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A chemical currently being used to ward off mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus and a commonly used insecticide that was threatened with a ban in the United States have been associated with reduced motor function in Chinese infants, a University of Michigan study found.
Researchers at the U-M School of Public Health and U-M Center for Human Growth and Development tested children in China and found exposure to the chemical naled via their mothers during pregnancy was associated with 3-4 percent lower fine motor skills scores at age 9 months for those in the top 25 percent of naled exposure, compared to those in the lowest 25 percent of exposure. Infants exposed to chlorpyrifos scored 2-7 percent lower on a range of key gross and fine motor skills.
Girls appeared to be more sensitive to the negative effects of the chemicals than boys.
Naled is one of the chemicals being used in several U.S. states to combat the mosquito that transmits Zika. Chlorpyrifos, around since the 1960s, is used on vegetables, fruit and other crops to control pests.
Both are insecticides called organophosphates, a class of chemicals that includes nerve agents like sarin gas. They inhibit an enzyme involved in the nerve signaling process, paralyzing insects and triggering respiratory failure. However, they may adversely impact health through other mechanisms at lower exposure levels that are commonly encountered in the environment.
In the children studied, naled affected fine motor skills or the small movements of hands, fingers, face, mouth and feet. Chlorpyrifos was associated with lower scores for both gross (large movements of arms and legs) and fine motor skills.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @03:05AM (4 children)
http://www.naturalnews.com/054248_Zika_virus_medical_hoax_vaccine_industry.html [naturalnews.com]
"But because Zika virus fear fits a convenient funding narrative for chemical giants and vaccine manufacturers, it is being played up by the corrupt, criminally-run CDC and the Obama administration to funnel billions of dollars into the hands of vaccine corporations while ignoring the real causes of microcephaly.
Here are the top 10 reasons why the Zika virus fear mongering is a total scam:
#1) The microcephaly cases (shrunken heads) in Brazil were caused by larvicide chemicals, not by zika
A group of doctors from South America are now saying the brain deformations the world is witnessing are caused by the mass fumigation of low-income Brazilian people with a chemical larvicide, not by mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus. ..."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 14 2017, @12:43PM (3 children)
Zika is basically Dengue + the microcephaly phenomenon.
I've heard the theories that larvicides cause the microcephaly, if this is true some researcher is going to make a huge name for themselves in history by figuring out how to prove it - it shouldn't take more than 5-10 years to get credible animal model results one way or the other.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:42PM (2 children)
The larvicide use does not correlate with the epidemiological evidence, while Zika virus infection at specific stages during fetal development do. The evidence collected so far points in a specific direction away from larvicides and it seems that only incredibly low probability coincidence or a vast conspiracy could be responsible otherwise.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:18AM (1 child)
And I think that was what I was getting at - if nobody steps forward with "proof" of the larvicide hypothesis in the next 5-10 years, I'd say it's a pretty sure thing that it's been investigated (to death) by then and found unproveable.
There are thousands of researchers worldwide who would look into something like this, just to see if they could be the one to crack it. Most will abandon before reaching the level of a published abstract, but if one was smelling solid proof, they'd get the resources to run with that study and publish it as fast as they could.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:35AM
I understood what you meant, but I just wanted to clarify that the larvicide hypothesis has already proven an insufficient explanation for the epidemiological data and there would have to be some incredibly surprising coincidence/conspiracy for it to surpass Zika virus as the most likely explanation.