccines, specific treatments, and rapid diagnostic tests […]

The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty.


Zika seemingly exploded out of nowhere. Though it was first discovered in 1947, cases only sporadically occurred throughout Africa and southern Asia. In 2007, the first case was reported in the Pacific. In 2013, a smattering of small outbreaks and individual cases were officially documented in Africa and the western Pacific. They also began showing up in the Americas. In May 2015, Brazil reported its first case of Zika virus — and the situation changed dramatically.

Brazil is now considered the epicenter of the Zika outbreak, which coincides with at least 4,000 reports of babies born with microcephaly just since October.

When examining a rapidly expanding potential pandemic, it’s necessary to leave no stone unturned so possible solutions, as well as future prevention, will be as effective as possible. In that vein, there was another significant development in 2015.

zika-microcephaly-300x193Oxitec first unveiled its large-scale, genetically-modified mosquito farm in Brazil in July 2012, with the goal of reducing “the incidence of dengue fever,” as The Disease Daily reported. Dengue fever is spread by the same Aedes mosquitoes which spread the Zika virus — and though they “cannot fly more than 400 meters,” WHO stated, “it may inadvertently be transported by humans from one place to another.” By July 2015, shortly after the GM mosquitoes were first released into the wild in Juazeiro, Brazil, Oxitec proudly announced they had “successfully controlled the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads dengue fever, chikungunya and zika virus, by reducing the target population by more than 90%.”

Though that might sound like an astounding success — and, arguably, it was — there is an alarming possibility to consider.

Nature, as one Redditor keenly pointed out, finds a way — and the effort to control dengue, zika, and other viruses, appears to have backfired dramatically.

Juazeiro, Brazil — the location where genetically-modified mosquitoes were first released into the wild.

zika-epicenterMap showing the concentration of suspected Zika-related cases of microcephaly in Brazil.

The particular strain of Oxitec GM mosquitoes, OX513A, are genetically altered so the vast majority of their offspring will die before they mature — though Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher published concerns in a report in September 2010 that a known survival rate of 3-4 percent warranted further study before the release of the GM insects. Her concerns, which were echoed by several other scientists both at the time and since, appear to have been ignored — though they should not have been.

Those genetically-modified mosquitoes work to control wild, potentially disease-carrying populations in a very specific manner. Only the male modified Aedes mosquitoes are supposed to be released into the wild — as they will mate with their unaltered female counterparts. Once offspring are produced, the modified, scientific facet is supposed to ‘kick in’ and kill that larvae before it reaches breeding age — if tetracycline is not present during its development. But there is a problem.

According to an unclassified document from the Trade and Agriculture Directorate Committee for Agriculture dated February 2015, Brazil is the third largest in “global antimicrobial consumption in food animal production” — meaning, Brazil is third in the world for its use of tetracycline in its food animals. As a study by the American Society of Agronomy, et. al., explained, “It is estimated that approximately 75% of antibiotics are not absorbed by animals and are excreted in waste.” One of the antibiotics (or antimicrobials) specifically named in that report for its environmental persistence is tetracycline.

zika-mosquito-300x200Aedes aegypti mosquito. Image credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

In fact, as a confidential internal Oxitec document divulged in 2012, that survival rate could be as high as 15% — even with low levels of tetracycline present. “Even small amounts of tetracycline can repress” the engineered lethality. Indeed, that 15% survival rate was described by Oxitec:

After a lot of testing and comparing experimental design, it was found that [researchers] had used a cat food to feed the [OX513A] larvae and this cat food contained chicken. It is known that tetracycline is routinely used to prevent infections in chickens, especially in the cheap, mass produced, chicken used for animal food. The chicken is heat-treated before being used, but this does not remove all the tetracycline. This meant that a small amount of tetracycline was being added from the food to the larvae and repressing the [designed] lethal system.

Even absent this tetracycline, as Steinbrecher explained, a “sub-population” of genetically-modified Aedes mosquitoes could theoretically develop and thrive, in theory, “capable of surviving and flourishing despite any further” releases of ‘pure’ GM mosquitoes which still have that gene intact. She added, “the effectiveness of the system also depends on the [genetically-designed] late onset of the lethality. If the time of onset is altered due to environmental conditions … then a 3-4% [survival rate] represents a much bigger problem…”

As the WHO stated in its press release, “conditions associated with this year’s El Nino weather pattern are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas.”

Incidentally, President Obama called for a massive research effort to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus, as one does not currently exist. Brazil has now called in 200,000 soldiers to somehow help combat the virus’ spread. Aedes mosquitoes have reportedly been spotted in the U.K. But perhaps the most ironic — or not — proposition was proffered on January 19, by the MIT Technology Review:

An outbreak in the Western Hemisphere could give countries including the United States new reasons to try wiping out mosquitoes with genetic engineering.

Yesterday, the Brazilian city of Piracicaba said it would expand the use of genetically modified mosquitoes …

The GM mosquitoes were created by Oxitec, a British company recently purchased by Intrexon, a synthetic biology company based in Maryland. The company said it has released bugs in parts of Brazil and the Cayman Islands to battle dengue fever.

This article (Zika Outbreak Epicenter in Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released in 2015) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.


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54 Comments on "Zika Outbreak Epicenter in Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released in 2015"

  1. somebody seems to have forgotten that these insects also sting humans.

  2. This shrunken brain problem directly coincides with the introduction of a new Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria,Pertussis) vaccine in Brazil, which was announced in Dec 2014 and went into use in 2015

    • interesting observation.

    • it also coincides with the end of the 2014 World Cup, which probably is what brought Zika to Brazil.

      but more importantly, if the new Tdap was made mandatory in all of Brazil, and it is correlated with the microcephaly cases, why most of the cases are concentrated in the northeast of Brazil, specially in Pernambuco State?

      Why almost no cases in the most populous states of Brazil like São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul (these states combined have a population of 100 million people (42 million in São Paulo State, 20 million in Minas Gerais, 15 million in Rio de Janeiro State, 11 in Paraná and 12 in Rio Grande do Sul)

      However, being more to the South, they are farther away from the epicenter and thus have less Zika cases. More than that, the 3 southernmost (including Santa Catarina, 6 million people) states and São Paulo too, all microcephaly and Zika cases were from women who got the disease while travelling to Northeast states. To finish it off, being in the south, they are COLDER and TRADITIONALLY have less cases of Dengue because Aedes Aegypt mosquito has more difficulty with temperatures below 15ºC. (Rio de Janeiro has lots of Dengue cases, but Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná have very few)

      Thus, the theory of the vaccine DOES NOT matches reality. You have a coincidence of dates, but only that. Area where the vaccine is applied does not matches geographical area where Zika and microcephaly cases are happening. Zika and Microcephaly cases match very well, HOWEVER, traditional dengue prone areas (that is, where the Aedes Aegypt mosquito breeds more easily)

    • excellent, except for one minor detail..,,,those are not given until the child is already born! (and to spoon feed it to you….. already has zika in the womb where microcephaly develops)

  3. Proving that the ‘world health org’ is just another top down nwo agenda 2030 agency along w/ Billie the merciless would make old Ming take second place.
    Gmo mosqitos – ya-uhh-sure-uhh let’s release that in the wild.
    I suppose they all slap themselves on their perverted backsides -XX#!#!!!XX

  4. Olympic Games is done in winter epoch in Brazil. mosquitoes do not breed.

    86% of cases of zika in northeastern Brazil is not in rio de janeiro. We were played where the transgenic mosquitoes Oxitec was where most cases occurred zika. because majoritamente cases of microcephaly happen northeastern Brazil. Mere coincidence. Africa has always had disease zika decades and never had cases of microcephaly. globalist false flag. media lies. Brazilian government said prohibit not pregnancy… fuc@£§€ gatessss

  5. When are puny humans going to discover that you can’t fool Mother Nature?

  6. This is not a surprise. There never was a real intention to cure dengue fever. The purpose was to cause disease that would damage large numbers of people. It’s not a mistake and it’s not an accident.

    Why would anyone believe that the “powers that be” would want to do benevolent act while spending all of their time and effort on malevolent acts for the past 100 years or so? All GM is for malevolent purposes, period. They’ve been jacking up vaccines for ages, so this microcephaly could be a double whammy.

    But I suppose there will be people who’ll just keep making excuses for these psychopaths and allow them to continue with their mad science, mayhem, and murder as if it was acceptable.

  7. Obama says lets make a vaccine for this…What else would he say?

  8. Any excuse to stick a needle in everybody.

  9. The map doesn’t even point to the right town. It points to Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará state. Juazeiro is several hundred km to the south, in Bahia state. This is just emblematic of what shoddy journalism this is. The only facts that you cite – that despite problems, the trial reduced mosquito populations though less than expected – suggests that the GM mosquitos are slowing the spread of Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases. The major epicentres, as per the map you show, are after all on the coast, not in Juazeiro.

  10. They are looking for the vaccines they came up with in the Mid 20thC, just check the USA’s Health Institute aka bio-weapons lab!

  11. Thank you Billy & Melinda, thank you as well George & of course we have to thanks Fort Derrick, for without them it wouldn’t have been possible ??

  12. Always do your OWN research

  13. Scientist need to leave well enough alone. ——-Here we have again idiots messing around with our health and then destroys it. You people are not GOD. He made things a certain way. He certainly knew better then you jerks. YOu have endangered everyone. Now it is babies.. You have created monsters. Now what are you going to come up with to destroy the monsters. YOu leased this out to the public you morons.!!!

    • Shut up lol, there’s reasons why God created the humans, if he knew that we were going to destroy an entire specie then why would he create us at first? Geez all these Christians idiots these days…..

  14. This is the epitome of stupidity. Not just trying to wipe out an entire species but there’s unintended consequences. What about the fauna that consumes this insect and is quite possibly a natural control for them? Do they wipe them out in the process? A politician almost destroyed the bat population in Colorado some years back trying to kill them pesky moe-skeeters. And now they want to double down on this program?!?!? Let’s not mention the state of these GMO mosquitos cells. You need to understand that not just one cell in each specimen is damaged and truncated due to the splicing technology, but every cell in every specimen is like that, increasing the potential for mutations thousands of percentages. And then there’s “transmutations” from splicing animal organisms with plant organisms.
    CRAZY!!

    • If I’m not mistaken, the whole reason why aedes egipti runs around crazy is that it’s predators have died or moved away with urban spreading. In areas where its predators live (wild), they’re not over populated, only in urban area where the animals who eat it are considered a plague (frogs, for example).

  15. Yeh right, blame it on the mosquito and then spray poison everywhere which will in turn cause even more health issues. We already know there is a correlation between this problem in infants and the introduction of inoculating pregnant women. No coincidence there, WE ARE NOT FOOLED!

  16. Soon the Justice for Zika movement will begin. Support groups for Zika Moms. Soccer Moms gushing about how their Zika is just as good as other kids. Christians saying that it’s God’s will and not any kind of problem. Love is not a problem! Handbooks on how to get infected and have a Zika baby…..

  17. Shut down all biotech!

  18. i rather look at the shots they are giving to these pregnant women.
    this sounds like taken right out of “brave new world” they are creating betas by shrinking their brains with some chemical introduced either by shots to the mothers or a vector mosquito.

  19. thumbsdownGMOmosquitoANDvaxxes | January 30, 2016 at 9:16 am |

    no doubt Billie the shill Gates will be more than happy if his gmo mosqito destroys every breathing thing in Brazil – then onto the rest of the world.

  20. vaccines do not contain “heavy metals”…that’s a musical style

    anyway, there IS no vaccine against the zika virus which is why the situation is dangerous for pregnant women.

    • Many vaccines used to contain thimerosal, a mercury based preservative and the flu vaccine still uses it. Most vaccines also have aluminum, another known neurotoxin. Mercury is a heavy metal although i suppose you could say aluminum is not a HEAVY metal.. they are neurotoxins though.

  21. The new slave species? What better worker drone can you get than a person with microencephaly?

  22. This shouldn’t surprise anyone…..once again our “fearless leaders” try to change the “world” by artificially depositing ‘non-native’ species where they don’t belong in an effort to help science..i.e. Africanized honey bees….They will never understand that importing any foreign species into our environment will not only destroy the native species, but will flourish because of a lack of enemies.

    • Aedes Aegypt itself is not native to Brazil.

      • That is what I mean..The Africanized bee was IMPORTED to a lab in SA to study and THE BEES escaped the lab…Not native, no natural enemies.

        • No, it’s not what you mean. The Aedes Aegypt was not brought to the Americas by our “fearless leaders” in the way you imply. It was brought in the Columbian Exchange, just like coffee and bananas and horses to Americas, and potatos, corn, cocoa to the Old World.

          Aedes Aegypti arrived in the Americas as early as the 1800s, probably earlier.

  23. Well apparently this is one way too curb population growth 7.5 billion and counting

  24. Decades ago, they experimented with GM bees in Sao Paulo too. The European bees were crossed with African killer bees, in order to create a bee that produces more honey. The result was that populations of Brazilians in small rural areas had to abandon entire towns because they were being attacked by lethal bees. The bees have already been spread all the way to the United States and there was a documentary about this lab bee disaster. The irony is that these companies use the ‘jungle’ in Brazil to make their irresponsible experiments but in the end they can’t contain their beasts and they end up in the US or Europe…..greed is deadly.

    • “the jungle in Brazil”

      Look at a satellite photo of Brazil and you will notice half of it (an area the size of half Europe) is not convered in jungle. There are desertic areas, plains areas, savannah areas, etc)

  25. The Eugenicists have won!! Please now everyone lay down and just die. Its the trendy socially responsible thing to do. You don’t want to be politically incorrect do you? Take this same article and look at the pandemic from the same areas of GMO produced mosquitoes in the US. Remarkably Texas and Florida where the same GMO altered mosquitoes were released. But don’t worry this is just another conspiracy theory. Nothing to see here folks move along! Oh and don’t forget to vote for Honest Hilary Clinton for Pres. She is the real deal don’t forget.

  26. Believing the Whirled Stealth Organisation: Shrunken Brians indeed, border lockdowns in the Zika seed, vaccinations they’ll force upon thee, Centers for Disease Creation from which they feed

    “If you want to hide anything on this planet, twist it into a (fake) story about a virus. You’re home free.

    This is my second article on the Zika-virus scam (article archive here). I’ve been to these rodeos before: HIV, West Nile, Swine Flu, SARS, Ebola. In each case, a virus is blamed for illness and death that actually arises from other causes.

    The Zika virus, now being blamed for the birth of babies with very small heads and impaired brains, has been around for a long time—late 1940s, early 1950s—and suddenly, without warning or reason, after
    inducing, at best, mild illness, it’s producing horrendous damage? This is called a clue. A clue that scientific liars are lying. Furthermore, many of the women who are giving birth to deformed babies test negative for the presence of the Zika Virus.

    So, what is causing babies to be born with very small heads and brain damage? While researching my first book in 1987-8, AIDS INC., I concluded: don’t assume there is only one cause for illness. That can be very
    misleading. Various factors can combine to produce disease and death.

    For example, in the case of this “Zika” phenomenon:

    One: Pesticide use in Brazil:…”

    https :// jonrappoport. wordpress. com/category/zika/

    https :// jonrappoport. wordpress. com/2016/01/29/zika-freakout-the-hoax-and-the-covert-op-continue/

    • Well, the most obvious reason for something flaring up is a change in the ambient conditions:

      1. The virus might mutate to a more virulent form. Anyone studying HIV genetic codes knows that mutation can be fairly rapid.
      2. The virus might have been contained by a local genetic population of humans relatively resistant. After all, scientists looking at prostitutes in West Africa found a group of them resistant to HIV. If those from other parts of the world came into contact, they might be more susceptible. So global travel could contribute to something flaring up.
      3. Altered viral life cycles/integration into the human genome might be triggered by certain chemicals: if you look at HPVs, you’ll find that they are an etiological agent of cervical cancer, but insufficient to cause disease progression and that in cancer cases, the viral genome has often integrated abnormally into the human genetic make-up. So you want to look to see if anything might trigger viral pathology.
      4. If the virus was normally not able to enter CNS tissue/developing embryonic CNS tissue, it might exist without causing microcephaly. It might be specific environmental insults which allowed abnormal transmission into the CNS leading to disease development.

      Just a few suggestions of how things might occur…

      • Thanks for the suggestions rtj.

        However, the scientism scams are for the common man; and Padraigin sure ain’t no common man. Izika zumba is a hoax fraud of the usual sort, à la Orlando, Sandy Crook and Boston by the book, fear mongering the herd, clearly they wish us interred, The Eagle not leaving just yet, plenty more Cabal capers to expose, you bet.

        https :// jonrappoport. wordpress. com/category/zika/
        https :// www. youtube. com/watch?v=DOXg9c86O-o

  27. Articles like these sure attract, the uneducated science hating hordes.

  28. btw, the map in this article is wrong. It points the city of Juazeiro do Norte, in Ceará State.

    The Oxitec mosquito trials were made in the city of Juazeiro, in Bahia state. While also in the northeast of the country, it´s further south, even further away from the epicenter IN THE COAST.

  29. Today I used the Q&A function of WHO for the following question:

    Oxitec claims its GMO-Product OX513A ‘Friendly Aedes Aegypti’ to be ‘environmentally sustainable’ and is recommending further distribution. But other scientists are warning that this confounds cause and effect and could mean a heavy jump from the frying pan Dengue into the fire Zika. Longer surviving modified vectors (Tetracycline based) may have already shifted their virus preference. Does WHO provide any research in that direction?

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  31. There is one mistake with the article. You are pointing in the map the city of Juazeiro do Norte (Nothern Juazeiro), which is in the state of Ceará, but the mosquito was released in the city of Juazeiro, which is in the state of Bahia. There is much less occurrence close to Juazeiro, Bahia. Please check the map up.

  32. “Nature, as one Redditor keenly pointed out, finds a way — and the effort to control dengue, zika, and other viruses, appears to have backfired dramatically.” Wow, some serious due diligence on sources for this one. Not even going to give Dr. Ian Malcolm the full credit for that?

  33. Genetic Engineering of vaccines, viruses, bacteria, animals, and people are all part of this year’s Worldwide Threat Assessment by the National Security Agency. Don’t be surprised that hyper intelligent people can attack a population and cover their tracks. Honestly, for all we know the vaccine was just a catalyst for something else that was already there; or correlation doesn’t imply causation and the vaccine was just a huge coincidence. This is why we have intelligence agencies to find out the facts; and then not tell the public.

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