Naturalidades na net: reflexões...audição, visão, paladar, olfacto e tacto... misturados na sinestesia do pensamento escrito...
domingo, 25 de setembro de 2016
quinta-feira, 22 de setembro de 2016
Virus Zika: dúvidas sobre a sua trajetória e eventual relação com OGM, pesticidas, pobreza...
Quanto mais leio sobre o
vírus Zika mais dúvidas tenho sobre a sua trajetória e eventual relação
com OGM, pesticidas, pobreza e as suas reais consequências. Palpita-me
que a ciência ainda vai demorar bastante tempo a destrinçar tudo isto.
Microcephaly: Zika, pesticides, and profits
The
epidemic that put Latin America on high alert has left open questions
about its causes and the accumulation of economic interests that have
converged around the scourge
The potential causes of
the reported microcephaly outbreak in Brazil are once again under the
spotlight with the publication of an article (below) by Roberto Rovasio,
former lead researcher at Conicet, the Argentine government's main
research institute.
The most widely promoted
explanation for the microcephaly cases is that they are caused by the
Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.
However, not everyone
agrees that the Zika virus is the only, or even the chief, suspect. Dr
Rovasio names several potential causes or contributing factors. These
include the pesticides that are being sprayed to combat mosquitoes, as
well as the lack of
sanitation, and of piped water supplies and regular waste collections,
in affected areas.
His message reinforces a recent article by the Argentine journalist Dario Aranda, which GMWatch translated and
published. The article quoted doctors and researchers
denouncing the extent of the chemical warfare against mosquitoes that's
being promoted by the chemical industry, abetted by its allies in
government. This strategy, the researchers say,
puts at risk the health of the population while failing to reduce
mosquito-borne diseases.
'Experts' quoted by the Science Media Centre have
rejected any consideration of one particular pesticide,
pyriproxyfen, as a possible contributor to some of the microcephaly
cases and is keen to keep our attention firmly on the Zika virus as the
only potential cause.
That's in spite of the fact that there is still no definitive
evidence of a causative link between the Zika virus and microcephaly,
and many other potential causes cannot yet be excluded - a fact made
clear by another of the Science Media Centre's chosen
experts.
Dr Melissa Gladstone,
Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Neurodisability, University of Liverpool,
responded to the latest in a series of studies offering circumstantial
evidence of an association between Zika and microcephaly by
saying, "Unless direct links are made and/or full
investigations of babies are undertaken to exclude other causes and to
identify Zika infection in infants, it will be difficult to entirely
link Zika with microcephaly."
Dr Rovasio's article sets out to redress the imbalance and to
address these potential "other causes". It raises a whole series of
different issues that Dr Rovasio feels require proper investigation.
We certainly agree with Dr Rovasio that the potential role of
pesticides should not be dismissed out of hand, and with Dr Gladstone
that at the present time other causes of microcephaly than Zika should
not be excluded from full investigation.
---
Microcephaly: Zika, pesticides, or profits?
By Roberto Rovasio, former lead researcher at Conicet*
English translation by GMWatch
* The epidemic that put Latin America on high alert has left
several open questions about its true causes and the accumulation of
economic and political interests that have converged around the scourge
In the Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the
world, Brazilian scientists, based on reports from the World Health
Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the
Ministry of Health of Brazil, have published
a paper supporting the causal relationship between prenatal infection
with the virus Zika and the frequency of microcephaly in northeastern
Brazil.
In Brazil in 2015, cases of microcephaly numbered less than 200 per
year. However, in the second half of 2015, 4,783 newborns suspected of
having this birth defect were reported. Only in Pernambuco, reported
cases went from 29 in October 2015 to 1,306
in January 2016. Of the suspects, 1,103 were clinically studied: 404
(36.6 percent) were confirmed as having microcephaly and 387 had brain
abnormalities, while the Zika virus was detected in only 17 children.
The authors concluded
that the number of Brazilian microcephaly cases had been overestimated,
but accepted the increase in the annual rate, which they were quick to
associate with the Zika virus, and declared that the country was facing
an "epidemic of
microcephaly". In their view, the brain abnormalities found were
"consistent with congenital infection" [infection during pregnancy]. We
are obliged to correct that statement, because these malformations are
compatible with almost any harmful agent (e.g. a
pesticide) acting on the embryonic brain.
Nowhere in the article was any other possible cause of microcephaly
mentioned, other than the Zika virus. This skewed vision might be
expected, since some authors are molecular biologists, but others
specialize in epidemiology and preventive medicine,
and in this field the omission is more serious.
Similar events in the region and a treatment of the phenomenon from
unorthodox angles drive us to investigate other avenues that have been
suspiciously closed off in the national and international press.
Environmental health and other matters
In one of those avenues, the Brazilian Association of Collective
Health (Abrasco) reported that in northern Brazil, a poor region with
serious immunological conditions and precarious urbanization, where the
alert was raised about microcephaly in October
2015, chemicals have been applied against the Aedes aegypti mosquito
for more than 40 years without success.
Inadequate sanitation, poor garbage collection and lack of access
to drinking water are highlighted in the extreme degradation of the
health in that region.
It is reasonable to conclude, then, that pesticide sprays have been
deposited in open containers (inadequate, but the major form of water
reservoir in the region) for more than 40 years. Today pesticides are
also sprayed in tank trucks for water distribution.
Brazil uses more pesticides than any country in the world. Between
2000 and 2012 usage rose 162 percent, with more than 800 thousand tonnes
of the most powerful pesticides used in 2012 alone.
Many pesticides used in the region are banned in more than 22
countries and multinational companies import, produce, and sell
pesticides in Brazil that are banned in their countries of origin. Since
2014, mosquito control is performed by applying the Ultra
Low Volume method, an efficient spray system developed by the US Armed
Forces.
The story began in 1968, when the organophosphate Temephos was put
into drinking water in the northeast. This was later replaced with
Diflubenzuron and Novaluron, which have known toxic effects on humans.
Since 2014, Malathion, a potential human carcinogen
and teratogen (producer of malformations) has been applied.
Currently pyriproxyfen pesticide is applied to drinking water. It
is made by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese "strategic partner" of
Monsanto. These agents cause hormonal deregulation and malformations in
insects that prevent their development into an adult.
However, as with glyphosate, which causes abnormalities in embryos
of "lower" species, some opinionated decision-makers argue that the
experimental data (from the producers of agrochemicals) do not show that
harm could also occur in human embryos.
If the statements of these "experts" were not so dramatic, pathetic
and irresponsible, they would still be the products of ignorance, since
it is now known that in many biological systems, mechanisms of gene
regulation and epigenetics are almost identical
in insects and in man (and woman).
To the agrotoxic panoply used against insect vectors, transgenic
biotechnology has now been added. These systems, which are of doubtful
effectiveness, imprecise, and have poorly studied results, are used
without strict controls - and the threats they pose
to fragile ecosystems such as northern Brazil and other areas of the
planet are dismissed.
As a recent example, the company Oxitec, set up in 2013 in
Campinas, Brazil, developed a transgenic mosquito, which it patented and
marketed in 2014. The GM mosquito has already been released in northern
Brazil, which led to a major dispute between groups
of scientists and ecologists. Today it is known that neither the Aedes
aegypti mosquito nor dengue have decreased in Brazil since the release
of transgenic mosquitoes. No long-term studies were carried out and the
influence of these mosquitoes on other insects
from the area is unknown.
For example, if Aedes
aegypti is removed, it could be replaced by Aedes albopictus ("tiger
mosquito"), one of the most harmful invasive species in the world, which
reproduces rapidly and is much more aggressive (but this would be part
of the next chapter).
Human populations inhabiting the region were not consulted before the "treatment" went ahead.
Other actors in this scenario are vaccines. Just as an example,
consider DPT (diphtheria-whooping cough-tetanus). According to the Food
and Drug Administration (its English acronym is FDA), this vaccine is
considered a biological agent whose safety in
pregnant women has not been demonstrated.
However, it was given to all pregnant Brazilian women from 2014.
This vaccine, like many others, should be considered potentially
hazardous in terms of causing fetal malformations. But in announcing the
causal relationship between Zika and microcephaly
(without scientific evidence to substantiate it), the sequencing of the
viral genome and the rapid generation of a vaccine were anticipated.
Who do you agree with?
As in our neighbouring
countries, many epidemics are associated with insect vectors, followed
by a lucrative strategy of pesticides-resistance-more pesticides. These
same epidemics are often attributed to a virus, although this is not
always [scientifically]
demonstrated, but is quickly proposed in order to develop the vaccine
panacea. However, the agenda of health policies rarely include the more
laborious and unprofitable fight against poor social and environmental
conditions, which is moved to a silent and
subordinate position.
No doubt some of those health arguments are correct. But when the
health solution is only based on combatting the insect vector with huge
amounts of toxics, in actions applied unsuccessfully for over 40 years,
or using modern biotechnology in dubious and
uncontrolled interventions, it is legitimate to suspect that the
tendency of many of those responsible for health is not in the public
interest or that of the affected population.
Usually, those responsible and their partner agencies
(accomplices?) are linked to powerful multinational suppliers of
chemicals and GMOs to agribusiness, a model developed in the Northern
hemisphere after World War II and introduced in our region from
the decades 1950-1960. Also it is worth remembering that many of these
companies are (or are derived from) producers of chemical agents of mass
destruction used in the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan,
the Middle East, and so on.
Conclusion
In sum, we have:
* An increased rate of microcephaly in poor regions with enormous health deficiencies.
* The "epidemic" was associated with the Zika virus, and
confirmation is required from radiology and laboratory tests. Of the
4,783 investigated infants, the Zika virus was demonstrated only in 17
newborns. Since the 'establishment' [of the notion that
the Zika virus causes microcephaly], other possible causes are not
mentioned.
* The region where chemicals have been applied unsuccessfully for
40 years has been bombarded [with more chemicals]. The microcephaly
cases appeared in Brazil in areas where the spraying of pyriproxyfen in
drinking water has increased in the last 18 months.
It is known that other pesticides used in Brazil and this region
(Atrazine, Metholachlor) cause microcephaly.
* Multinational laboratories based in Brazil develop and sell
transgenic mosquitoes to combat Aedes aegypti, with results that are
doubtful or poorly understood. They work feverishly on anti-Zika
vaccines to combat a disease that was traditionally benign,
and, although it infected up to 75 percent of the regional population,
had never caused microcephaly or serious health problems, dating back to
the 1940s.
* On the threshold of the next Olympic Games in August in Brazil,
we can expect to see planetary media coverage of
Zika-microcephaly-mosquito-pesticides-vaccines, etc., with the timely
appearance on the market of a magic vaccine (perhaps as miraculous
as that for ['swine'] flu H1N1) in combination with no less miraculous
transgenic mosquitoes, which "saved" humanity from a global pandemic. In
Brazil, already it is reported that 200,000 soldiers are ready to stop
the "new plague of Zika".
* The women of El
Salvador and other countries have been asked not to become pregnant
until 2018 and the population of Latin America and Africa have been
asked to delay procreation, which makes one think of a convenient system
of depopulation, or an innovative
birth control method for the Third World.
* As a backdrop, when
NGOs and scientists warn about the urgency to include in the discussion
basic public health measures and better control of pesticides and GMOs,
they are classified as "unscientific", "anti-progress", and "
antimodernity".
* As an "added value" to
the alarm on Zika-microcephaly, a wave of clandestine abortions has
begun in Brazil without confirmation of abnormalities, with its
correlative of commodification and discrimination.
* A few days ago, the WHO
committee on Public Health Emergency of International Interest
recognized the traditional mildness of the disease caused by Zika virus,
recommended seeking the yet unproven cause of microcephaly, recalled
that the abnormality
may be caused by other recognized viruses, chemicals and environmental
toxins, and advised the identification of an animal experimental model
that responds to "Koch's postulates" [criteria to identify the cause of a
disease], just as in other infectious diseases
- and only in the long term, continue to discuss vaccine development.
* In the view of many
scientists and environmental experts, the Zika virus is being used to
conceal the horrendous damage caused by pesticides in a large-scale
human experiment.
* To position the virus
as a miniature terrorist opens the doors to a blind obedience to the
dictates of the pharmaceutical-agrochemical-biotechnology industries,
through their puppet governments.
* Experts also agree that
the strategy of orientation towards economic interests has co-opted
many ministries of health, agriculture, environment, and science and
technology in Latin American countries (as in the United States), as
well as the WHO, PAHO
and other agencies, and its main objective is the prising open of new
markets in periphery and dependent countries.
* Need I remind you that - among other examples - the purchase of
the famous international flu vaccine to fight N1H1 "pandemics" exceeded
the historical proportion of patients?
La Voz, 14 March 2016
*
The National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) is the
main organization in charge of the promotion of Science and Technology
in Argentina
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