English, Fake News
 

An old 2022 video showing an Aphid being falsely shared as of that of a Genetically modified Mosquito

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A video going viral on social media allegedly shows a genetically modified mosquito with a serial number on its body. The video raises questions: was this done by scientists or someone else? What is the purpose behind it? Is it to spread a virus or to inject a vaccine into people? Let’s verify the claim through this article.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim:  The video shows a genetically modified mosquito with a serial number on its body.

Fact: The insect in the viral video is confirmed to be an aphid, not a genetically modified mosquito. Aphids have two pairs of wings, small red eyes, and lack the proboscis, the needle-like tube that mosquitoes use to suck blood. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, only have one pair of wings. This video first went viral in 2022, and FRANCE 24 media confirmed that the insect was an aphid. However, genetically modified mosquitoes have been released in places like the Cayman Islands (2010), Brazil (2012), and Florida (2021) to control diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria, the insect in the video is unrelated. In 2019, about 6,400 genetically modified mosquitoes were also released in Burkina Faso as part of the Gates Foundation’s Target Malaria project to help reduce malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video directed us to a website called BugGuide. BugGuide is an online community of naturalists who share their observations and knowledge about insects and related creatures. The website identified the insect as “Aphid – Euceraphis punctipennis” which has a black mark on its body.

In 2022, when the video went viral, “The Associated Press” published a fact-check article. They quoted Nora Besansky, a biology professor at the University of Notre Dame, who specializes in mosquitoes. She pointed out that mosquitoes have only one pair of wings, whereas the insect in the video had two pairs. Additionally, they quoted Dina Fonseca, the chair of the entomology department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She noted that the insect lacked a proboscis, the needle-like feeding tube used by mosquitoes to suck blood, and had small red eyes, which are characteristic of silver birch aphids.

Additionally, we also found a news report by FRANCE 24 English published on their YouTube channel on 05 October 2022, titled “Genetically modified mosquito’ goes viral on TikTok”. The report also confirmed that the insect in the viral video is an Aphid and not a genetically modified mosquito.

However, in our investigation, we found that Genetically modified mosquitoes were released in the Cayman Islands (2010), Brazil (2012), and Florida (2021) to control diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria. In 2019, 6,400 modified mosquitoes were released in Burkina Faso under the Gates Foundation’s Target Malaria project, tracked using fluorescent powder. The aim is to reduce malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa, where most cases occur.

To sum up, an old 2022 video showing an Aphid being falsely shared as that of a genetically modified mosquito.

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