Bill Gates - Message to Washington

Bill Gates sat down with Politico for a wide ranging interview ahead of the Microsoft founder’s meeting with the President. Mr. Gates said he would press upon the president the benefit of foreign aid and how the combination of taxpayer dollars and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation help save lives.

Imagine more than 50 million genetically-modified mosquitoes being released on your hometown — the city you live in being used as a testing ground for mutant mosquitoes created in a science lab. That’s exactly what will happen in cities in Florida and Texas if Oxitec, a British biotech company, gets its way. I live in Key West, Florida, one of the areas targeted by Oxitec for this mutant mosquito experiment. I need your help to stop this, and to send a message to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that cities like my hometown shouldn’t be laboratories for big biotech firms. Sign my petition calling on the EPA to prevent Oxitec from unleashing hundreds of millions of mutant mosquitoes into the ecosystem. Oxitec wants to release upwards of 50 million of these genetically-modified mosquitoes per week in the Florida Keys, as well as Harris County in Texas — but we have no idea what kind of harm this type of experiment could have on the environment, or to the health of people who live in the cities targeted by Oxitec. Already more than 170,000 people have signed my petition, and next week I’m personally delivering my petition to the EPA. But I need to add as many signatures as I can to help convince the EPA not to treat my hometown as a laboratory for mutant mosquitoes. Will you sign my petition, and help send a message to the EPA that biotech companies shouldn’t be able to experiment on populations with genetically-modified mosquitoes?