The Zika Virus

[Seasider]

I remember life before asian tiger mosquitos...and yes, it was better because you only got bitten at night. Now, you get bitten i the day if it is shady, which is NOT fair, lol. But I disagree that we wouldn't have many mosquitoes. A quick search showed epidemics of yellow fever in the 1800s in Florida and Dengue in the 1920s, well before the invasive species arrived. In fact, one document said Florida was considered by many to be uninhabitable year round even when statehood was being debated due mostly to the mosquito problem (and the diseases they carried).

 

But I'm totally okay with eradicating Asian tiger mosquitoes. I truly hate them. And react much worse to them than the old fashioned ones we had growing up.

I am on board with eradicating the Asian tiger baddie. Those suckers bite HARD! (Okay, puncture painfully, to be technical about it.)

 

Reflections, I am intrigued by the virus-vaccine possible connection. I've been hearing stories that Zika is present elsewhere in the tropics, has been for some time, yet the microcephaly issues seem particular to Brazil? Makes one think something else must be at play (vaccine or something else).

 

ETA - just wanted to clarify, after reading through the posts following the one quoted above - I just want those Asian tigers to go back to their original ranges! As for vaccine- microcephaly correlation - are y'all saying that the two are not related, but that there's a coincidental overlap in timing? That it may not be Zika, or a Zika-vaccine combo, but just a vaccine that's caused the birth defects? (Forgive my density.)

Edited January 30, 2016 by Seasider

[Reflections]

I am on board with eradicating the Asian tiger baddie. Those suckers bite HARD! (Okay, puncture painfully, to be technical about it.)

 

Reflections, I am intrigued by the virus-vaccine possible connection. I've been hearing stories that Zika is present elsewhere in the tropics, has been for some time, yet the microcephaly issues seem particular to Brazil? Makes one think something else must be at play (vaccine or something else).

 

ETA - just wanted to clarify, after reading through the posts following the one quoted above - I just want those Asian tigers to go back to their original ranges! As for vaccine- microcephaly correlation - are y'all saying that the two are not related, but that there's a coincidental overlap in timing? That it may not be Zika, or a Zika-vaccine combo, but just a vaccine that's caused the birth defects? (Forgive my density.)

 

Well, my point all day has been that I just think that there are too many unknowns and coincidences to blame this all on a virus that so far has been mostly benign.  

 

I'm hesitant to say that this recently updated Tdap vacc that they mandated in 2015 is the cause.  

 

I'm also hesitant to say that the GMO mosquitoes that they released in early to mid 2015 is to blame.  

 

I'm also hesitant to say that the Zika virus mutated in one spot, that the mutation not only survived into offspring, those offspring with the mutation bred rapidly enough to cause 4000 microcephaly cases across a wide span of Brazil and Colombia.

 

And you're not dense.  

 

At first I was sorta poking fun at the Tdap and GMO correlation....but now I'm sorta poking fun at the Zika correlation too.

 

Seasider:  Zika, as far as I understand it, was discovered in Africa sometime in the late 1940s or early 50s.  And has over the last 60 years or so made it's way to tropical regions across the globe.  There have been outbreaks before, but never has there been an increase in microcephaly cases with the zika virus.

[Reflections]

Ha.  And now the Washington Post has an article that is really all over the place, but the basic idea is that the cases in Brazil may be inflated. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/29/brazil-may-have-fewer-zika-related-microcephaly-cases-than-previously-reported/

 

 

Quotes from the article:  

 

After experts scrutinized 732 of the cases they found that more than half either weren’t microcephaly, or weren’t related to Zika.

 

 

and then

 

The more inexpensive test might not spot milder cases of the condition, said Ganeshwaran Mochida, a pediatric neurologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. “There could be some cases mistakenly discarded due to not enough sensitivity,†he said.

 

 

and then 

 

There is some preliminary evidence that even babies born in Brazil with normal-sized heads may have developmental defects, according to Albert Ko, an infectious disease doctor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health

 

 

 

I'd say that there's a long way to go before any of the reasons for this becomes evident.

[Lady Florida.]

There is no connection between Zika and the Tdap or the GM mosquitoes (they're males anyway - they don't bite).

 

http://themadvirologist.blogspot.com/2016/01/debunking-myths-surrounding-zika-virus.html?m=1

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by Lady Florida

[Bluegoat]

The disconnect over such things always baffles me. I should be used to it by now, but it never fails to make me shake my head.

 

*Fixed your typo with the word effect. I hate when I notice a typo and go to fix it, but someone already quoted me. ;)

 

Yes, me too, I can't figure out why people don't apply the same logic to two statements they are making at the same time.

 

That's for the typo heads up - that is not one of my more usual mistakes. 

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

There is no connection between Zika and the Tdap or the GM mosquitoes (they're males anyway - they don't bite).

 

http://themadvirologist.blogspot.com/2016/01/debunking-myths-surrounding-zika-virus.html?m=1

 

 

 

 

 

This is excellent, but it left out apple cider vinegar and colloidal silver. 

[Dmmetler]

If you have standing water, especially natural water that other animals use regularly, Mosquito Bits and Mosquito Dunks contain a bacterium that feeds on mosquito larvae, but is harmless to anything with a backbone. We treat with dunks every month for DD's frog ponds and with bits for any other standing water, including mud puddles. 

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=bti+mosquito+dunks&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=53817625675&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6542197538999613155&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_5kqr9jnkfi_b

 

 

[ajfries]

There is no connection between Zika and the Tdap or the GM mosquitoes (they're males anyway - they don't bite).

 

http://themadvirologist.blogspot.com/2016/01/debunking-myths-surrounding-zika-virus.html?m=1

 

 

 

 

Can I just poke my head in here & say how much I HAAAATE typos in memes (even if the general premise is funny)? Especially when they're making fun of people :001_tt2:. Because you, dear meme author, aren't TOO bright yourself.  

Edited January 31, 2016 by ajfries

[Lady Florida.]

Can I just poke my head in here & say how much I HAAAATE typos in memes (even if the general premise is funny)? Especially when they're making fun of people :001_tt2:. Because you, dear meme author, aren't TOO bright yourself.  

 

Yes, that was bugging me too. I wish I knew how to edit them.

[La Condessa]

Link to a map showing where all the babies have been born. http://outbreaknewstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/brazil.png

 

Coincidentally, GMO mosquitoes where released pretty much right in the epicenter: http://www.oxitec.com/press-release-oxitec-mosquito-works-to-control-aedes-aegypti-in-dengue-hotspo/

 

Question: IF this GMO mosquito has really reduced the population of the mosquito that carries the Zika by 95% which according to Oxitec is

"well below the modelled threshold for epidemic disease transmission"

 

Then how is Zika even a problem?

The linked article about the GMO mosquitos found that they reduced the disease-carrying population by that rate in the one neighborhood in one town where they conducted that study. Surely no one expects them to have spread from one neighborhood to all of Brazil in half a year?

[Halftime Hope]

http://www.reduas.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/02/Informe-Zika-de-Reduas_TRAD.pdf

[chiguirre]

Here's a link to an NBC article about the fetus with severe microcephaly that was autopsied in Slovenia. The original journal article was in the New England Journal of Medecine.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/zika-virus-found-fetus-severe-birth-defect-n515966

Edited February 11, 2016 by chiguirre

[Lanny]

Here in Colombia, there are more than 3100 pregnant women with the Zika virus.  The Ministry of Health here discovered an apparent link, between this virus and a rare nerve disorder. A team from the CDC is going to arrive here this week. The majority of the people in Colombia who are infected with this normally mild virus are in N.E. Colombia, in an area adjoining Venezuela, far from Brazil.  There was a major outbreak of the Zika Virus in French Polynesia, about 2 years ago.  They are working on a vaccine, at the University of Georgia, but it will be approximately 5 to 7 years, before it will be ready. They said that if there were a true emergency, they could make it available in 2 years. There is a company in England working on a mutation of the mosquitoes, that caues the next generation to die in about 6 months.  The labs in the USA do not have sufficient samples of the virus from Brazil, to  do the work they would like to do with this virus.  

[Ravin]

I don't really think we can get rid of any or all species of mosquitoes completely so discussing whether we should is a moot point right now, although it's an interesting debate.  But I do think it's definitely worthwhile to reduce their population in areas where there are significant health risks from them.  It's part of the strategy for reducing the incidence of mosquito-born diseases.  I don't think we'd necessarily need to do anything significantly differently in the US.

 

Actually, we're very close to completely eradicating the guinea worm, which is a human-specific parasite and unlike mosquitoes serve absolutely no purpose in any ecosystem other than to make humans horribly, painfully ill and eventually kill them if left untreated. 

[Halftime Hope]

Here's a link to an NBC article about the fetus with severe microcephaly that was autopsied in Slovenia. The original journal article was in the New England Journal of Medecine.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/zika-virus-found-fetus-severe-birth-defect-n515966

 

How many times have we argues on this board that correlation is not causation?

 

From the article you linked:  (sorry for the spacing, the cursor is adding spaces when it should be deleting)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The hard part is we don't know," she said. "A lot of viruses cause scarring or they can cause destruction of brain tissue. There are a lot of different possibilities."

Zika and its relatives had never before been known to cross the placenta and affect a growing fetus, which is why doctors had so many doubts about whether it was doing so in Brazil. Scientists are trying to figure out if the virus has changed or if some other factors are allowing it to do so.

 

"We're not aware of any other mosquito-borne cause of birth defects," Frieden said.

 

 

In the medical association report I linked, the doctors claim 49 cases of microencephaloy which tested negative for zika.

 

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I think it's very unlikely that zika, which never before caused microencephaly, is suddenly the culprit.  Maybe it is, but in conjunction with the pesticide.  It's hard to tease out the exact cause and still be ethical without taking it to animal studies. 

 

In any case, it points us to caution in use of pesticides, and to fighting for better public health and healthcare access, as well as the need for public infrastructure for those in impoverished areas.  The suffering makes me really sad.