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The Zika Virus is triggering all sorts of fear in much of the warmer areas of south and central America, and recently spreading to the US via semen of a man who visited the area. (There are only 31 cases of the virus being found in the US to-date, all from travelers.)
The fear is caused by linkage to microcephaly birth defects, but so far the science behind that linkage is unproven.
The World Health Organization is becoming alarmed:
"The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty," WHO’s director general Dr. Margaret Chan said. "We need to get some answers quickly."
Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder that can lead to life-threatening paralysis also seems to be linked with the Zika.
But this isn't the first outbreak of the Zika virus. Its been around for decades. And prior outbreaks did not exhibit any linkage to Microcephaly or Guillain-Barre.
[Continues.]
There are now articles starting to appear that link the microcephaly with something that has an actual scientific cause of birth defects. And these articles are pointing to another Monsanto product.
According to one news site the birth defects may be due to a chemical larvicide component used by the Brazilian Ministry of Health against Aedes (mosquitoes).
Original Portuguese article here.
“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. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects).
“Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added pyriproxyfen to drinking water is not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on Zika virus for this damage, while trying to ignore its responsibility and ruling out the hypothesis of direct and cumulative chemical damage caused by years of endocrine and immunological disruption of the affected population,” according to the report by Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gnuman on Monday February 15 2016, @03:15PM
Maybe they should just leave the fucking water alone.
But even larger problem is that people tend to completely dissociate that our water is the same water in which we dump all sorts of various shit.
1. how do you think MTBE was banned? Because whatever we put in gas, ends up in water. And yet we have stupid people bitching how bad ethanol is in gasoline. What would they prefer in their drinking water - MTBE or ethanol??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBE_controversy [wikipedia.org]
2. Roundup in water. Pesticides in water. Fertilizers in water. Whatever farmers are allowed to put on the fields, ends up in water. There is only a tiny buffer of a few years between poison only being out there, and being *in us*. This is the case for Brazil's water supply too.
but I will have to disagree that adding things to water to prevent disease is a bad thing. We already have all sort of crap in water - see above. But adding things like flouride to prevent tooth decay (mostly to facilitate enamel formation in kids), or using ozone to kill bacteria/viruses, or adding alkalinity (like calcium carbonate, or chalk) to prevent corrosion of old pipes that have lead in them, is probably a good thing.
the optimal pH for lead control falls between 7.5 and 9.5, while the optimal alkalinity ranges between 30 and 75 mg/L as calcium carbonate and is typically adjusted in combination with pH adjustment.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/water-eau/lead-plomb-eng.php [hc-sc.gc.ca]
We are MUCH more careful when adding things deliberately, than the stuff we spray around and expect never to end up in our water (and it does!)
Anyway, the bottom line is, what we put in our environment, we end up drinking ourselves.
There are biological larvacides. And dragonflies and minnows - not much resistance mosquitoes can develop to being eaten. So using chemicals these days for mosquitoes is insanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larvicide [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday February 15 2016, @03:28PM
OK, actually read TFA now,
In a recent report by the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), the group revealed that the area in which most of the afflicted persons live had been sprayed with a larvicide known to cause birth defects.
The chemical, pyriproxyfen, was added to the state of Pernambuco’s drinking-water reservoirs in 2014, by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, in an effort to stop the proliferation of the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Insanity!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @06:01PM
People messing with systems they do not understand doing more harm than good and then misattributing the source of problem is old news:
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/9/1405.full [oxfordjournals.org]
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday February 15 2016, @09:15PM
Yep Insanity. At least DDT would have killed the damn mosquitoes.
...but you HAVE heard of me.