evidence: Claim: On social media, many users are making a connection between the current cases of EEE in the US and the release of genetically modified mosquitoes bred by the company Oxitec, which is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others (here, here, here and here). [...] To combat this public health problem, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting the company Oxitec, among others, which is experimenting with genetically modified mosquitoes. In 2020, the biotech company officially received permission to release the laboratory-bred mosquitoes although they had to be geographically limited to Florida. The aim is to reduce the pest population. [...] Bill Gates has often been the target of disinformation and conspiracy myths. For example, social media users also suspected that the genetically modified Oxitec mosquitoes were behind the dengue outbreak in Brazil at the beginning of the year and cases of malaria in the US in 2023.