You just know it is! Haven't had time for this one. But from the little I've heard and read. This is over hyped. No real connections have been made between the virus and the birth defects. There are many curious aspects about Brazil that need to be factored in. One being the attempts to oust the leader. Another being the heavy, heavy use of pesticides. Which are designed to attack the nervous system of insects in many cases.CAUSE AND EFFECT:“The alternative theory has also found support from the Brazilian Association for Collective Health, which named Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the birth defects and has condemned the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes.” Picture showsa four-month-old child born with microcephaly in Brazil.The Hindu
A new report challenges the theory of Zika virus causing microcephaly among newborns in Brazil and claims pesticide-laced drinking water is to blame
With direct causality between Zika virus and microcephaly, a congenital brain development anomaly, yet to be established, Latin American doctors have come up with an alternative explanation: that a pesticide, Pyriproxyfen, was “introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014”.
The six-page report from an Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), has challenged the theory of Zika virus causing microcephaly among newborns in Brazil. The report comes days after the World Health Organization (WHO) had said that the causality (of Zika virus leading to microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome) could be confirmed in the next few weeks.
Causality "could be" confirmed, or not, in the next few weeks. But we've already been sold the mosquito connection via the perception managing media
According to the PCST, “Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.” The report adds that the Brazilian Health Ministry has “failed to recognise that in the area where most sick persons live, a chemical larvicide producing malformations in mosquitoes has been applied for 18 months”.
The article first appeared on GM Watch, run by an eponymous independent organisation, which comments on genetically modified (GM) foods and crops. In the past two months, Brazil has become the epicentre of the Zika outbreak which has now spread to more than 30 countries.
The alternative theory has found support from the Brazilian Association for Collective Health (ABRASCO), which named Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the birth defects on newborns and has condemned the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes.
Pyriproxyfen is used in a state-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes. The PCST report states, “Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development.”
The physicians also note that Zika outbreaks in the past have traditionally been relatively benign and never associated with birth defects — even in areas where it infects 75 per cent of the population.
“Pyriproxyfen is a relatively new introduction to the Brazilian environment; the microcephaly increase is a relatively new phenomenon. So the larvicide seems a plausible causative factor in microcephaly — far more so than GM mosquitoes, which some have blamed for the Zika epidemic and thus for the birth defects. There is no sound evidence to support the notion promoted by some sources that GM mosquitoes can cause Zika, which in turn can cause microcephaly. In fact, out of 404 confirmed microcephaly cases in Brazil, only 17 (4.2%) tested positive for the Zika virus,” reads the PCST report.
I would not discount GM mosquitoes myself-So, only 404 confirmed cases of microcephaly with only 17 of those cases testing positive for Zika virus. The last paragraphs of the report from GM Watch:
Community-based actions
The Argentine Physicians believe that the best defence against Zika is “community-based actions”. An example of such actions is featured in a BBC News report on the Dengue virus in El Salvador. A favourite breeding place for disease-carrying mosquitoes is storage containers of standing water. El Salvadorians have started keeping fish in the water containers, and the fish eat the mosquito larvae. Dengue has vanished along with the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. And so far, the locals don’t have any Zika cases either.Simple yet effective programmes like this are in danger of being neglected in Brazil in favour of the corporate-backed programmes of pesticide spraying and releasing GM mosquitoes. The latter is completely unproven and the former may be causing far more serious harm than the mosquitoes that are being targeted.
Keep It Simple Stupid- KISS- always the best way to go. Of course not much profit for big pharma/agri/petrol chemical in such a perfectly feasible and simple plan of action.Back to the Hindu
Note of caution
The report comes at a time when British medical journal The Lancetin its latest issue stated that the numbers need to be interpreted with caution. Between mid-2015 and January 30, 2016, 4,783 suspected cases of microcephaly were reported. Of these, 1,103 cases have completed clinical, laboratory, and imaging examinations, and 404 (36.2 per cent) were classified as confirmed cases of microcephaly.
Again- Only 404 confirmed cases
Among the confirmed cases, brain abnormalities were detected by imaging in 387 babies and the Zika virus was detected in 17 babies: 709 cases were discarded and 3,670 suspected cases of microcephaly remain under investigation.
Again: Zika virus confirmed in 17 of those 404 confirmed cases- Not an overwhelming case for a connection between the two
In a commentary on the subject, The Lancetstates: “This temporal increase in suspected cases of microcephaly could also be distorted given both raised awareness, with more children than usual being measured and reported, and changing definitions of microcephaly over time. The possibility of over-reporting and misdiagnosis was recently raised by the Latin American Network of Congenital Malformations, 4 and their report led to speculation in the international scientific press on the magnitude of the increase in microcephaly cases.”
Recall this post from the Chemical Manipulation of Humanity Series?Roundup - A Converging Pattern of Toxicity from Farm to Clinic to Lab- And, GreenCrow has done some work on this topic alsoAs has James Corbett-The Truth About the Zika Virus: Jon Rappoport on The Corbett Report