Chemical Larvicide Not Zika Virus, True Cause Of Brazil’s Microcephaly Outbreak: Doctors

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link

http://www.globalresearch.ca/chemic...brazils-microcephaly-outbreak-doctors/5508636


The microcephaly outbreak in Brazil, which coincided with the spread of the Zika virus, continues to stun the world, even months after the incident was first reported.

Pregnant women all over the world have been advised to take caution. The Zika virus infection has been linked to newborn babies with the birth defect microcephaly. This is a congenital condition in which babies are born with unusually tiny heads.

The notion, however, has recently been challenged by a group of Argentine physicians. The group suspects that the Zika virus is not to blame for the rise in microcephaly cases, but that a toxic larvicide introduced into Brazil’s water supplies may be the real culprit.

Not A Coincidence?

According to the Physicians in Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was injected into Brazil’s water supplies in 2014 in order to stop the development of mosquito larvae in drinking water tanks.

The chemical, which is known as Pyriproxyfen, was used in a massive government-run program tasked to control the mosquito population in the country. Pyriproxyfen is a larvicide manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a company associated [PDF] with Monsanto. However, PCST has referred to Sumitomo as a subsidiary of Monsanto.

“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,” the PCST wrote [pdf] in the report.

For instance, the Brazilian Health Ministry had injected pyriproxyfen to reservoirs in the state of Pernambuco. In the area, the proliferation of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the Zika virus, is very high, the PCST said.

Pernambuco is also the first state in Brazil to notice the problem. The state contains 35 percent of the total microcephaly cases in the country.

The group of Argentine doctors points out that during past Zika epidemics, there have not been any cases of microcephaly linked with the virus. In fact, about 75 percent of the population in countries where Zika broke out had been infected by the mosquito-borne virus.

In countries such as Colombia where there are plenty of Zika cases, there are no records of microcephaly linked to Zika, the group said.

When the Colombian president announced that many of the country’s citizens were infected with Zika but that there was not a single case of microcephaly, the allegations soon emerged. Some 3,177 pregnant women in the country were infected with Zika, but the PCST report said these women are carrying healthy fetuses or had given birth to healthy babies.

Remain Skeptical

On its website, Sumitomo Chemical says pyriproxyfen poses minimal risk to birds, fish and mammals.

However, the evidence is overwhelming. The Washington Post reported in January that after experts examined 732 cases out of 4,180 Zika-related microcephaly, more than half were not related to Zika at all. Only 270 cases were confirmed as Zika-linked microcephaly.

On top of all the suspicions, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been careful not to explicitly link Zika to microcephaly.

“Although a causal link between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly — and I must emphasize — has not been established, the circumstantial evidence is suggestive and extremely worrisome,” said WHO General Director Margaret Chan.

In the meantime, scientists are currently racing toward developing a vaccine for the mosquito-borne infection.

While there is no solid proof yet that the larvicide causes microcephaly, the local government of Grande do Sul in the southern portion of Brazil suspended the use of the chemical larvicide pyriproxyfen.

A Monsanto representative reached out to Tech Times to clarify that the company does not sell or manufacture pyriproxyfen.

“Neither Monsanto nor our products have any connection to the Zika virus or microcephaly. Monsanto does not manufacture or sell Pyriproxyfen. And, Monsanto does not own Sumitomo Chemical Company. It is, however, a business partner like others in the area of crop protection,” the representative said.

Pyriproxyfen manufacturer Sumitomo Chemical also released a statement to reassure that its product is safe for use.

“Pyriproxyfen, after going through extensive toxicological testing, has shown no effects on the reproductive system or nervous system in mammals, and has been approved and registered for use in the past 20 years by the authorities of around 40 countries around the world,” Sumitomo said. “…despite long term and widespread use in many different settings no correlation with microcephaly has been reported.”

The original source of this article is Tech Times
Copyright © Alyssa Navarro, Tech Times, 2016

 

[QueEx]

Thanks for this. Interesting article, especially in light of an article I read just a couple of days ago: "Experts admit they know little about Zika virus as they gather to trade notes" at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article60703876.html#storylink=cpy

 

[D Kline]

bump

 

[QueEx]

CDC Arrives In Brazil To Investigate Zika Outbreak

NPR
February 22, 2016



A team of U.S. government disease detectives Monday launched an eagerly anticipated research project in Brazil designed to determine whether the Zika virus is really causing a surge of serious birth defects.

A 16-member team of epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began training dozens of Brazilian counterparts in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, in preparation to begin work on Tuesday. The researchers will gather data on hundreds of Brazilian women and their children.

"Having the data at this point in time are very critically important for understanding the impact Zika might be having in the future and as it spreads in the region," says J. Erin Staples, a CDC medical officer leading the CDC team in Brazil.

Scientists believe there has been a significant increase in microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and brain, since Zika started spreading widely in Brail. That strongly suggests that the virus is to blame. And Zika has been found in the brains of a small number of babies with microcephaly. But that still does not prove the virus is to blame.

"Taking that and saying the 4,000 to 5,000 cases of microcephaly reported in Brazil are due to Zika is a very big jump," Staples says.

To try to better understand whether the association is real, the CDC is launching what is known as a "case-control" study, which involves comparing cases of people with diseases with similar people who did not have disease to try to identify the cause.

On Monday, the CDC planned to form eight teams of American and Brazilian investigators. On Tuesday, the teams planned to fan out in the region searching for about 100 mothers who gave birth to babies with microcephaly since the Zika outbreak began.

The teams will collect blood samples from the mothers and children to test for signs of Zika infection, examine the babies and gather detailed information from the mothers. Among the information the researchers plan to collect is whether the women experienced any symptoms of Zika infection during their pregnancies and, if so, when.

The investigators will also ask the women a series of questions aimed at identifying any other factors that may have played a role in the birth defects, such as whether the women had any other infections, including toxoplasmosis or cytomegalovirus. In addition, they'll try to determine if the women were exposed to anything in the environment, such as mercury or pesticides, that could be to blame.

The investigators planned to do the same thing with several hundred other women who are similar in terms of their ages, locations and socioeconomic status who gave birth to healthy babies around the same time. The researchers will then compare the two groups.

The hope is that this study will either provide more definitive evidence establishing the link between Zika and microcephaly or identify other factors that may be to blame, either in combination with Zika or instead of Zika.

"What we're really trying to do is to better understand what's going on in terms of the size, the scope and the causes of microcephaly," Staples told NPR's Shots blog last week. "We want to better understand the role the Zika virus has in the outbreak of microcephaly."

Staples estimated it would take three or four weeks to collect all the data, but was unsure how long the analysis would take.

But "hopefully from all this work we will glean some information that we'll be able to help us prevent other children from being born microcephaly," Staples says.

The virus is spreading rapidly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Dozens of travelers have arrived in the United States after being infected elsewhere, but so far the virus is only known to have spread once in the continental United States, and that was through sexual contact.

The mosquito that spreads the virus is found in parts of the United States, but health authorities have said they are optimistic any transmission in this country would be quickly controlled.

 

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http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03...l-pollution-causes-microcephaly-not-zika.html


Microcephaly = babies born with small heads and brain impairment.

As I’ve demonstrated in numerous articles, the purported cause of microcephaly, the Zika virus, is completely discredited. There is no science to back it up. In fact, the findings of Brazilian researchers constitute evidence that Zika has nothing to do with microcephaly.

Now we have this: Jerusalem Post (2/2/16), “All eyes on Haifa after damning study results leaked”:

…preliminary results of a University of Haifa study indicating that exposure of pregnant women in the Haifa area to pollution from the petrochemical industry [including an ammonia factory] caused their babies to be born with heads 20 to 30 percent smaller than average.


The five-year study is only a quarter of the way done. The preliminary results were leaked, causing an uproar among
residents in the city of Haifa, where cancer rates are five times the national average in some neighborhoods.

The Post:

Early findings of the five-year study, which has been carried out for only one year so far, were revealed on Sunday night by Channel 2. The study, sponsored by the municipality and the Haifa-area Municipal Association, was financed by the petrochemical industries and the Israel Electric Corporation.

More from the Post article:

The Channel 2 report claimed that the researchers working on the study had demanded to take soil samples from the area to test for possibly carcinogenic materials, but that the Haifa-area Municipal Association, which was among those paying for the research, refused.

Rambam Medical Center, Haifa’s largest hospital, said it was not aware of babies being born with smaller-than-average heads.

So on one side, we have the researchers, who were funded by the petrochemical industry itself, stating that microcephaly is prevalent. On the other side, the local hospital says it’s not.

Facts need to be sorted out, but if this report is true, and the ongoing study continues to validate the early findings, we are looking at one obvious cause of microcephaly. The published literature is clear: any insult to the developing fetal brain can cause microcephaly. Heavy industrial pollution would certainly qualify.

I’ve already reported on several sources of this birth defect in Brazil. They include: toxic pesticides; the Tdap vaccine; a larvicide which was dumped in water supplies; and anti-mosquito indoor sprays.

The Zika virus functions, in fact, as a cover story to divert attention from the true causes of a wide range of birth defects and neurological impairment.

Corporate predators and their profits must be protected.

 

[thoughtone]

Now there's a credible website.

 

[D Kline]

Now there's a credible website.

Bro That's all I say. I know how sensitive dudes are on here.

 

[QueEx]

Bro That's all I say. I know how sensitive dudes are on here.

But is the website credible, or not ???

 

[D Kline]

But is the website credible, or not ???

of course

 

[D Kline]

Its just business don't get upset.



http://www.iflscience.com/plants-an...itoes-are-suppressing-wild-populations-brazil




Genetically modified male mosquitoes who sire offspring that die early have finally been released in Brazil to suppress dengue. And according to results published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases last week, these “sterile” skeeters have reduced the dengue mosquito population in one Brazilian suburb by 95%.

Dengue (also known as “bone breaker”) infects as many as 390 million people a year. It’s the second most significant mosquito-borne disease after malaria, but unlike malaria, dengue is increasing in both incidence and severity. There are no specific drugs nor licensed vaccines to treat this infectious disease, at least not yet. Its primary vector is Aedes aegypti, and researchers around the world have been developing a so-called self-limiting gene: When a transgenic male mates with a wild female, the transgene is passed to embryos through sperm, leading to larvae death before they’re old enough to start transmitting diseases.

In the last few years, a self-limiting strain called OX513A reached the field evaluation stage after extensive lab tests. Releases of OX513A males in the Cayman Islands in 2010 led to 80% suppression of a target population, while isolated field demonstrations in Brazil have achieved similarly successful results after six months.

Then, beginning in 2011, a team led by Andrew McKemey of Oxitec conducted a sustained series of OX513A field releases in Itaberaba, a suburb of Juazeiro in the semi-arid northeast region of Brazil. Because piped water services are irregular in this dense suburb, the 1,810 residents depend on stored water – ideal habitats for Aedes aegypti. Throughout the study, local mosquito control was deployed as normal: Public health agents continued to destroy breeding sites and treat homes with larvicide.

Just over a year later, the local Aedes aegypti population was reduced by 95% based on adult trap data. According to a separate measure based on ovitraps (which mimic breeding sites), the population was reduced by 81%. "For context, with currently available methods including pesticides – the best you can get is about 50% reduction – not enough to prevent the epidemic spread of disease," Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry tells IFLScience. Sustained release of OX513A males, the researchers say, may therefore be an effective and widely useful method for suppressing the dengue vector and preventing epidemics.

“In theory, if you have fewer mosquitoes you have less transmission, but in reality, this is something we still need to investigate,” study co-author Margareth Capurro from the University of São Paulo tells New Scientist. “You can have lots of mosquitoes with only a few infected, or very few with all of them infected,” she adds. “If this happens, you suppress the population but don't affect dengue transmission.” But plans are in place to conduct analyses of correlations between mosquito numbers and dengue cases, and if the studies are conducted on a sufficiently large enough scale, then the scientists should be able to deduce whether statistically significant reductions in dengue have occurred, Parry tells IFLScience.

This past April, six million of these modified mosquitoes, known locally as “friendly Aedes aegypti,” were released in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba, which is facing one of the worst infestations. “The next step is to scale up to even larger studies and run mosquito control projects on an operational basis,” McKemey says in a statement. The company is waiting for permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test in the Florida Keys. Although this area has been dengue-free since 2010, there are fears that it could return, which is why there is interest in testing out Oxitec's technology, Parry says

 

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>
Brazil Rolls Out GM Mosquito Farms | HealthMap


LINK
http://www.healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/brazil-rolls-out-gm-mosquito-farms-71812



James Gathany, CDC, 2007

Brazil has opened its first-ever, large-scale genetically modified mosquito farm in an effort to reduce the incidence of dengue fever.

The mosquitoes are a genetically modified (GM) version of the Aedes aegypti, the species responsible for transmitting the dengue virus to humans. The farm was inaugurated early last week and is expected to produce millions of GM insects each month.

Scientists at the British-based Oxitec developed a method of shortening the lifespan of the mosquitoes and reducing mosquito populations by, essentially, sterilizing them. The mosquitoes are engineered to need the antibiotic tetracycline to develop beyond adolescence. Male mosquitoes in the laboratory are given the antibiotic to reach adulthood and then released into the wild to breed with wild females. The larvae, unable to access tetracycline, die before they are fully-grown. After a few days, both the offspring and the released males are dead.

Small-scale trials of the method have shown some success in the Grand Cayman Islands, Brazil and Malaysia. After the introduction of the GM mosquitoes into the environment, A. aegypti populations were reduced to between 75 to 90 percent, compared to similar areas where the mosquitoes were not released.

Scientists are calling it a victory in the fight against dengue.

"From a scientific point of view and an environmental sustainability point of view, we think we have a really good solution to the problem," said CEO of Oxitec, Hadyn Parry.

It is easy to see why researchers are excited about the results. Dengue fever is a public health nightmare. The mosquitoes that transmit the virus feed during the day, making it difficult to kill them effectively with insecticide and the use of bed nets ineffective. The insects also lay their eggs in clean, still water, often in urban areas. There is no effective vaccine or cure, only limited treatment options, and it is widespread – affecting between 50 and 100 million people each year worldwide.

The primary method of managing dengue has been through mosquito control. The use of GM mosquitoes could help eliminate the A. aegypti at a lower cost than current methods and without using as many chemicals, effectively saving endemic countries billions of dollars each year.

Oxitec estimates that apart from the cost of startup – production facilities, equipment and training – its method would cost less than $10 per person per year, making it more feasible for poorer countries to fight rising rates of dengue.

"This is not a rich man's tool; there's no point in protecting a rich man's mansion," Parry said. "You want to protect a community so it's got to be cheap."

But not everyone is thrilled about the idea.

A mothers group out of Key West, a proposed location for the release of the GM mosquitoes, has come out vehemently opposed to it.

“If something goes wrong the consequences could be catastrophic, not only for humans but also the whole ecosystem, said Mila de Mier, a Key West resident told the Guardian. “I don’t want my family being used as laboratory rats for this.”

De Mier started a petition on the social movement website Change.org in opposition to Oxitec that has now collected roughly 100,000 signatures.

The primary concern, de Mier said, was the uncertainty and lack of scientific data regarding potential the GM mosquitoes will pose long-term harm to Key West’s ecosystem and its inhabitants.

She and others who oppose the research also point out the potential risk of females being released along with the males, the possibility that the gene will mutate, and any unforeseen potential negative effects it might have on the area’s insects and wildlife.

Researchers, however, dismiss these concerns.

"We are not putting an advantage into these mosquitoes; we are putting in a disadvantage, sterility, which is the biggest disadvantage you can have," Parry said. "You are not spreading your gene down generations because each one is sterile – it dies out. They do not out cross and mate with other species. So you are not spreading your gene laterally or downward."

Additionally, the mosquitoes have been bred in the laboratory for roughly a decade with “no signs of mutations or changes in performance,” according to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.

Researchers also point out that there is already an effort to eliminate A. aegypti by spraying insecticide and that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found Oxitec’s method to be “environmentally preferable” to currently available alternatives because of the lower impact it has on the environment.

The A. aegypti are considered invasive in Key West, originating in Africa – thus the name aegypti – and thought to have been brought over on slave ships. They have only been in the area for a period of about 200 years and are not a true part of the native ecosystem.

De Mier and her cohort in Key West aren’t the only skeptics. Earlier this year, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology looked at information from Oxitec’s trials in Malaysia and Grand Cayman, and accused the company of having a lack of transparency. Its findings suggest "deficits in the scientific quality of regulatory documents and a general absence of accurate experimental descriptions available before releases start."

For now, the city of Key West has decided to delay any release of the Oxitec mosquitoes until more information is available regarding their potential impact on the local environment.

If Oxitec’s method does prove successful in Brazil, it’s possible that the technology could be used to combat other similar zoonotic diseases. The company said that has already tested the method with malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes. But in order to do that, the research needs to gain more support and a return on investment.

"We could have outdoor trials in five years' time," Parry said. "We have transformed it, modified it. It can be done – it's only a question of time and money. Our plan is to prove it works in dengue and then people will be willing to invest the money for the next stages."

- See more at: http://www.healthmap.org/site/disea...-gm-mosquito-farms-71812#sthash.htPPxKwq.dpuf