A new ridiculous rumor is spreading around the internets. According to conspiracy theorists, the recent outbreak of Zika can be blamed on the British biotech company Oxitec, which some are saying even intentionally caused the disease as a form of ethnic cleansing or population control. The articles all cite a lone Redditor who proposed the connection on January 25th to the Conspiracy subreddit. "There are no biological free lunches," says one commenter on the idea. "Releasing genetically altered species into the environment could have disastrous consequences" another added. "Maybe that's what some entities want to happen...?" For some reason, it's been one of those months where random nonsense suddenly hits mainstream. Here are the facts: there's no evidence whatsoever to support this conspiracy theory, or any of the other bizarre, anti-science claims that have popped up in the past few weeks. So let's stop all of this right here, right ...
No, GM Mosquitoes Didn't Start The Zika Outbreak.
Genetically modified mosquitoes are not responsible for the Zika virus outbreak, debunking conspiracy theories around their release.
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