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posted by martyb on Monday February 15 2016, @01:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the debugging-gone-wrong? dept.

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.

Google Translation 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.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 15 2016, @03:45PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday February 15 2016, @03:45PM (#304693) Homepage

    Maybe “It’s Not the Zika Virus”.

    Has someone (anyone worth listening to) actually said "it's not the Zika virus"?

    It appears in quotes in the thefreethoughtproject.com headline as well, but that article also doesn't attribute the (quote) "quote" (end quote) either.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @04:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @04:34PM (#304724)

    The quotes are easily explainable: martyb made a mistake. He was chatting in IRC about which band should play at the yearly Soylent BBQ, and at the same time, editing this article. He wanted to suggest the indietronic vaporwave musician known as "It's Not The Zika Virus", but keyboard focus was on the wrong window.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @04:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @04:41PM (#304730)

    Another day, another pedantic nitpick that does nothing but add noise and reduce signal.

    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 15 2016, @05:01PM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday February 15 2016, @05:01PM (#304746) Homepage

      As opposed to stated-as-fact unattributed quotes, which are fine?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:21PM (#304768)

        "Unattributed quotes are totally rad." -- (author unknown)

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @05:57PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday February 15 2016, @05:57PM (#304787) Journal

    The title of TFA simply contained the claim: It's not the Zika virus.

    In submitting the story, I wasn't prepared to go that far, so I put it in quotes, and added the word Maybe.

    TFA also contained a link to a NATURE [nature.com] article which expresses a certain amount of doubt and indicates the degree of uncertainty among scientists.

    TFA was written by a college student in the US. It cites reports from Brazil. I'm not sure how you determine if "someone is worth listening to" other than following the links in the story, and the links in those links. Even, after following those links to the individual authors, and checking their education and training and credentials, it would still not be clear to me if those doctors were "worth listening to".

    But start here:
    http://www.reduas.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Informe-Zika-de-Reduas_TRAD.pdf [reduas.com.ar]
    (The original report from "Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Villages".

    Follow that to:
    https://www.abrasco.org.br/site/2016/02/nota-tecnica-sobre-microcefalia-e-doencas-vetoriais-relacionadas-ao-aedes-aegypti-os-perigos-das-abordagens-com-larvicidas-e-nebulizacoes-quimicas-fumace/ [abrasco.org.br] (Portuguese) the Brazilian Association of Collective Health - Abrasco

    In the end, only you can decide if any of these sources are "worth listening to". I just don't know.

    But I do know that government cover-ups aren't something that only happen in the US, or Flint Michigan, and Nobody has yet explained the absence of birth defects in Columbia and Yap with similar Zika epidemics.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 15 2016, @06:39PM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday February 15 2016, @06:39PM (#304805) Homepage

      The title of TFA simply contained the claim: It's not the Zika virus.

      In submitting the story, I wasn't prepared to go that far, so I put it in quotes

      That's the thing though - the headline of TFA also puts it in quotes. If they hadn't, then I'd lay the blame for stating a theory as fact at their door - but they seem to have offloaded responsibility for it by quoting without an attribution.

      (I'd have put '“It’s not the Zika virus” - maybe' which I think looks slightly clearer as to where the quotation starts and ends and the qualification of it)

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @07:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @07:21PM (#304823)

        Even an unattributed quote is better evidence than no quote at all, especially if the quote was important enough to make it into the title. Unless there is an article with "It's the Zika Virus" in the title, I think we have to go with not. Otherwise you are ignoring evidence, which is pseudoscience.

        • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday February 15 2016, @08:52PM

          by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday February 15 2016, @08:52PM (#304864) Homepage

          Even an unattributed quote is better evidence than no quote at all

          No it isn't.

          Otherwise you are ignoring evidence, which is pseudoscience.

          It's not evidence. It's no better then hearsay - in fact, it's worse, because we can't ascertain who said it or why. Assuming any credence of such a thing is what would be pseudoscientific.

          --
          systemd is Roko's Basilisk
          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:33PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:33PM (#304880)

            The other thing to worry about is that we are already supposed to know the origin of the quote and they are laughing at us and calling us idiots, causing us to lose all credibility just for questioning such an obvious quote. For example, if someone wrote an article with "systemd is Roko's Basilisk" in the title, regular readers here would immediately understand the source of the quote. Sometimes it is safer just to not question things you don't understand, it might make you look stupid.

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:48PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:48PM (#304890)

            Another thing. Don't you think a person who gets to choose the words in the TITLE must have worked pretty hard and/or be exceptionally smart? There is a reason why the title goes on top of the page and the comments go at the bottom, it seems arrogant for a comment to question the title to begin with.

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:07PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:07PM (#304898)

            Someone please mod the previous three AC comments down. I was play-acting to get in the mindset of the type of person who puts quotation marks in the title as clickbait, now I feel dirty.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @07:24PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday February 15 2016, @07:24PM (#304826) Journal

        Yeah, I assumed those words from TFA author (Jay Syrmopoulos) were his boil-down of the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns report, but I'm not sure if that is right or not. That phrase does not exist even in the PCST document, which oddly appears only in an English PDF.

        Further, the much longer ABRASCO [abrasco.org.br] document doesn't appear to use those words either, but then I have to read that via Google Translate, so it might be in there.

        The ABRASCO paper did point out that in addition to the recent (2014) introduction of Pyriproxyfen, the government has been for 40 years and continues to spray Malathion in these affected areas, as well as direct addition of these to the water cisterns, rather than screening the cisterns to prevent mosquito breeding.

        The ABRASCO article carries something of politically charged undertone, but does suggest the whole mosquito control approach has been an utter colossal failure, and a cure far worse than the disease.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.