Argentine and Brazilian doctors suspect mosquito insecticide as cause of microcephaly

[wehateporn]

With the proposed connection between the Zika virus and Brazil's outbreak of microcephaly in new born babies looking increasingly tenuous, Latin American doctors are proposing another possible cause: Pyriproxyfen, a pesticide used in Brazil since 2014 to arrest the development of mosquito larvae in drinking water tanks. Might the 'cure' in fact be the poison?

The World Health Organization view that the microcephaly outbreak in Brazil's impoverished northeast is caused by the Zika virus has, so far, received few challenges.

Brazil's Health Minister, Marcelo Castro, has gone so far as to say that he has "100% certainty" that there is a link between Zika and microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with small heads.

The view is widely supported in the medical community worldwide, including by the US's influential Center for Disease Control. But there is no hard evidence of the link, rather a mixture of epidemiological indications and circumstantial evidence.

One of the key scientific papers, by A S Oliveira Melo et al in the journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, found Zika virus in the amniotic fluids and other tissues of the affected babies and their mothers. But only two women were examined, far too small a number to establish a statistically significant link.

The New York Times also reported on 3rd February on the outcome of analyses by Brazil's Health Ministry: "Of the cases examined so far, 404 have been confirmed as having microcephaly. Only 17 of them tested positive for the Zika virus. But the government and many researchers say that number may be largely irrelevant, because their tests would find the presence of the virus in only a tiny percentage of cases."

And last weekend, the most powerful indicator yet that the microcephaly may have another cause altogether was announced by Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, as reported by the Washington Post. Colombian public health officials, stated Santos, have so far diagnosed 3,177 pregnant women with the Zika virus- but in no case had microcephaly been observed in the foetus.

Argentine doctors: it's the insecticide

Now a new report has been published by the Argentine doctors' organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), [1] which not only challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in microcephaly among newborns, but proposes an alternative explanation.

According to PCST, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014.

This pesticide, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a state-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitos. The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese 'strategic partner' of Monsanto. - a company they have learned to distrust due to the vast volume of the company's pesticides sprayed onto Argentina's cropland.

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.

Continued Argentine and Brazilian doctors suspect mosquito insecticide as cause of microcephaly - The Ecologist

[Screwed Up]

Interesting. Is the Ecologist a reliable source?

[RyuLion]

Sounds familiar to this new Virus, maybe?
Zika Virus Confirmed in Dallas County, Spread Through Sexual Contact: Dallas County Health | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

[Screwed Up]

It's hitting the "mainstream" news now.

[wehateporn]

Originally Posted by Screwed Up

It's hitting the "mainstream" news now.

One Brazilian state has now suspended the pesticide from its drinking water

Brazilian state suspends larvicide used to combat Zika virus | Fox News Latino