Radical Environmentalists Condemn African Children to Malaria Deaths

by Richard Schulman

“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,” an op ed in the Wall Street Journal (July 31, 2019) reports.

A program called Target Malaria is seeking to eliminate malaria in the developing sector by eliminating the three mosquito species that transmit the disease virus to humans. The program involves spreading modified genes (“gene driving”) into the three malaria-transmitting species so that the females are sterile or produce only males. The world’s other 3,500-plus different mosquitoes species will remain unaffected.

The main victims of malaria are children under five in the developing sector. “Malaria killed between 438,000 and 720,000 people in 2015. So starting from the moment we have deployable gene drive technologies that could wipe out the disease, every day we wait kills between 1,200 and 2,000 people,” Vox reports.

Radical environmentalists, including the Democratic Party linked Friends of the Earth organization, are doing everything in their power to save the mosquitoes at the expense of young children. These anti-progress “Progressives” oppose gene modification, no matter how life-saving the application. They regard humans as a harmful intruder on Planet Earth and are philosophically opposed to new technologies, such as genetic modification, that change the natural order. These, they fear, could alter the food chain, harming predator species that feed on the mosquitoes. Prior scientific research has shown these fears to be groundless. The Journal op ed explains:

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.

Radical environmentalist groups are closely intertwined with the Democratic Party. Friends of the Earth (FOE) has a Democratic congresswoman from Maine, Chloe Maxmin, on its board of directors. In 2016, FOE supported democratic-socialist candidate Bernie Sanders for president. It presently is funding the campaigns of three of the four radical “Squad” members (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY; Ilhan Omar, D-MN; and Rashida Tlaib, D-MI) who have come under attack by Republicans and even House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. FOE also opposes nuclear energy.

Golden Rice, same story

Radical environmentalists are similarly active in thwarting genetically modified foods, which they denounce as “Frankenfoods,” even though farmers have been deliberately modifying food species for thousands of years. The new GM foods are carefully vetted before introduction, and are generally more nutritious, use less pesticides and water, and are more tolerant of challenging climates.

Greenpeace, also closely intertwined with the Democratic Party, has been defending the destruction by environmentalist vandals in 2013 of an important “Golden Rice” research plot in the Philippines. The rice being studied had been genetically modified to increase its provitamin A content. Rice, a staple of southeast Asian diets, is deficient in vitamin A. The intention of the Golden Rice program is to alleviate the blindness and death of developing sector children caused by vitamin A deficiency.

Over one hundred Nobel Prize winning scientists signed a letter calling for Greenpeace to cease its efforts to kill life-saving genetic-modification technologies such as Golden Rice.

Greenpeace is currently lobbying the Democratic Party to nominate the most pro-Green Deal, anti-fossil-fuel presidential candidate possible. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden, with “B+” ratings, are tied for third place in Greenpeace’s score card. Donald Trump unsurprisingly comes in last with an “F.” Greepeace also opposes nuclear energy.

The Democrats are fond of calling President Trump and the Republicans “racists.” But what could be more racist than to condemn African and other developing sector children to premature death by malaria or vitamin A deficiency, or to deny poor people the benefits of nuclear power and inexpensive fossil fuels to raise their standards of living?

Both Target Malaria and the Golden Rice research are supported by the Gates Foundation created by Bill and Melinda Gates. Target Malaria is also supported by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. Their efforts to support beneficial technologies to save lives and improve health in the developing sector deserve praise and support. Bill Gates and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore also support nuclear energy. Moore left Greenpeace in 1986. They present a welcome contrast to the Luddite, anti-human activities of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.