Key West The Newspaper

by Walter Lagraves…….

Dear Editor,

As of today there are more than 1177 reported cases of Zika in Florida. There are no 8 known cases n our Keys community.

The other day “Never Again”, probably the loudest anti-GMM voice on Facebook, served up yet another lie pie. It was a noxious pastry chock full of falsehoods and seasoned with mendacity. Never Again has no respect for your intelligence. They believe you to be sufficiently inane to not check them for truth. They claimed that Oxitec was running a secret lab on the public dollar at the Marathon Mosquito Control facility. They did their damnedest to make you think that it was an illicit operation.

The plain and simple, and very public fact, is that Oxitec has had a lab in place at the FKMCA Marathon facility for a long long time. The lab is in an unused storage area. That lab is not currently fully operational. It is not now, nor has it ever been a secret. The fact is that the lab has been, to date, used only to rear a very limited number of mosquitoes in order to ensure that the lab is ready to go when the approval to proceed is granted. Never Again is attempting to convince the unwary that that some sort of skulduggery is afoot. There is none, zero, none. The public record proves it.

The fact is that permission was granted to Oxitec only after a series of very public board meetings. The record of those meetings is available for all to review. I believe that the permission was granted by unanimous vote of the board. I believe that ousted, but heavily financed by the Anti’s, Commissioner Steve Smith, was the leader of the pack. You can be rock solid certain that Never Again was present at each and every one of those meetings and voted for the Oxitec lab. You can be sure that Never Again has been well aware of the lab since it was in the planning stage.

Never Again has been reduced to throwing bushels of their fecal matter on public walls hoping that even tiny portions of their odious rants will stick.

I suggest that you think about the rock solid fact that the voice of Never Again chooses to be anonymous. Why? is it an artifice to be a shield from censure? Everyone who reads this knows my identity. I hope that you will also wonder why Never Again and the other Anti GMO FaceBook groups ban any comment or questions that do not hew to their party line? Personally I believe it is because they are afraid to expose their followers to truth.

The Anti movement was roundly dismissed in the election. Every candidate that they supported was thoroughly defeated.

The day after the election, Barry Wray, the face and very long winded voice, of the Anti’s appeared on a local radio show. When interviewed he claimed that his Anti group, the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, had not supported any FKMCB commission candidate.

That is not true. You can check it out for yourself in the web site of the Monroe Supervisor of elections.

The truth is that his coalition, the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition actually gave $10K to a PAC. That PAC was/is Citizens for Safe Science. “Citizens” treasurer is Megan Hull, a very vocal Anti and associate of Wray. “Citizens” made no political donations except to candidates for the mosquito control board. “Citizens” gave money only to Steve Smith, Janet Wood, and Norris-Watkins. Each received $500. Each had pledged to Wray’s FKEC to resist the use of GMM. Wray, We know that because Wray told us that in the radio interview,. He stated that “we”, (the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition,) had received pledges from Smith, Wood, and Norris-Watkins that they would resist the GMM project. Smith, Yep, Wood, and Norris-Watkins got big donations from “Citizens.” “Citizens” was funded by Wray’s FKEC.

Wray continued to bob and weave. He evaded the truth by claiming that “his” group had only received only a “little local funding.” That is not true. We now know that Gray’s group, FKEC was not a recipient, it was a donor of $10k to “Citizens”. “Citizens” is a PAC. FKEC is a not for profit.

The truth is that “Citizens” did not receive only local money. “Citizens” was also funded by more than $12k from out of state anti-genetic engineering outfits. And it was further funded by quadruple and triple digit donations from local big time real estate interests. Real estate interests have admitted that they oppose the Key Haven trial because they fear it would hurt their profits. The records are public, available for all to see.

As of this writing the Florida Department of Health is reporting that there are 1177 reported cases of Zika in Florida, about 150 of those cases are in pregnant women. That’s an increase of 146 cases in just a month. That’s about 10 cases more per month than the previous month. Now there are 8 cases in Monroe County.

The public has spoken. It’s time for the Florida Keys Mosquito Control Authority to begin using every available weapon to combat Zika. It’s time to stop dithering and get going with the safe and effective use of genetic engineering to kill the Zika vector.