It totally baffles me why the words “genetically modified” raise such visions of monsters due to horror movies and science fiction books that people campaign to stop the release of more Oxitec bugs.

We know the horror movies and sci fi books are pure fiction with absolutely no proven data that anything shown or told therein has ever actually developed..

With the Oxitec bugs having been released some years ago here and other places in the world and more released here last year I have as yet not heard of one mutation insect, animal or new species of some diabolical monster appearing anywhere.

I have not heard of one person who has been bitten by one of these Oxitec bugs becoming ill with symptoms ranging from a scale of 1-1000!

There has to be some motive behind the backing given previously to Dwene Ebanks by the Institute for Responsible Technology in California for them to hire local attorney Kerrie Cox from HSM and once again to try and stir up our population with the most dubious of ‘facts’ I have ever heard.

Oxitec’s work on genetically modified bugs has been ongoing for many years and their work has been published in many, many journals, had approval from scientists and by the World Health Organisation!

The large majority of people who study these things, way beyond my comprehension, say this type of bio-engineering is safe and holds great promise for the future eradication of dangerous pests like the Aedes aegypti without poisoning the environment, unlike pesticides.

The unknown is now becoming the known with this type of bug being released.

What we do know is that if the Aedes aegypti mosquito responsible for many diseases such as the awful Zika is not eradicated human life here is going to suffer. That is a fact.

Why Kerrie Cox, who indeed has some intelligence, is trying to persuade us to petition government into using the Wolbachia method where it is proven the bacteria remains in the air, is baffling.

And baffling why people here are listening to this.