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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.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday February 15 2016, @06:55PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Monday February 15 2016, @06:55PM (#304811) Journal

    I would recommend a diet of bacon++, since I've been assured that bacon is gluten-free!

    Q.v. coeliac disease [wikipedia.org]:

    Increasingly, diagnoses are being made in persons without symptoms as a result of increased screening. Globally coeliac disease affects between 1 in 100 and 1 in 170 people; rates do, however, vary between different regions of the world from as few as 1 in 300 to as many as 1 in 40.

    Diagnostic procedures include blood tests and endoscopy. No diagnosis is possible if the patient is already eating a gluten-free diet.

    Due to its high sensitivity, serology has been proposed as a screening measure, because the presence of antibodies would detect previously undiagnosed cases of coeliac disease and prevent its complications in those people. There is significant debate as to the benefits of screening. Some studies suggest that early detection would decrease the risk of osteoporosis and anaemia. In contrast, a cohort study in Cambridge suggested that people with undetected coeliac disease had a beneficial risk profile for cardiovascular disease (less overweight, lower cholesterol levels). There is limited evidence that screen-detected cases benefit from a diagnosis in terms of morbidity and mortality; hence, population-level screening is not presently thought to be beneficial.

    No discussion is present on Wikipedia in regards to the gluten-free fad that's led to bacon++ needing to have a gluten-free designation. On the other hand, I can also rest assured that bacon does not present a health hazard to people who are allergic to various nuts. Well, bacon may present a problem for the nuts at PETA and vegan hipsters, but hey.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:22PM (#304935)

    Bacon++ is people!