[dohboi]

Well, eventually, that is pretty much true of pretty much every problem.

[GHung]

".....will self correct itself."

How? In what way?

[Timo]

".....will self correct itself."

How? In what way?

Two ways;
#1, not getting pregnant will cause a rather severe reduction in population PDQ.
#2, for those women who do get pregnant and reproduce, there's a very good chance that their offspring will have a permanent birth defect that prevents their normal function within society, while the population around them continues to dwindle, pdq.
Either way, locations where Zika manifests itself will be facing a very hard several decades into the future.

[onlooker]

What is interesting here, is how the WHO and every other institution and authority fails to take this opportunity to highlight that almost all countries should and must control their population because of many reasons all of which have to do with a population in overshoot. But NO this is something which is not addressed by anybody and we are left with sites like ours to voice the uncomfortable truths.

[Tanada]

Once again, the only places where this trend in microcephaly have been observed have been where this pyriproxyfen insecticide that interrupts larval development has been introduced.

On January 2016, the Brazilian Association for Collective Health (ABRASCO) published a Technical Note and Open Letter to the People of Brazil(1), questioning the linear analysis carried out by the Ministry of Health of Brazil, which linked the emergent congenital malformations to Zika, leaving aside other factors that can have an influence on the problem, and minimizing the fact that the widespread epidemic in the Pacific and the current epidemic in Colombia, resulted in no cases of malformations, much less microcephaly.

Above all, the role of the chemical model for vector control is ignored. This model, implying the mass usage of chemical poisons in order to reduce or eradicate the presence of mosquitoes, has been carried out in the most vulnerable areas of Northeast Brazil for 40 years, whilst the epidemics, poverty, social marginalization, deforestation, and climate change have multiplied.

Since the second half of 2014, the Brazilian Ministry of Health(5) stopped using temephos (an organophosphate agrotoxic to which Aedes larvae became resistant) as larvicide, massively incorporating the poison Pyroproxyfen, commercially known as Sumilarv and manufactured by Sumimoto Chemical, a Japanese company associated to or subsidiary of Monsanto in Latin America (1,5). The spatial distribution by place of residence of mothers of children born with microcephaly shows a higher concentration in the poorest areas of Northeastern Brazil, with poor urbanisation and inadequate sanitation....

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. Doctors from the Brazilian Association for Collective Health (ABRASCO) demand that urgent epidemiological studies taking into account this causal link be carried out, especially when among 3,893 cases of malformations confirmed until January 20, 2016, 49 children have died and only five of them were confirmed to have been infected with Zika(1).

[ralfy]

Population aging may make it difficult for those growing old. On top of that, birth defects add to medical costs.

[Tanada]

Population aging may make it difficult for those growing old. On top of that, birth defects add to medical costs.

Not to put too fine a point on it but both the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese had a very simple method of dealing with birth defects. Infanticide is not a preferred option, but it is always there on the edge of culture. Many would argue that aborting pregnancies that show downs syndrome is nothing less than infanticide, and that is widely (not universally) accepted in today's culture.

[ralfy]

Population aging may make it difficult for those growing old. On top of that, birth defects add to medical costs.

Not to put too fine a point on it but both the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese had a very simple method of dealing with birth defects. Infanticide is not a preferred option, but it is always there on the edge of culture. Many would argue that aborting pregnancies that show downs syndrome is nothing less than infanticide, and that is widely (not universally) accepted in today's culture.

Were they also dealing with birth defects due to problems similar to those caused by the Zika virus?

[careinke]

Population aging may make it difficult for those growing old. On top of that, birth defects add to medical costs.

Not to put too fine a point on it but both the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese had a very simple method of dealing with birth defects. Infanticide is not a preferred option, but it is always there on the edge of culture. Many would argue that aborting pregnancies that show downs syndrome is nothing less than infanticide, and that is widely (not universally) accepted in today's culture.

Were they also dealing with birth defects due to problems similar to those caused by the Zika virus?

It seems to me that in some countries it will become an economic necessity. Actually the Zika virus seems to be one of the more humane solutions to the overshoot problem. Instead of actually killing people to reduce the population, nature is encouraging (along with WHO) people not to have babies in the affected areas until a solution is found.

As the population dwindles and the virus spreads further and further north, more people will chose not to have children. The very few children who are born normal, will be well cared for. Automation and AI will take over labor. Also augmented reality will be ubiquitous. Imagine while talking to someone, information about the person will be displayed on your retina. Things like the last time you talked, their name, and family members names, birthdays, political leanings, etc, etc.

Think about how you can remain functional longer as dementia sets in when you age, if you have augmented reality helping you.

Anyway the "Zika Solution" has a lot going for it. It's almost like somebo.....nevermind...

[dohboi]

T wrote: "...the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese had a very simple method of dealing with birth defects. Infanticide..."

This was actually the practice carried out quietly across much of the US and probably elsewhere in the West, but the mothers were just told that it was a still birth.

I come from a long line of doctors, and when the older ones used to get together, they would scratch their heads about the hoopla about aborting deformed babies, since they all admitted to quietly disposing of live but deformed newborns.

[Tanada]

Were they also dealing with birth defects due to problems similar to those caused by the Zika virus?

It seems to me that in some countries it will become an economic necessity. Actually the Zika virus seems to be one of the more humane solutions to the overshoot problem. Instead of actually killing people to reduce the population, nature is encouraging (along with WHO) people not to have babies in the affected areas until a solution is found.

As the population dwindles and the virus spreads further and further north, more people will chose not to have children. The very few children who are born normal, will be well cared for. Automation and AI will take over labor. Also augmented reality will be ubiquitous. Imagine while talking to someone, information about the person will be displayed on your retina. Things like the last time you talked, their name, and family members names, birthdays, political leanings, etc, etc.

Think about how you can remain functional longer as dementia sets in when you age, if you have augmented reality helping you.

Anyway the "Zika Solution" has a lot going for it. It's almost like somebo.....nevermind...

Ralfy Birth defects come from a huge variety of sources including tainted food or water, bad luck in the genetic lottery of the parents, disease, environmental factors and on and on. As our culture has gotten used to good food, clean water, and marriage laws discouraging consanguinity with safer housing and fewer issue the birth defect rate has dropped. Before all these things many women had at least one late term miscarriage or stillbirth during their reproductive period of life, and most of those babies suffered from something that damaged them. There was an unwritten rule in the age of midwives that stifling a deformed newborn was kinder than letting it live a few days or months in suffering. It did not always happen and nobody kept records, but the stories persist for a reason. The simple fact of the matter is, before it was common for babies to be born in hospitals obviously deformed infants were usually "stillborn". Once birthing was moved to hospitals the rate of stillbirths dropped and the rate of deformities surviving went way up. It can even be argued this is true of premature births, before hospitals were the common birth place premature infants nearly always died depending on just how premature they were. We can now save premature infants birthed as early as 7.5 months of gestation. We also now know that statistically women who were premature infants pass this trait on to their own children if any, there are recorded cases of three generations of women who had premature daughters who in turn gave birth to premature daughters. The premature birth rate has climbed significantly because the genes that cause the problem have passed on and expanded through the population somewhat.

Careinke the normal human response to a high infant mortality rate is not having fewer children, it is to have more children. You eliminate or discard or take less care of the deformed children in favor of the healthy children, it is an instinctive response to bolster your chances of passing on your own genetic code into the future. It is the basic animal response, you can see it all through history and you can see it in animal population studies. The baby perceived as being 'stronger' gets better care while the 'weaker' babies get less care or even get driven away to die.

Do you honestly think poor people in Brazil are going to suddenly stop having children because the government health official and the World Health Organization tell them to? Deformed children will either be put up for adoption or just 'disappear' from society and the second option is quietly favored by hard nosed government types who do not want to pay for raising the unlucky babies born with microcephaly. There is also the fact that for generations the people with the highest rates of microcephaly are the ones who have been drinking water chemically treated with mosquito control insecticides for generations. While one or another insecticide might be relatively less dangerous than say malaria or dengue fever, the mixing of different insecticides in the bodies of these women where they bio-accumulate has unpredictable effects. Zika virus does not cause mass microcephaly outbreaks in Columbia next door to Brazil, nor in Africa nor Asia where it has been a know disease since the 1940's. Brazil is by far the exception, not the rule.

[dohboi]

T, I too was suspicious about whether it was actually pesticides that were causing the microcephaly.

But the CDC and WHO seem to be against us, here. They say there is a clear causal connection between Zika and microcephaly:

http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-vir ... umours/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/ ... phaly.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... .html?_r=0

[Tanada]

T, I too was suspicious about whether it was actually pesticides that were causing the microcephaly.

But the CDC and WHO seem to be against us, here. They say there is a clear causal connection between Zika and microcephaly:

http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-vir ... umours/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/ ... phaly.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... .html?_r=0

Clear as mud you mean? They completely ignore the facts that I have cited repeatedly, Zika does not have this mass microcephaly effect anywhere outside of Brazil. Zika is not some wild new disease that came out of some mad scientists lab, it has been infecting people for at least three generations in Africa and Asia. It is infecting people today in Puerto Rice and Columbia and a number of other Latin American countries, yet only Brazil shows this mass effect.

[dohboi]

There's been some effect in French Polynesia as well.

And then there's this (from my first link above):

No evidence that pyriproxyfen insecticide causes microcephaly

A team of WHO scientists recently reviewed data on the toxicology of pyriproxyfen, one of 12 larvicides that WHO recommends to reduce mosquito populations. It found no evidence that the larvicide affects the course of pregnancy or the development of a fetus. The US Environmental Protection Agency and EU investigators reached a similar conclusion when they carried out a separate review of the product.

Larvicides are an important weapon in the public health practitioner’s arsenal. Especially in cities and towns with no piped water, people tend to store drinking water in outdoor containers. These sources of water, as well as standing water that may collect in garbage, flower pots and tyres, serve as ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Larvicides such as pyriproxyfen are often used in containers where people store water to kill the mosquito in its larval stage. When people drink water from containers that have been treated with pyriproxyfen, they are exposed to the larvicide – but in tiny amounts that do not harm their health. Moreover, 90% - 95% of any larvicide ingested is excreted into the urine within 48 hours. This product has been used since the late-1990s without being linked to microcephaly.

There could well be something in the environment in parts of Brazil that makes the population more susceptible to these effects of Zika, perhaps. But it doesn't seem to be the insecticides. (Of course, I wouldn't want to quash the possibility of a vast conspiracy, here--conspiracies are such fun! But I would kinda like to see a bit more direct evidence, if possible, before concluding that the folks at WHO and CDC are all either total idiots or participants in a vast and very evil consipracy.)

[Subjectivist]

There's been some effect in French Polynesia as well.

And then there's this (from my first link above):

No evidence that pyriproxyfen insecticide causes microcephaly

A team of WHO scientists recently reviewed data on the toxicology of pyriproxyfen, one of 12 larvicides that WHO recommends to reduce mosquito populations. It found no evidence that the larvicide affects the course of pregnancy or the development of a fetus. The US Environmental Protection Agency and EU investigators reached a similar conclusion when they carried out a separate review of the product.

Larvicides are an important weapon in the public health practitioner’s arsenal. Especially in cities and towns with no piped water, people tend to store drinking water in outdoor containers. These sources of water, as well as standing water that may collect in garbage, flower pots and tyres, serve as ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Larvicides such as pyriproxyfen are often used in containers where people store water to kill the mosquito in its larval stage. When people drink water from containers that have been treated with pyriproxyfen, they are exposed to the larvicide – but in tiny amounts that do not harm their health. Moreover, 90% - 95% of any larvicide ingested is excreted into the urine within 48 hours. This product has been used since the late-1990s without being linked to microcephaly.

There could well be something in the environment in parts of Brazil that makes the population more susceptible to these effects of Zika, perhaps. But it doesn't seem to be the insecticides. (Of course, I wouldn't want to quash the possibility of a vast conspiracy, here--conspiracies are such fun! But I would kinda like to see a bit more direct evidence, if possible, before concluding that the folks at WHO and CDC are all either total idiots or participants in a vast and very evil consipracy.)

If Brazil has been using a whole cocktail of different insecticides then naturally the newest one alone is not the cause. There has to be some additional reason Brazil suffers while Columbia right next door does not. I remember all too well the children of Thalidomide and how confident health officials can be even in the face of contrary information.

[onlooker]

yet only Brazil shows this mass effect.

Could it be that the Virus has mutated in such a way in Brazil that is causes microcephaly while it other areas the virus has not been able to develop this mutation or adaptation?

[Tanada]

yet only Brazil shows this mass effect.

Could it be that the Virus has mutated in such a way in Brazil that is causes microcephaly while it other areas the virus has not been able to develop this mutation or adaptation?

Normally when a virus changes into a different strain it can have greater or lesser effects, but those mutations are a big part of how viruses adapt to the host. For example a virus that kills its host quickly is unlikely to be able to spread very far in natural conditions while one like the group of viruses that cause the common cold are able to spread far and wide because they rarely actually kill the host animal.

Some viruses do cause changes in the reproduction of the host, for example measles and mumps occasionally kill children but usually do not, however if an adult catches the disease they become sterile, which from the POV of nature is as good as dead. Another case is common Influenza (flu) that kills about 24,000 Americans every year but that is a tiny percentage of the many millions infected.

If Zika were commonly causing microcephaly it would be reducing the number of hosts available for future generations of itself to infect, which is a counter productive strategy for viruses that can only reproduce with use of the host animal or plants DNA mechanisms. The ideal strategy for a virus is to be completely common in the population without causing damage to the hosts allowing both the host and the virus to thrive into the foreseeable future.

[onlooker]

Thanks Tanada, good analysis as usual. At this point it certainly seems a mystery why Brazil is evincing much more of microcephaly in conjunction with Zika while other places not nearly as much. Oh in reference to your explanation I can think off hand of another two which fit your description of ideal virus behavior. Shingles and Herpes.

[ralfy]

It seems to me that in some countries it will become an economic necessity. Actually the Zika virus seems to be one of the more humane solutions to the overshoot problem. Instead of actually killing people to reduce the population, nature is encouraging (along with WHO) people not to have babies in the affected areas until a solution is found.

As the population dwindles and the virus spreads further and further north, more people will chose not to have children. The very few children who are born normal, will be well cared for. Automation and AI will take over labor. Also augmented reality will be ubiquitous. Imagine while talking to someone, information about the person will be displayed on your retina. Things like the last time you talked, their name, and family members names, birthdays, political leanings, etc, etc.

Think about how you can remain functional longer as dementia sets in when you age, if you have augmented reality helping you.

Anyway the "Zika Solution" has a lot going for it. It's almost like somebo.....nevermind...

Automation, etc., especially in light of global industrial capitalism, still require growing young generations not only for various industries and extensive supply chains but even for consumer markets. That same system is also ironically the basis for resisting infanticide.

[ralfy]

Ralfy Birth defects come from a huge variety of sources including tainted food or water, bad luck in the genetic lottery of the parents, disease, environmental factors and on and on. As our culture has gotten used to good food, clean water, and marriage laws discouraging consanguinity with safer housing and fewer issue the birth defect rate has dropped. Before all these things many women had at least one late term miscarriage or stillbirth during their reproductive period of life, and most of those babies suffered from something that damaged them. There was an unwritten rule in the age of midwives that stifling a deformed newborn was kinder than letting it live a few days or months in suffering. It did not always happen and nobody kept records, but the stories persist for a reason. The simple fact of the matter is, before it was common for babies to be born in hospitals obviously deformed infants were usually "stillborn". Once birthing was moved to hospitals the rate of stillbirths dropped and the rate of deformities surviving went way up. It can even be argued this is true of premature births, before hospitals were the common birth place premature infants nearly always died depending on just how premature they were. We can now save premature infants birthed as early as 7.5 months of gestation. We also now know that statistically women who were premature infants pass this trait on to their own children if any, there are recorded cases of three generations of women who had premature daughters who in turn gave birth to premature daughters. The premature birth rate has climbed significantly because the genes that cause the problem have passed on and expanded through the population somewhat.

Careinke the normal human response to a high infant mortality rate is not having fewer children, it is to have more children. You eliminate or discard or take less care of the deformed children in favor of the healthy children, it is an instinctive response to bolster your chances of passing on your own genetic code into the future. It is the basic animal response, you can see it all through history and you can see it in animal population studies. The baby perceived as being 'stronger' gets better care while the 'weaker' babies get less care or even get driven away to die.

Do you honestly think poor people in Brazil are going to suddenly stop having children because the government health official and the World Health Organization tell them to? Deformed children will either be put up for adoption or just 'disappear' from society and the second option is quietly favored by hard nosed government types who do not want to pay for raising the unlucky babies born with microcephaly. There is also the fact that for generations the people with the highest rates of microcephaly are the ones who have been drinking water chemically treated with mosquito control insecticides for generations. While one or another insecticide might be relatively less dangerous than say malaria or dengue fever, the mixing of different insecticides in the bodies of these women where they bio-accumulate has unpredictable effects. Zika virus does not cause mass microcephaly outbreaks in Columbia next door to Brazil, nor in Africa nor Asia where it has been a know disease since the 1940's. Brazil is by far the exception, not the rule.

What percentages are we looking at in terms of birth defects for ancient Greeks and Chinese in comparison to what might take place given the effects of the Zika virus?