The Zika Virus Is Harmless - Who Then Benefits From This Media Panic?
The media are currently creating a panic about the allegedly dangerous Zika virus:
- U.S. doctors upgrade Zika precautions; virus found in saliva, urine
- The Latest: UN chief backs review of birth control rules
- First case of pregnant woman with Zika in Europe
- Why Zika is a ticking ‘time bomb’ for Latin America
- Race is on to develop Zika vaccine but tests on pregnant women raise concern
There is absolutely no sane reason for this panic campaign.
The virus is long known, harmless and the main current scare, that the virus damages unborn children, is based on uncorroborated and likely false information.
A recent Congressional Research Service report (pdf) about Zika notes:
Zika is a virus that is primarily spread by Aedes mosquitoes [..]. Zika transmission has also been documented from mother to child during pregnancy, as well as through sexual intercourse, blood transfusions, and laboratory exposure. Scientists first identified the virus in 1947 among monkeys living in the Ugandan Zika forest. Five years later, human cases were detected in Uganda and Tanzania. The first human cases outside of Africa were diagnosed in the Pacific in 2007 and in Latin America in 2015.
The thing is just one of many thousand viruses that can effect humans. It is known. It is rather harmless. It effects, if there are any at all, are very mild:
A relatively small proportion (about 1 in 4) of infected people develop symptoms. The virus is only detectable for a few days in infected people's blood. [..]Zika typically causes mild symptoms, including fever, rash, and conjunctivitis, which usually last up to one week. Hospitalization and death following infection are rare.
Only 1 in 4 infected people are affected and any typical flue would be more aggravating to them than this little bugger.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN????!!!!
The CRS report says:
Health experts are uncertain whether Zika causes microcephaly, a potentially severe birth defect involving brain damage. Since October 2015, Brazilian officials have reported more than 4,000 cases of microcephaly in areas with ongoing Zika transmission, up from roughly 150 cases in previous years. Health officials are concerned that this may be a result of infection in the fetus when a pregnant woman is infected.
Synopsis: We do not know if the virus harms unborn children children at all. But that number of 4,000 cases looks suspiciously high.
That is because it is false.
Microcephaly, the so called "pinhead", is not easy to diagnose. There is no standard or certain border value for the size of a newborn baby that doctors can agree on. A baby head may look too small and develop perfectly well or it may look too small and not develop perfectly. Not every case gets regularly reported. There are possible structural reason why this years number differ a lot from last years numbers. A new doctor? A new reporting system? Changed diagnosis guidelines? We do not know.
What we know is that the 4,000 cases number from Brazil that is circulating is a. misleading, b. wrong and c. unrelated to the virus.
The number is misleading because it does not give any real base like the total number of birth to which those 4,000 cases relate. According to a 2009 paper published in Neurology and quoted here:
“Microcephaly may result from any insult that disturbs early brain growth [...] annually, approximately 25,000 infants in the United States will be diagnosed with microcephaly .."
Hundreds of children are born with microcephaly every day. That is sad. But it also tells us that the "big number" of 4,000 is not really that high.
It is also false.
As was reported already a week ago:
New figures released Wednesday by Brazil's Health Ministry as part of a probe into the Zika virus have found fewer cases of a rare birth defect than first feared.Researchers have been looking at 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly reported since October. On Wednesday, officials said they had done a more intense analysis of more than 700 of those cases, confirming 270 cases and ruling out 462 others.
So more than half of those 4,000 children reported with microcephaly do not have microcephaly. That the numbers now see such a sharp correction points to problems in the standard of diagnosis in Brazil and elsewhere. Are we sure that we have really correct numbers for earlier years to compare with the current numbers?
But what about that dangerous virus?
Six of the 270 confirmed microcephaly cases were found to have the virus. Two were stillborn and four were live births, three of whom later died, the ministry said.
Only 6 out of 270 were confirmed to have had the virus. Is that a reason to be scared? Or not? That number only tells us that the detection of this virus is rare. It does not tell us how many of the 270 have at a time been infected. It also does not tell us if such an infection has caused microcephaly or not.
But you want another scary headline? "Five out of six kids diagnosed with Zika virus died!!!"
That headline is of course also wrong. We do not know how many, if any, of the surviving kids once had the virus and got rid of it. When were those tests done? Remember that the CRS report noted:
The virus is only detectable for a few days in infected people's blood.
It is likely that the virus can be detected in a dead human body if that body was infected at the time of the death. But in a living body with a working immune system the virus will have vanished after just a few days. It is quite possible that a whole bunch of the surviving children once had the virus, that it caused no harm, and that it vanished.
There is absolutely no sane reason for the scary headlines and the panic they cause.
The virus is harmless. It is possible, but seems for now very unlikely, that it affects some unborn children. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about it.
As this is all well known or easy to find out why do the media create this sensation?
Cui bono? Has someone a vaccine they want to sell? Is this to damage Brazil's Olympics?
Feel free to speculate.
Posted by b on February 5, 2016 at 20:25 UTC | Permalink
next page »Off the top of my head..Russia and Chinese ally + upcoming olympics= takedown by US similar to US takedown of sochi games and destruction of FIFA after world cup awarded to Russia. Neo cons won't allow any non US vassal to enjoy international acclaim...
Posted by: Steve | Feb 5 2016 20:41 utc | 2
@1
Perhaps both Zika and the raping brown people in Germany stories feed into anti-immigrant hysteria?
Posted by: Tircuit | Feb 5 2016 20:44 utc | 3
Pushing the birth control agenda in Latinamerica,where abortion still is mostly illegal.And,of course,benefitting the usual pharma companies and testing new chemicals on sheeple through panic induced masive vaccination.
Posted by: Carlos Manuel Pineda | Feb 5 2016 20:58 utc | 4
See this at Fox News:
"How the Zika virus outbreak may change US immigration policy"...“That episode with Ebola should be a warning for the government, but I’m not seeing that,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced immigration to the U.S., told FoxNews.com. “I’m seeing the same things— ‘nothing to worry about here, this is not going to affect us, we don’t need to have any steps in place’— and that worries me.”....
“I think using Zika as an anti-immigrant push is ridiculous,” Galea said.
Noorani argued for more scientific study of Zika before health officials and the public jump to conclusions.
“Frankly, the science needs to catch up to the information, and it just seems that there is a lot of information out there that is changing very quickly, but the science isn’t necessarily backing up the info yet,” Noorani said. “So what we want to make sure happens is, No. 1, that the science proves what the right screening measures are for the individuals who are in these countries, but most importantly that the public doesn’t panic.”
Thanks, Fox, for the warning against panic, placed at end of an article whose headline is "Mosquito expert: Washington downplaying Zika virus threat to US"
Of course, it's Fox, but that's what mainstream Americans are reading.
Personally, I'm betting the media overlords are just doing it for sport, pure and simple. Or perhaps as a test case for analyzing social media reaction trends. Some "big data" (omg!omg!omg!) trick of the light.
Only a fool would believe anything in MSM, but humans, by and large are foolish. Leave them to their prattling, there are much more interesting things to think about than simpletons getting played by assholes.
Posted by: shhh | Feb 5 2016 21:26 utc | 6
I think there's a good case for a Rio-smear though I'm not sure that's all ...
I heard the mayor of Rio being interviewed by BBC this morning -- the BBC correspondent was all over how much had been spent and facilities not-yet-completed (in an insulting way) which the Mayor rather pointedly explained was better or equivalent to the same issues in advance of the London Olympics. Yes, it made it Rio sound like an unsafe 3rd world unsafe backwater -- as bad or worse than Greece (if you recall Greece) ... oh, an Carnival (being held now) was discussed as a threat to all tourists/participants.
Don't forget there was also the "polluted lagoon" for water events, that when investigate wasn't actually polluted enough to make it unusable -- gasps, exclamations of distress for the safety to the athletes.
Finally, Zika "epidemic" also may be a side effect of degraded habitat and global warming allowing much larger geographic mosquito spread. All this bullshit about it being transmitted in saliva, and other body fluids (blood transfusion!!) is absurd -- OFCOURSE it can be transmitted that way --- and for most people Zika infection is like a mild flu with an extra-helping of body aches
FWIW, there was word that it had also been linked (possibly) to a bump in very nasty and very frightening Guillain-Barre syndrome (a usually temporary but sometimes deadly and long lasting creeping paralysis syndrome).
If Zika causes a lot of severely damaged children in affected areas, I think this should have been previously observed, and I've seen no reference ... other countries may have poor health care, but a bunch of permanently brain damage/disabled children are noticed because they don't go away and need services. BBC interviewed a "normal" person who had been diagnosed as microcephalic at birth and the Guardian had a woman with 2 microcephalic children who had extreme brain damage and cerebral palsy, and iirc seizure disorders and looked essentially like something out of an old-fashioned sideshow, strangely shaped head, enormous eyes, odd jaws, poor swallowing, flaccid, etc.
(It's a good distraction from Flint.. which isn't the only American city with excessive lead in it's city-water or it's children. )
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 5 2016 21:35 utc | 7
A media attack against the Brazil Olympics is possible but that's not for 5 or 6 months, so too early. My guess is they are trying to force everyone into their flu vaccination scam. There are still some of us who refuse to get vaccinated and I guess they will do everything they can to scare everyone into compliance. As for harming babies, most viral infections in a pregnant woman have at least some damger for the fetus.
Posted by: Lysander | Feb 5 2016 22:17 utc | 8
Thanks for the rundown on the Zika virus b. I haven’t paid much attention to it and assumed that there was something to all the media attention, an unconscious digression and holdover on my part from when I believed most everything coming from the MSM, (that was actually quite some time ago)..
Anyway, my first speculation:
Something that the some corporate interests want to cover up with a red herring. For instance, some widespread industrial chemical or pollutant that has been implicated in some way with human embryonic malfunction. History is rife with industrial coverups of all sorts of maladies which have been traced to one or another of their products. Tobacco smoke, asbestos, purple dye i.e. mauveine, glyphosate to name but a few that come immediately to mind.
Posted by: juannie | Feb 5 2016 22:22 utc | 9
The media is on afterburners these days with the threat of ignorance being undone. How many Dustin Hofmans' of Wag The Dog are being abused for these flights of misdirection.
Instead of focusing on Brazil, maybe the media should focus its health concerns on Japan and specifically Tokyo. What will the bio-accumulation of radiation from the 3 nukes that are out of containment be for the Olympics that are scheduled to be there in 2020?
I think that the propaganda getting to this level must mean that the Fat Lady is clearing her throat and about to sing........
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 5 2016 22:36 utc | 10
Administrative fuck up and badly functioning general health system pure and simple. That is the argument made in Germany´s "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". Read it! (Sorry, not on Google yet). Gist of the story is that Brazil changed the criteria for small baby heads and then bad statistics and bad record keeping did the rest. Sounds plausible. Unless Brazil is so broke they are looking for a reason to call of the Olympics.
Posted by: Tom | Feb 5 2016 22:37 utc | 11
The usual suspects in Europe have never been happy since Brazil won the Olympics. They've done all they can to derail it or at least scare people form attending - From organizing fake mass protest against the Brazilian government about "corruption" etc etc and now this, Zika.. As b pointed out, the virus's been around for a while in Africa (where people have developed immunity to it).
The latest scare mongering is definitely targeted at the Olympics. Kinda reminds of the the campaign launched against South Africa about crime rate in J'burg during the World cup.
Posted by: Zico | Feb 5 2016 22:38 utc | 12
Clearly they are trying to lull everyone into a false sense of security- "another exotic virus?, whatever.." before unleashing the biological weapon that will wipe out 99% of humanity.
Only the masters of the universe will be inoculated against this deadly virus. Just to be safe they will decamp to space ships and stay in low orbit until the chaos has died down. They will return to found the kingdom of God, where everyone will get a free tesla and live forever.
The singularity is near at hand- five years at the most. The pre-singularity has been real- but it hasn't been real fun.
Posted by: Nana2007 | Feb 5 2016 22:48 utc | 13
So far, it doesn't sound like something that's going to lead to "travel advisories" for non-pregnant adults or children -- or -- lead to withdrawal of corporate sponsors ... and... I haven't seen claims of American fingerprints of the hysteria, which seemingly was NOT "manufactured" ... those "official" Brazilian health stats on spiking incidence of microcephaly came from BRAZIL.
There should be data enough to under-pin some retractions / corrections soon enough to avoid affecting the Olympics and to quell Northern Hemisphere over-reaction(s).
The tainted city water problems affect many cities ... hopefully they will not be eclipsed by Zika or Flint ...
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 5 2016 22:52 utc | 14
OT
Peace Talks “Paused” After Putin’s Triumph in Aleppo
by Mike Whitney
“This is the beginning of the end of jihadi presence in Aleppo. After 4 years of war and terror, people can finally see the end in sight.”
— Edward Dark, Twitter, Moon of Alabama
A last ditch effort to stop a Russian-led military offensive in northern Syria ended in failure on Wednesday when the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) backed by the National Defense Forces (NDF) and heavy Russian air cover broke a 40-month siege on the villages of Nubl and al-Zahra in northwestern Aleppo province. The Obama administration had hoped that it could forestall the onslaught by cobbling together an eleventh-hour ceasefire agreement at the Geneva peace talks. But when the news that Syrian armored units had crashed through al Nusra’s defenses and forced the jihadists to retreat, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura suspended the negotiations tacitly acknowledging that the mission had failed.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/peace-talks-paused-after-putins-triumph-in-aleppo/
Posted by: okie farmer | Feb 5 2016 22:58 utc | 15
For a different angle on this...Pesticide use etc... I recommend:
'The Zika Virus Scam: Zika Freakout - The Hoax And The Covert Operation Continue'
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-zika-virus-scam-zika-freakout-hoax.html
Who knows?
Regards
Susie
Posted by: Susie | Feb 5 2016 23:16 utc | 16
Maybe there is another reason for the spiking incidence of microcephaly:
Brasilien: Die wahren Ursachen der Neugeborenen-Mikrozephalie sind offensichtlich
Posted by: Karin | Feb 5 2016 23:25 utc | 17
Hoax? | 1
_________________
I don't have the answers you're looking for, but I second your questions.
FWIW, as one living in the Amerikan OTA (over-the-air, aka "rabbit-ears antenna") TV ghetto, I don't have cable/satellite network access, and I tend to avoid US mainstream network news. So I check in daily with RT News-- and, of course, the Internets.
I was appalled when RT's "breaking news" coverage of the (alleged) Cologne disturbances clearly reverted to a sensationalistic Western approach. Even at RT, the "breaking news" oddly spun in place in ensuing days.
That is, instead of introducing newly-discovered or disclosed facts and investigation into the murky, ambiguous claims as the days progressed, RT simply layered on interviews with tendentious "experts". They also did a lot of "on-site" reporting featuring person-in-the-street interviews. But even these were misleading and disingenuous at best: they didn't interview actual victims or first-hand witnesses, or if they did they didn't televise them.
Instead, they featured reactions from random passersby whose reactions were based on the original hearsay and media reports. By the end of the week, the "meme" of "Mass Sexual Assault (on Christian Women) by a Horde of Lawless, Barbaric Arab/North Africans" had become a settled shorthand description for... who knows what?
As bad, or worse, they used a dishonest "report the controversy" approach to give plenty of air time to various anti-immigrant/refugee activists and organizations; they also have used the Cologne story as a springboard to would-be "whistleblower" claims about police authorities and conventional media outlets suppressing information about refugee-related crimes.
Since then, all the newsreaders need to do is cite "the Cologne sex assault". They don't have a logo or specific theme music, as news programs always do in this era of infotainment/infoganda-- but they do have a visual cue: they show a standard sequence of (ostensibly) amateur social media. Ironically, even this thematic material is devoid of any evidence of violence; it's a dark and blurry glimpse of fireworks being shot off in one of the squares.
There are silhouettes of people moving around, but the video looks very much like a typical, universal innocuous attempt to capture the fireworks display. There is no groping, or even a glimpse of any of the alleged "Arab or North African" marauders. No matter! The fireworks video is simply a cue to credulous, trusting viewers to "remember the Cologne mass-assault" as the US public was once encouraged to "Remember the Alamo!" or "Remember the Maine!"
* * * * * *
As far as the topic question, I dunno. But I do know that Western governments and their mass-media partners/servants have developed a talent for keeping the populace in a permanent state of fear, anxiety, and hysteria-- the better to keep them distracted, distressed, and tractable. It's a messy approach, but I think it may be a corollary of "managed chaos", if that's the right term for the US-dominated Western hegemony's predatory practice of sowing mayhem and discord in target nations for its own sake, in order to keep its victims permanently off-balance and vulnerable.
I'm sure others can provide more specific agendas, and I look forward to learning about them.
Posted by: Ort | Feb 5 2016 23:40 utc | 18
ZeroHedge is well ZeroHedge but the conspiracy theory is interesting.......
Zika Outbreak Epicenter In Same Area Genetically-Modified Mosquitoes Released In 2015
Posted by: mad1 | Feb 5 2016 23:49 utc | 19
Just more fear porn. Doesnt always require an explicit goal so long as people get worried and believe that establishment institutions are required to protect them.
If people can make money out of it then its an added bonus for them.
Posted by: Bob | Feb 6 2016 0:31 utc | 21
I dunno some self-fulfilling prophesy or racist fantasy also works -- Rio is an exotic tropical place filled with sexy, many-hued people. What better setting for some tropical plague (god's punishment)? No one cares all that much what happens in Africa (see Ebola), but the gorgeous hedonists of Carnival made to pay? God smiles. (/sarcasm)
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 0:32 utc | 22
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-zika-virus/5505323
Posted by: la | Feb 6 2016 0:35 utc | 23
I didn't take the time to read all of Zero Hedge's piece that mad1 @18 brought, but if there are any science geeks here (I am not one in any way) they might want to look at ‘Pandora’s Box: How GM Mosquitos Could Have Caused the Zika Virus Outbreak’, by Oliver Tickell
@juannie | Feb 5, 2016 5:22:03 PM | 9
There is more and more evidence that Monsanto's glyphosate is so toxic that the WHO has named it 'likely carcinogenic', and that it's showing up in at least small doses everywhere (water, blood, food, and of course human guts). Stay tuned; it's evil.
Posted by: wendy davis | Feb 6 2016 0:41 utc | 24
The Zika hoax has/will have a massively negative effect on Brazils tourist trade.
Economic warfare
Posted by: Zika, schmika | Feb 6 2016 1:08 utc | 25
b
Speaking of pandemic viruses, (and fortunately the FB plague has not reached here to MoA yet), but for the last few years since FB 'market value top' hysteria peaked, the Zuk has been stealthily replacing Disqus as Comments gate-keeper on major media outlets and popular blog sites, worldwide, beginning with his buddies at Zeitbart, then spreading to the Zuffpost, CNN, Bloomberg, even RT is now safely behind a Zuk FB zionet.
Why does that matter? You are required to *subscribe* to FB with your identity, whether you want to or not, giving Zuk the 'subscriber base' to attract web advertisers then equity investors, without a single media outlet warning of this 'comment deleted' zionet ponzi equities fraud. Comments that don't support and push the NWO radical right agenda become 'comment deleted', while zio-troll comments pushing 'Islamic SubHumans' proliferate.
Zuk took out our local newspaper this week, shutting down our anonymous anti-government Disqus comments and revelations, as we were building a groundswell with good evidence, against a corrupt administration. Comments under FB went to zero.
We're all microcephalopoids now.
Posted by: Chipnik | Feb 6 2016 1:39 utc | 26
17
Now if TPTB can add 'mandatory innoculations' language to the TPP trade pact that was just signed this week, turning over government sovereignty to anonymous UN Corporate tribunals, so that Gilead can release their Zika anti-virus they may have already developed, think how rich you might could be if you invested in Big Pharma, as it's cratering under the death of ObamaCare and a 36-hour week = no company insurance scam?! With a poll-estimated 30% of Western industry workers now on partial work-from-home trend toward 'independent contractor' status, you can bet Big Pharma will be cranking out one new pandemic a week, tailored to some killer-bee mosquito hybrid.
Posted by: Chipnik | Feb 6 2016 1:54 utc | 27
Hang onto your horses, so far there's no vaccine ... saw one article saying might have one developed in a year, but it would be several years after before it could be put into use... and probably -- like lots of things -- not for pregnant women ..
I think the numbers are going to be revised downward. There were 3 Guillain-Barre deaths in Colombia, but such numbers are meaningless unless there's a baseline ... and the article didn't mention how many cases there were in total and/or anything about those affected ... I think actual deaths are usually a matter of respiratory failure -- so whether these peple had access to ventilator is 100% crucial, see also comorbidities --preexisting conditions.
Researchers have been looking at 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly reported since October. On Wednesday, officials said they had done a more intense analysis of more than 700 of those cases, confirming 270 cases and ruling out 462 others.
700 cases, confirmed 270 (38%), ruled out 463 (66%)
nbc: AP 01/27/2016: Brazil Revises Birth Defect Count in Zika Investigation (same numbers as above)
yahoo/AFP: Colombia blames 3 deaths on Zika, nerve disorder
.
Colombia has been hit hardest by the Zika outbreak of any country except Brazil, with more than 20,000 cases, including more than 2,000 pregnant women.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 2:11 utc | 28
@25
Voluntary, ignorant surrender. All hail King Zuk...!
Posted by: MadMax2 | Feb 6 2016 2:11 utc | 29
13
That's a wonderful idea for a sci-fi movie,... as soon as Tesla-NASA develops 'consumer (sic) space travel' to some 5-star orbital hotel, complete with Oculus bullion pron, an equities gaming casino, anti-gravity moon pools and lots of topless femdroids, you can bet the 0.1% will start plotting a super-fly eboma virus that will whip around the world within 80 days, ...the fly maggots conveniently digesting the billions of corpses, ...so The Chosen can return to their Emerald World, a little shakey in noodle body after that exhausting exo-atmospheric ordeal, to a wholly depopulated planet run by their pre-innoculated Mil.Gov drones, and a manageable pool of surviving workers, who will labor 12/7/365 for a bowl of boiled rice and a pail of fresh water.
The Final Solution.
Posted by: Chipnik | Feb 6 2016 2:20 utc | 30
thanks for articulating this b.. i have been wondering about it all myself and of course @1 hoax's post too.. seems like the sheeple are being driven towards a cliff...
@25 chipnik.. it is shocking how rampant that fb shit is now... i can't believe how naive or brain-dead so many are with regard to fb as well..
Posted by: james | Feb 6 2016 2:33 utc | 31
Don't forget that in a few years most people will have immunity -- what we're seeing is Zika in a population without immunity. I haven't seen any estimates of how long Zika immunity lasts -- but in a year most people won't need a vaccine... Zika's been in Africa for years, herd immunity is established.
Fred Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center:Zika virus: 6 key things we don’t yet know good stuff.
How worried should we be about the 2016 Summer Olympics?
Some are worried that another major sporting event slated to be held in Brazil, the 2016 Summer Olympics, could kick off an even bigger wave of global Zika transmission. That same 100 or so viral sequences can also tell us how quickly the virus will spread in the future, Bedford said, and could help pinpoint whether the virus will likely still be raging in South America by August.Zika is likely spreading so quickly in the Americas because people in the Western Hemisphere don’t have a natural immunity to the virus that those in Africa do, Bedford said. So it’s possible that once enough herd immunity is established in this hemisphere, the epidemic will die down of its own accord. But we don’t know when that will happen, Bedford said.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 2:44 utc | 32
Wide circulation of dubious information predated the invention of print, and perhaps even the invention of writing. And establishing causality is often very hard. For example, hunter-gathering aborigines of Australia were attributing the conception of children to spirits dwelling near water springs. In a society in which every woman is sexually active and not every one bears children such an explanation is not that fanciful.
Agricultural societies had more opportunities to get the connection between sex and birth correctly, but inheritance was more tricky. For example, serious people wrote that you can cause single-color ewes to bear two-color lambs by making them to look at a mix of white and black sticks. And for millenia many serious people believed that.
OTOH, the notion of "harmless virus" is not particularly scientific. Terrifying viral epidemics are typically caused by mutations of viruses that can be either asymptomatic or causing mild symptoms.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 6 2016 2:51 utc | 33
psychohistorian@10- yes it's strange, I've been thinking that for a while- where's the fat lady?
Sakurijima Japan experienced a volcanic eruption today 50 km from a nuclear power plant. Taiwan a 6.4 earthquake. Any chance these are related to the ongoing Fukishima meltdown? I don't know. Go go Godzilla.
Chipnik@20- thanks for extrapolating. You're a riot by the way.
Posted by: Nana2007 | Feb 6 2016 3:07 utc | 34
I agree Poitr -- it's possible that a mutation (in turn, from whatever cause) could create a something "catastrophic" -- see HIV/AIDS ...
The 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine certainly appeared to have "caused" very high level of Guillain-Barre syndrome. It's considered an autoimmune disorder, 20,000 cases a year but only some associated with vaccines. Other associations much more frequent
Guillain-Barre syndrome may be triggered by:
Most commonly, infection with campylobacter, a type of bacteria often found in undercooked poultry
Influenza virus
Epstein-Barr virus
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS
Mycoplasma pneumonia
Surgery
Hodgkin's lymphoma
Rarely, influenza vaccinations or childhood vaccinations
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 3:18 utc | 36
Speaking of Fukushima
In a breaking development that has been completely ignored by mainstream news sources, the leaking natural gas well near Los Angeles, California is now reportedly spewing lethal levels of radioactive material, according to a report from Steve Quayle and a group with expertise in nuclear material.
Posted by: Nana2007 | Feb 6 2016 3:49 utc | 37
Thanks for covering this from the Who Benefits angle, b. I'd already dismissed the 'threat' on the factoidal/ statistical grounds you've outlined. I did briefly ponder the possibility that the un-heroic MSM stenographers benefited by having a topic to beat-up which wasn't embarrassingly obvious claptrap. But you've clipped the wings of that theory...
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2016 4:01 utc | 38
the fundamental rule of probability, fleming's law
*once is accident, twice a coincidence, thrice....enemy action !!
2009
WHO, declared the Swine Flu a pandemic.
[rumsfeld apparently made a fortune outta it]
2014
WHO, declared ebola A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE !
OMG !
[untedsnake despatched the 101airborne to the pandemic zone to shoot them ebola virus, remember ?]
2016,
WHO strikes again...
margaret chan [that wog from zwo infested hk]
*ZIKA A GLOBAL EMERGENCY*
[which means WHO can order a quarantine on brazil if the *pandemic* gets out of hand !]
OMFG !
http://anothervoicerev184.blogspot.com/2016/02/nwo-now-who-declares-mini-isis-ie-zika.html
pssst
meanwhile,
that accursed tpp is now fact accompli,
http://anothervoicerev184.blogspot.com/2016/02/secretive-tpp-takeover-privatization.html
p.s.
its all about zwo agent21 one world control and.... dont forget to follow the money, hehehe
https://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/merck-and-novartis-have-patented-zika-cures/
take your vaccine !
http://qz.com/609291/this-indian-biotech-firm-is-the-worlds-first-to-ready-a-zika-vaccine-for-testing/
courtesy of india, the only brics country that seems *immune* from zwo attacks, ;-)
Posted by: denk | Feb 6 2016 4:01 utc | 39
Juannie @ 9:
" ... Something that the some corporate interests want to cover up with a red herring. For instance, some widespread industrial chemical or pollutant that has been implicated in some way with human embryonic malfunction. History is rife with industrial coverups of all sorts of maladies which have been traced to one or another of their products. Tobacco smoke, asbestos, purple dye i.e. mauveine, glyphosate to name but a few that come immediately to mind."
You'll be interested to know that Brazil, as a major producer of soybeans and other crops subject to genetic engineering and mono-agricultural practices, is the world's biggest user of pesticides and agro-chemicals.
http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/brazil-is-largest-global-consumer-of-pesticides-shows-report/
There are websites and blogs linking the outbreak of Zika virus in parts of northeast Brazil (one of the most impoverished regions in the country, by the way) to releases of genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by the British company Oxitec in 2012 and 2015. The GM mosquitoes (all male) are supposed to breed with female mosquitoes to produce sterile offspring or offspring that die before maturation because the genetic modifications they inherit from the GM mosquitoes require that they ingest tetracycline as part of their maturation. The idea is that mosquito populations where GE mosquitoes have been introduced will eventually crash, because tetracycline does not normally appear in the wild. No more dengue fever, no more yellow fever and other nasty diseases that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmit.
The problem seems to be that no-one at Oxitec must have bothered to find out if tetracycline was already present in the areas where the GM mosquitoes were released. Tetracycline is used as an antibiotic in chicken factory farms and Brazil happens to be a major producer of chickens. So while initial releases of GM mosquitoes in areas where dengue and other diseases were rife had some success in suppressing these diseases, this early success is likely to be short term. Any bacteria that the mosquitoes are carrying will build up resistance to tetracycline and the bacteria may exchange genes with any viruses the mosquitoes carry.
Microcephaly can also occur when foetuses are exposed to pesticides, lack of nutrients if mothers themselves are malnourished, alcohol, drugs and malaria, and any combination of these. Having a small head is one characteristic of foetal alcohol syndrome which can also result if the affected child's father is the heavy alcohol drinker.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 6 2016 4:35 utc | 40
@29
Chipnik, welcome to the machine kingdom, post fake savior return. All going according to Script(ure)©..
Posted by: Lozion | Feb 6 2016 5:27 utc | 41
Brazil is a country with similar size from USA and a population of 220 million vs 320 million from the US. And considering that the birth rate in Brazil is higher than that of the US. It is possible that in 2100 Brazil becomes more populous than the US. Making it the most populous country of the Americas.
Since Ted Roosevelt. American elites have always had an interest of dismembering Brazil into three. And since the Brazilian elites have always had been docile and submissive for with the US, the American plan was temporaly 'shelved', However with the arrival of leftist in power in 2002 and approach of Brazil with China and Russia, the US reversed its plans, going back to the era of Big Stick
Posted by: Mario | Feb 6 2016 5:40 utc | 42
I would think that a gasleak that has continued for so long may not be just from the mine-storage gas, but from the origin of the gas in the earth, no?
It's my understanding that earthquakes and volcanoes on land and under the ocean increase when the sun cycle is very weak. Our current cycle is the weakest in a hundred years.
Wendy Davis @23, If you are following the Zika story you might like to know of an error or perhaps lie: Zero Hedge & I believe I saw elsewhere, too: that the Oxitec OX513A mosquio was released for the first time or first time in Brazil in April 2015. Not so! It was released in several places including Braxil sometime prior to August 2014, says an article about Intrexon's desire to buy the then-British company, including its mosquito, boll-worm & fruit fly technology.
Intrexon is publicly traded and its board of directors are the usual rogues with connections to JP Morgan, Citibank, Monsanto, Nutrasweet, Bear Stearns, etc.
I find it less than reassuring that the power structure has something approaching a hypodermic w wings.
Poor Brazil was targeted once before for population reduction. Wm Engdahl's book "Seeds of Destruction" documents how the Rockefeller Foundation succeeded in making a program that was supposed to be voluntary, totally INvoluntary and uninformed when they permanently sterilized 44% of Brazilian women aged 14-55. Most were convinced to give birth in modern hospitals and sterilized while under anesthesia following giving birth. It was estimated that it included 90% of Black women. This took place in the 80s.
Karin @ 16, Incredible that they would've vaccinated pregnant women. NSNBC has shocking info on Vaccinations. So does GlobalResearch.ca.
Posted by: Penelope | Feb 6 2016 5:44 utc | 43
I've been following Zika with a jaundiced eye through the msm since it first became breaking news 3 weeks ago.
At first I thought it was just a simple rerun of the bird flu tamiflu rip which turned Donny Rumsfeld into a billionaire (at the expense of hundreds of millions of unwhite people in unwhite nations - but hey you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs - amIright?).
Now I'm starting to see the beat up as a far more nuanced piece of chicanery than a simple "lets make a few kazillion and leave the uncommitted resource rich nations in even more shit than they were before" scam.
Firstly as other posters have correctly pointed out it seems to be an attempt to force changes in the social mores of conservative latin america. It is tough to justify continued opposition to contraception and abortion if the population is rife with rumours that becoming pregnant may be lethal . These stories incessantly imply that it isn't just the children of pregnant women infected with Zika who are at risk, but that the mothers are in danger too although those actual risks are never stated.
hey but that is a good thing right? Don't women in Latin America need a break from their oppressive maternal roles?
Hmm this is difficult to explain quickly the best way of outlining the dangers of such false flag attacks seemingly in support of progressive ideas is to look at climate change battles since the neoliberals joined in and pretended to back climate change scientists. Before the assholes took control of the 'global warming agenda" as they inevitably refer to concern about our planet's climate, the climate change movement had succeeded in getting genuine measures to reduce CO2 emissions onto the table.
Carbon credits may have worked until the neolibs grabbed ahold of the proposals and turned them into yet another way of taxing the poor and making rich assholes richer creating the rules so complex anyone who could afford the fare of a coupla bent lawyers was gonna be streets ahead of the game while Joe Citizen paid more for less.
The rate of growth of CO2 emissions in the 'developed world' increased.
So no - I for one, do not see WHO, using Zika as a way to pressure the catholic governments of latin america to ease up on oppressing women's right to make their own reproductive choices as a good thing - because long term it will probably do no such thing.
What it will do is put pope frank under a great deal of pressure from the very group who most support him - Latin America's progressive left. Divide & rule anyone?
It is helpful to go back to tors and consider why religions get caught up in political conflicts if we do want to examine how the best way to reduce oppression of latin American women could be gone about.
Take the islamic and judaic strictures against pork and/or the way that both religions insist on only eating flesh that has been bled to death.
Before those rules (around pre-moses or mohammed had fronted) became standard in the ME, humans were dying in great numbers across the ME especially in the hotter times of year.
The shift from hunter gatherer to agrarian lifestyle meant protein was stored & transported rather than consumed close to the kill site.
Staying away from swine flesh and only eating red meat drained of blood were two simple measures which drastically reduced deaths from food poisoning.
Science wasn't big on the agenda 2 or 3 thousand years bc, so telling the citizenry they shouldn't eat pigs or bloody meat, a call from the big sky pilots in charge was a straightforward way to get the peeps to look after themseves and their families.
The fact that these rules haven't changed since the advent of refrigerators and food hygiene is likely because sufficient alternatives to pork as a protein source abound and bleeding out beasts is no big deal. If either of those situations were to change, the power of the dietary customs would be quickly eroded and the 'laws' would be altered.
The continued oppression of women.
According to popular western theory, suffragettes enraged at the enslavement of women, forced western societies to quit the routine oppression of women by using smart strategies and appeals to reason Hmmm I disagree.
Women have been oppressed for thousands of years & have resisted their enslavement many times but were only successful post the industrial revolution - once the economic and social structures which required women to conform to a narrow range of oppressive roles, changed.
Mostly this had to do with land allocation in an agrarian society reliant on economically sustainable agriculture that was only possible if land holding were kept to a usuable size.
The customs of land holdings being given to the eldest male, and younger sons being 'encouraged' into the military or clergy were an essential element in pre industrial revolution social structure.
Equally important was regimenting women's roles so both extended families of a landholder's nuclear benefitted.
A bloke took a wife whose dowry would be paid by the bride's family and who would gain some security in old age as a result.
Women without brothers who inherited land were seen as problematic unless they could be 'controlled' so in the usual fashion church state, and bourgois society ganged together and called on god, passed laws and enforced 'customs' to make sure codified land ownership rules were conformed to.
I have no doubt that socio-economic changes currently underway in Latin America mean notions of a woman's womb being public property subject to regulation is doomed no matter what happens over Zika - but allowing the neoliberal puppets of greedies to assume control of even a part of those changes is more likely to delay or corrupt change than to assist it.
WHO may be considering a Clinton prezdency a foregone conclusion so they are adopting the same bullshit public relations strategies that Hillary so loves.
All form and no function bullshit.
For all we know the UN WHO in particulary have been set one of those false targets beloved of the biggest consumers of the 'statistics as lies to achieve our ends' brigade.
Sure there will be a good earner for a coupla of medical contracting corps - we also need to consider if post modernism as a lifestyle choice is hitting 30 - so far past it's shelf life date that it is popular among the derps and dweebs who populate transnational bureaucracies suchas the united nations and world health organisation.
So they grab a bit of corporate profiteering from here attach some msm scaremongering here some pseudo feminism with just a soupcon of racism here and a healthy chunk of side issues/distraction from useful statistics to 'legitimate' worthless stats here throw it all up against a wall and call it a 21st century WHO masterpiece.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2016 6:18 utc | 44
[...] annually, approximately 25,000 infants in the United States will be diagnosed with microcephaly [...].
Wow! This is a lot of prospective candidates for president or CNN reporters, uh?
Posted by: Penelope | Feb 6 2016 6:25 utc | 45
Anybody (babies) who has previously had a bug like this should have antibodies? in their blood that will show they have had it at some stage.
A number of "mild" viruses like this (mosquito transmission), some people never fully recover from. Doctors generally diagnose them with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or some other bullshit terminology.
This Zika virus being worked up into ebola like proportions by the media is..
Brazil? full spectrum warfare.
Posted by: Peter AU | Feb 6 2016 6:35 utc | 46
Just a new swine flu scandal: business as usual.
Big pharma needs money...
Posted by: Penelope | Feb 6 2016 6:38 utc | 47
@ 1
I've been asking myself these same questions.
I was hoping for some "proof" from ZeroHedge. But, all I've seen from them was a link to a video showing some young ME(?)-looking guy tussle briefly with an old German guy in a subway car, for 5 seconds before being pulled off by his peers. Doesn't show how it started. Shit like that happens routinely in many countries but suddenly it's supposed to "mean something"?? (Someone wants it to.) Sadly, the normally skeptical ZeroHedge crowd reacted like a bunch of Fox viewers. (For me, that's another data point supporting this proposition: Even people who "don't fall for it" sometimes will "fall for it" eventually. TPTB can manipulate them, too. It just takes a little bit different messaging. Instead of appealing to "liberals" with R2P porn, appeal to some others with racism and infoganda reports containing statements like "gubmint officials are downplaying the [insert issue to market to the polloi]".)
Posted by: dumbass | Feb 6 2016 7:53 utc | 48
The 25,000 cases of microcephaly per year in the US is almost certainly incorrect. The number is closer to 500. If the reported cases in Brazil is, in fact, 4000 for last year that is significant. If correct then looking for the cause is justified. I am having difficulty in seeing why zika virus is being implicated at this point.
Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 6 2016 8:47 utc | 49
@@ Penelope | Feb 6, 2016 1:25:48 AM | 44
You seem to overlook the U.S Congress, all state legislatures as well as most Parliamentarians worldwide.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Feb 6 2016 10:06 utc | 50
@ wendy davis | Feb 5, 2016 7:41:43 PM | 23 &
@ Jen | Feb 5, 2016 11:35:50 PM | 39
Wendy & Jen, thanks for posting the links and background. I gotta’ say, “b” entirely missed the scary and important political, genetic, neurological, and statistical issues underlying this “ZV panic.” If he had seen that Tickell piece that Wendy links to, I think “b” ’s post would have had an entirely different flavor.
Here’s my problems w/ “b”‘s analysis of the ZV data. My next comment speculates on the frightening science.
Point 1.
b (paraphrase): ZV is harmless. Move on, nothing to see here.
Agreed, at least up until late 2015. The unmodified version of this virus is not something to be concerned about. Flu symptoms for a couple days and it’s gone. Even when a famous “outbreak” occurred in the Yap Islands in 2007 it was ho-hum. 49 confirmed cases, no deaths, not even any hospitalizations. That says the human immune system attacks ZV pretty efficiently. That is precisely why this event is scary – something has changed.
Point 2
b (paraphrase): Brazil only has 4000 microcephaly cases, but the US has 25,000, citing something called a Congressional Research Service report.
b: the 4000 number “looks suspiciously high . . . 4000 is not really that high.”
And I’m like . . . WTF, “b” ????
First of all, the original 4000 suspected microcephaly cases are not for the entire 200M pop. of Brazil, that’s with respect to the areas in which ZV is active. Comparing 4000 to 25000 is nonsense. That’s like saying there’s no poverty problem in Brazil because there are areas in Sao Paulo where average wealth is higher than the average US wealth.
One would have to know the size of the population from which the 4000 cases came in order to calculate a ratio that could be compared with incidence rates in other places. “b” sort of makes that point and then completely buries it.
Second, the striking and relevant comparison is that the 4000 number is an increase from 150 cases from the same region in the previous year. That is a valid comparison and that’s pretty scary, no matter how you look at it.
Point 3
b: “4,000 children reported with microcephaly do not have microcephaly.”
Wong again. The 4000 number was never reported as final. It includes babies identified as microcephalic in field tests. The problem is that out in the wops the doctors can only Dx microcephaly with a tape measure. By definition it’s microcephaly if the circumference of the kid’s head is more than 2 standard deviations below average. If all 4000 cases originally met that criterion, then they were properly Dx as microcephaly, at least on a preliminary basis.
That tape measure approach becomes a screening exercise. Because that method has been used for years, the jump from 150 to 4000 using the same method – or same combination of methods – is saying something.
The 270 number “b” is citing (and also the WaPo) is the number of Zika-related cases that resulted when 700 of the preliminary 4000 cases were re-examined with CT or ultrasound. And as WaPo points out, only 732 of the original 4000 were tested by CT (so far), but the percentage could go up or down when all of the 4000 are evaluated, and you could certainly see high pockets of confirmed microcephaly in certain areas when the data are broken down by regions – like regions where Oxitec’s GM mosquitos were released not long before the microcephaly outbreak.
But let’s say that “b” is right and upon CT re-evaluation the number of microcephalics is only 50% of the 4000 originally diagnosed, or 2000. Well, one would have to presume that the 150 number from last year was 2x too high as well, and so the real problem, would be a jump from 75 cases confirmed by CT to 2000. That’s a 26x increase!!!!
Point 4
b: “Only 6 out of 270 were confirmed to have had the virus. Is that a reason to be scared?” Citing SFGate.
SFGate misstated the data. The 270 cases were those linked to ZV out of the 732 that were examined by CT. The fact that only 6 of the babies themselves tested positive for the virus probably doesn’t mean much, particularly given that the problem here may not be the virus but genes that are jumping from the mosquitos into the virus and from the virus into the humans. How many of those 270 confirmed microcephalic babies’ mothers or fathers tested positive for the virus? Presumably “linked to Zika” means at least one of the parents tested positive for Zika antibodies.
I commiserate w/ “b” – digging out the data on this ZV event is frustrating. IMO, the SFGate article (AP) and the CRS report are bunk, but not as bad as a NPR report that said the 4000 cases was the number of Zika cases, not the number of microcephaly cases.
The bottom line is this: The virus, ZV, has never been a trouble-maker and was not on WHO’s wanted-dead-or-alive list. People get it, get a fever, go home and sleep it off. Sounds like a normal Saturday night to me, especially in Rio.
But something has changed very, very suddenly, regardless of whether the number of microcephalic babies is 2000 or 4000. Nature by itself doesn’t change that radically that fast. And that’s why people are concerned about a GM gender-bender mosquito produced by a British company named Oxitec and released in Juazeiro, Brazil just before this microcephaly outbreak.
Mosquitoes do XX for females and XY for males like (most) people. Oxitec’s plan, as I understand it, was to modify Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by inserting a “jumping gene” aka transposon into the X chromosome of the mosquito. The effect was to produce 95% males in the next generation. Since males don’t suck-blood, they don’t spread dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and other diseases spread by Aedes. And, the way the gene was programmed, in the absence of tetracylines, these males died prior to sexual maturity, so the numbers of mosquitoes would decline very rapidly.
In Jul|2015 the Oxitec scientists published a paper crowing about how they reduced the Aedes aegypti population by 95% in this area of Brazil. Three months later it’s Houston, we gotta’ problem. Actually, at least one scientist, Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, saw the problem coming well ahead of time and in 2010 wrote a letter warning the Brazilian government, who are now scrambling to mitigate/cover-up/whatever.
The genetic “vehicle” used to carry the gene used to bend the mosquitoes’ gender was a transposon named “piggyBac.” The GM mosquitoes themselves are called OX513A.
From what some of these very worried people are saying, Oxitec couldn’t have chosen a worse transposon than piggyBac. Even though only 5% of the 1st generation mosquitoes survived, 5% of an enormous number is a very, very big number, and that number would be enriched with blood-sucking females. I mean for the few surviving males, it would be like Leo DiCraprio walking into a bar in Southern California, which is known for its blood-sucking females.
The problem with the piggyBac transposon is that it is promiscuous: it is known to jump from one species into another. Apparently, it can even jump across phyla – like from a squid into a tulip or something. Probably not the best example.
Anyway, there were plenty of reasons to suspect that the gender bender gene carried by piggyBac could jump from the mosquito into the virus. Since it's the virus that circulates in the blood stream, if a female OX513A transfers the gene to the virus as it is reproducing in the mosquito, and then mosquito bites a person, there’s a bigger problem.
For instance, the virus is now well known to be found in semen. That has been known for quite a while, but a virus with jumping genes found in semen is a whole new sort of biology. Could that piggyBac/gene combo jump from the virus into the X chromosomes of the sperm, or cells that produce the sperm? If so, that nasty gender-bender gene ends up in the embryo. So far no one seems to have asked whether piggyBac could find its way into ova as well. The possibilities are really pretty scary.
And the reason I say that is that there is at least one X-linked version of microcephaly, which tells us that there is at least one gene on that chromosome that, if fucked with, will destroy a kid’s life by arresting his brain development. What I haven’t seen yet is the gender ratio of the 720 microcephalic babies linked to ZV so far.
“b” said to speculate, and that’s a lot of what this is. But there are some really smart people out there worried about where this ZV thing is taking us.
John Rappaport article, zika, five things that will happen next...http://www.activistpost.com/2016/02/zika-hoax-five-things-that-will-happen-next.html
Posted by: Bluemot5 | Feb 6 2016 11:01 utc | 53
@Denis 50, 51 Thankyou for rounding out the discussion. helpful to keep in mind....
Posted by: Bluemot5 | Feb 6 2016 11:14 utc | 54
Flight cabins on planes coming in to UK form 'zika infected areas' to be sprayed with insecticides....https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/zika-freaka-2-spraying-plane-cabins-robot-reporters/#comments
Posted by: Bluemot5 | Feb 6 2016 11:27 utc | 55
@51 denis
Nice rundowm of the latest spell invoked by the sorceror's apprentices. The hubris and stupidity of these bastards will kill us all.
Posted by: jfl | Feb 6 2016 11:44 utc | 56
@51 denis
Kinda like building nuclear sites on top of known volcanic areas.....and covering up when they escape containment.
But religion (only hubris can build gods in our liking)
But private finance (shhhh, don't tell anyone but its the Gordian Knot)
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 6 2016 13:34 utc | 57
Mosquitoes do XX for females and XY for males like (most) people. Oxitec’s plan, as I understand it, was to modify Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by inserting a “jumping gene” aka transposon into the X chromosome of the mosquito.
...
The genetic “vehicle” used to carry the gene used to bend the mosquitoes’ gender was a transposon named “piggyBac.” The GM mosquitoes themselves are called OX513A.
From what some of these very worried people are saying, Oxitec couldn’t have chosen a worse transposon than piggyBac.
...
The problem with the piggyBac transposon is that it is promiscuous: it is known to jump from one species into another. Apparently, it can even jump across phyla – like from a squid into a tulip or something. Probably not the best example.
Anyway, there were plenty of reasons to suspect that the gender bender gene carried by piggyBac could jump from the mosquito into the virus. Since it's the virus that circulates in the blood stream, if a female OX513A transfers the gene to the virus as it is reproducing in the mosquito, and then mosquito bites a person, there’s a bigger problem.
...
Posted by: Denis | Feb 6, 2016 5:33:19 AM | 51
From the above extracts from your comment, you seem to be saying that either:
1. The gene manipulation tool "piggyBac" becomes part of any new gene created by its use.
or
2. New genes created using "piggyBac" are inherently unstable.
You've stated that experts have said that Oxitec couldn’t have chosen a worse transposon than piggyBac, but have failed to explain why in terms a lay person can understand.
Are #1 or #2 relevant to what you think went wrong, or is there another explanation?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2016 14:01 utc | 58
At first this article appears as another Zika shock horror story but some interesting numbers are contained in the meat of it.
According to the article:
"only 270 of the (microcephaly) cases have been confirmed by lab tests as microcephaly involving brain damage, and the defect was ruled out in 462 cases, the ministry said. Researchers are still investigating 3,448 of the cases, which were recorded from Oct. 22 to Jan. 23.
This out of a total of around 4700 reported in Brazil only a small proportion (less than 10%) have been confirmed as microcephaly. Those numbers took some finding I looked them out because of a chance remark from an epidemiologist during an interview on AJ which was part of a typical beat up Zika shock horror.
She said that many parts of Brazil had never recorded microcephaly prior to the zika scare and that many of the reported cases were 'historic' that the births had occurred over decades and were only reported as families brought the authorities attention to them now.
It seems likely that the incidence of microcephaly in Brazil is not outside the norm.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2016 15:59 utc | 59
Uh,remember that Brazil and Israel are in a diplomatic spat over Israel sending a settler as ambassador.There is also a corruption,or alleged,scandal with the Brazilian president involved.
The MSM is the propaganda arm of Zion.Anything to divide and conquer the goyim.
The Graun had a puff piece by the former NYTs ed Abramson on the hell bitch.
Did she get slammed by the readership,and quite a few comments observed the descent of the Graun into ZioBS.
The blinders are coming off.
Posted by: dahoit | Feb 6 2016 16:03 utc | 60
@Hoax yes, I saw some video of a father with his daughter and wife being assaulted. I cannot imagine someone so paranoid that they don't believe this story. If your phone is stolen, as it was in the case of almost all victims, there's no way that the perpetrators are going to post the videos online.
Posted by: Mischi | Feb 6 2016 16:16 utc | 61
They certainly know what buttons to press.
It's worth noting that the previous major outbreak was in the US protectorate of Micronesia. There should be plenty of data from that outbreak.
Eventually someone is going to be brave enough to admit that for most people (pregnant women excluded) Zika is no.big.deal. and that event the cases of Guillain-Barre likely fall within normal range, and that the linkage with Guillain-Barre is as tenuous as all linkages to Guillain-Barre usually are (as above, an autoimmune syndrome it often follows an infection or other "insult").
All the "use a condom" type global precautions seem to me to be overkill since it's a mild flu-like illness that then conveys immunity.
Illinois is expecting a surge of cases as mid-winter Caribbean vacationers return; Florida has reports of a few more cases and == yes == it's likely to become progressively epidemic as the weather warms in the spring / summer.
Again Honeymooners are urged to avoid Zika infected areas (the travel advisory is all of Latin America and the Caribbean) if it might become a "babymoon" (no I didn't coin the term) -- This article [HEALTH: Should You Cancel Your Caribbean Trip? Zika Experts Weigh In] suggests waiting 2 weeks after returning home from an infected area before trying to conceive; problem being that soon "uninfected area" will be harder to find. I expect this 2-week period will be better defined, as will how long after being infected a woman's body returns to being a safe zone for pregnancy (I haven't seen any mention of post-infection safety).
So, tourism to all tropical climes is being cautioned ... though how much or for how long remains to be seen. For medico-legal reasons, an "abundance of caution" is always always always recommended.
as of 01/22
In the United States, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas and Hawaii have confirmed Zika infections involving returning travelers who were likely bitten by mosquitoes while abroad. The CDC said there have been at least "a dozen or so" cases.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 16:34 utc | 63
Well there is the cytomegalovirus which causes birth defects including microcephaly (+ hearing loss, eye troubles, developmental delay, etc.) I was reminded of that. But the Zika story is very suspicious - because there doesn’t seem to be much to explain. (The press here reported the same nos. as b.) Still it is not *excluded* that there is a link between the two…
To me, this is just another example of extreme media hype. The media get worse year by year. And I’m not talking about reporting properly on events in Syria (let’s admit for the mo that’s complicated, hard to grasp, and politically fraught) but of more mundane matters that any media hack should be able to handle.
The MSM is losing revenues (fast), decimates staff, hires ppl who are not qualified (cost cutting) and hypes all the usual - terror threats, crime, horror stories, dangers, sex, racial / divisise matters, etc. in an attempt to stay alive. They are all turning into the yellow or gutter press/TV, which is in fact detrimental to their biz. Many outlets are in the hands of ‘oligarchs’ who run them at a loss, as an arm of propaganda. Others are subservient to Gvmts. This is because between 55% and 90%, my est., -depending on how you count and where you look- of ppl get their news uniquely from MSM sources, mostly TV. It is everywhere a majority, and sometimes very large. So there is that! A subsidiary matter is that now ‘health’ organisms (from WHO to local docs) have gone off the rails and indulge in alarmism and hype to get funding.
A broader perspective: Marshall McLuhan’s world as a village looks grim. It is a global medieval village, where rumors, alarms, conspiracy theories (I’m all for on the whole..), alienation, exclusion of some, pointing to causes that are esoteric, spread like wildfire by word of mouth. But without the counter-force of a lot of human interaction that actually discusses if Cathars should be put to death, as that was a local burning question. (Zika is immaterial to most. There may be some cover-up or whatnot going on, idk.)
These are all signs, symptoms, not of fascism, but of neo-feudalism, which is why I mentioned the village.
Posted by: Noirette | Feb 6 2016 16:36 utc | 64
@Posted by: Noirette | Feb 6, 2016 11:36:05 AM | 63 -- agree ... look shiny!!!
and a great diversion for the American audience from Flint.
=====================================================================
In Cologne (and elsewhere) the harassing mob formed a gauntlet through which passengers trying to get to the trains had to pass. The women were verbally and physically harassed and then, when vulnerable, they were relieved of phones, backpacks, etc. One woman was injured when retrieving a lit firecracker from her child's baby carriage (it explosed); others reported firecrackers thrown at them, ensnared in clothing. Unsurprisingly, given the chaos, last I heard 2 rapes were reported, although groping and manhandling was rife ...
The police are using CCTV to identify individual attackers (I would guess there's a significant face-recognition data base). Euorpean press standards to protect victim and suspect anonymity appear not only more stringent than here in the U.S., it appears that the press and the public (and the victims) are compliant.
There is irony in suggesting that this is a fraud, since much of Europe is outraged at the suggestion that there was a coverup not only wrt Cologne, but other cites on NYE and in fact wrt a series of events going back "forever" ... indeed there were discovered multiple very small similar gauntlet-formations by a few "refugee types" harassing women in various cities. Whether they were "covered up" versus not being newsworthy except in advancing an anti-refugee agenda has not been demonstrated. Lots of things that happen aren't "newsworthy" ...
most of the attacks I've heard of occurred within the train station, but that may have been revised. There were "let's all meet up" social medial invites within the refugee community and a very large crowd gathered between the train station and the cathedral ...
Few individuals really want to become a target or football for either side in the simmering war over refugees ... and there have been demonstrations representing both sides since, including a refugee solidarity march.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 16:52 utc | 65
I can tell you two parties who benefit, Bharat Biotech and Genekam.
https://www.good.is/articles/zika-virus-vaccine-brazil-india
https://www.good.is/articles/german-researchers-develop-first-test-for-zika-virus
But mainly, news programs benefit from higher ratings from the hysteria.
Posted by: Cresty | Feb 6 2016 17:33 utc | 66
b, you deleted a tiny comment of mine, in which I simply quoted something chipnik said 1-2 months ago. Did you delete it by accident or on purpose? Knowing will help me adjust my future comments, to avoid offending anyone.
Posted by: dumbass | Feb 6 2016 17:44 utc | 67
Never mind my last comment. It seems like the related posts were removed. Guess the thread became a problem.
Posted by: dumbass | Feb 6 2016 17:45 utc | 68
Thank you b, for bringing the subject, and to Denis @ 51, Penelope @ 42, Susan Sunflower @ 31, jen @39, and many others for your understandings and links.
As to the piggyBac, the author quotes this review (and again later):
"As a 2001 review article by Dr Mae Wan Ho shows, piggyBac is notoriously active, inserting itself into genes way beyond its intended target:
“These ‘promiscuous’ transposons have found special favour with genetic engineers, whose goal is to create ‘universal’ systems for transferring genes into any and every species on earth. Almost none of the geneticists has considered the hazards involved …
“It would seem obvious that integrated transposon vectors may easily jump out again, to another site in the same genome, or to the genome of unrelated species. There are already signs of that in the transposon, piggyBac, used in the GM bollworms to be released by the USDA this summer.
The piggyBac transposon was discovered in cell cultures of the moth Trichopulsia, the cabbage looper, where it caused high rates of mutations in the baculovirus infecting the cells by jumping into its genes … This transposon was later found to be active in a wide range of species, including the fruitfly Drosophila, the mosquito transmitting yellow fever, Aedes aegypti, the medfly, Ceratitis capitata, and the original host, the cabbage looper.
“The piggyBac vector gave high frequencies of transpositions, 37 times higher than mariner and nearly four times higher than Hirmar.”
Oliver Tickell, who edits 'the ecologist', where the article was first published.
Posted by: wendy davis | Feb 6 2016 18:02 utc | 69
Thanks to those pointing to the genetic modification of mosquitos in a sterilization program. The article linked by wendy davis @ 23 is sobering and plausible. We know well, or should, how genetic modifications in plants have unforeseen consequences.
One solution proposed in the article was to give pregnant women tetracycline to counter the effects. That's an awful solution in my view, having myself experienced damaging effects from that very strong antibiotic (and I was not pregnant at the time.)
As Denis@50 has said:
". . . something has changed very, very suddenly, regardless of whether the number of microcephalic babies is 2000 or 4000. Nature by itself doesn’t change that radically that fast. And that’s why people are concerned about a GM gender-bender mosquito produced by a British company named Oxitec and released in Juazeiro, Brazil just before this microcephaly outbreak."
Posted by: juliania | Feb 6 2016 18:05 utc | 70
@Dennis @50
"particularly given that the problem here may not be the virus but genes that are jumping from the mosquitos into the virus and from the virus into the humans."
"Genes jumping into the virus"
Oh boy. Please learn how a virus works before you drop further nonsense speculation here.
This statement by b is extremely misleading: It is likely that the virus can be detected in a dead human body if that body was infected at the time of the death. But in a living body with a working immune system the virus will have vanished after just a few days. It is quite possible that a whole bunch of the surviving children once had the virus, that it caused no harm, and that it vanished.
It is correct that the virus itself can only be detected during a 7 day window immediately after infection. However, infection can be inferred by proper immunological tests (detection of the right antibodies) of the mothers and of the babies. To make a linkage between zika virus and microcephaly will require case/control studies involving at least hundreds of subjects. These have not yet been done. In any case, no would expect to be able to detect the virus previously infected people but the antibodies should hang around for years at least.
Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 6 2016 18:35 utc | 72
@Hoax yes, I saw some video of a father with his daughter and wife being assaulted. I cannot imagine someone so paranoid that they don't believe this story. If your phone is stolen, as it was in the case of almost all victims, there's no way that the perpetrators are going to post the videos online.
Posted by: Mischi | Feb 6, 2016 11:16:11 AM | 61
like I said earlier "I have no interest at all in hearing from ranting-hystericals screaming "How DARE You!!") - that includes ranting hysterics like yourself screaming "Paranoid!"
If these assaults were as numerous and widespread as has been claimed, allegedly occurring in at least 3 separate cities in at least 2 separate countries, then the complete lack of any video showing any such assaults or their aftermath is highly suspect.
The arrival of someone like yourself, claiming to have seen such video evidence yet refusing to provide any link to this claimed video evidence, is equally highly suspect.
Since you refuse to provide any link to any such video evidence, which you claim to have seen, I can only conclude that you are lying.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 6 2016 19:19 utc | 73
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6, 2016 11:52:42 AM | 65
Despite all the words you have posted claiming that this event really happened I notice you have been completely unable to provide so much as one meagre link to any actual video of the events in question.
This despite the fact that in Koln, Hamburg and Helsinki there had to be at an absolute minimum 10's of thousands of people with Phones capable of video recording such alleged sexual assaults, and yet curiously no such video appears to exist.
Your comment is nothing more than a boring regurgitation of the reams and reams of hearsay already published by the rotten German media, and adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 6 2016 19:29 utc | 74
@Hoax 73 & 74
I consider your contribution an insult to all the assaulted women!
New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
Posted by: Karin | Feb 6 2016 20:08 utc | 75
Penelope | Feb 6, 2016 12:44:33 AM | 43
“. . . the Oxitec OX513A mosquio was released for the first time or first time in Brazil in April 2015. Not so! It was released in several places including Braxil sometime prior to August 2014 . . .”
I think this is a very valid and fascinating point. There are a couple of temporal correlations that would have to be shown before a connection between OX513A – ZV – microcephaly could be established. There’s a lot of work needed.
Note that Oxitec didn’t go to all of that trouble to wipe out ZV. Nobody really gave a monkey’s butt about ZV before the hypothetical connection to microcephaly was suggested.
The OX513A mosquito was produced to combat dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, et al. viruses. I have not yet seen anyone suggest these other viruses are related to microcephaly, so if OX513A was released in 2012 in an area where dengue fever was a problem but there was no zika and no increased microcephaly – well, that’s news. And if OX513A wasn’t released in a zika area until early 2015 and that’s where the microcephaly showed up, then the temporal correlation gets very interesting.
I haven’t seen (but I’m looking, so please help if you know) any reports of these other viruses showing up in semen. If ZV is unique in this group in that respect, it’s Katy-bar-the-door. Also, the reports on ZV being found in semen aren’t saying what that means. Does in mean free-floating or inside sperm? There’s a world of difference between the two as far as the embryo goes.
- - - -
Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6, 2016 9:01:16 AM | 58
“You've stated that experts have said that Oxitec couldn’t have chosen a worse transposon than piggyBac, but have failed to explain why in terms a lay person can understand.”
The problem I tried to explain is: 1) piggyBac knows no species boundaries and 2) the OCX13A mosquitoes don’t completely self-destruct in the first generation, therefore you have 5% or so, probably mostly females, that are carrying this piggyBac fuster-cluck into the environment.
Note that these mosquitoes don’t bite just humans. They suck blood from just about all available vertebrates, not even just the warm blooded ones. I once had a boa constrictor, BillBoa Baggins, who constantly had mosquitoes biting him. The GM viruses can therefore propagate in a huge reservoir of vertebrates.
- - - -
@ Debs is dead | Feb 6, 2016 10:59:32 AM | 59
“This out of a total of around 4700 reported in Brazil only a small proportion (less than 10%) have been confirmed as microcephaly. “
I believe that you, like “b” have the numbers twisted. The 270 confirmed cases of microcephaly is not out of 4000 total suspected cases; it’s out of the subset of 732 cases that got further CT analysis. 270 is 37% of 732 – if that rate holds when all 4000 cases are completely evaluated, there will be almost 1500 cases of confirmed microcephaly – from certain areas of Brazil where ZV is active. And as I said above, when those cases are broken down into regions – like where ZV has been found to be active – the rate of microcephaly may go even higher.
- - - -
b | Feb 6, 2016 1:06:54 PM | 71
“Oh boy. Please learn how a virus works before you drop further nonsense speculation here.”
Very helpful comment, “b”, thanks. Could you add some detail so we know what your problem is and what parts of piggyBac and OX513A are “nonsense?” Thanks in advance.
To help you get started I strongly suggest you read a couple of background articles by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.
Terminator insects give wings to genome invaders
Beware the new breakthrough in transgenic mosquitoes
In the comments to that second paper there is a very informative exchange between Dr. Ho and parasitologist Dr. Paulo Andrade, who, like you, is not buying the GM mosquito panic, or at least he wasn’t 15 months before the microcephaly concerns surfaced.
I am not a virologist but my PhD is in the medical sciences and have I done a sabbatical and published research in genetics. I know, for example, that ZV is a postive single stranded RNA flavivirus. I know generally how ssRNA viral replication works. I know these viruses normally reproduce in the cytoplasm but antigens to ZV have been found in nuclei, which could be extremely significant.
At the moment I have almost 4 typed pages of notes and links on this particular issue of the possible neurotropism of this virus or – worse – of the transposon. If you would please fill me in on what more I need to know, please do.
Back on Jun04|15 you noted your impressive background – digital compression algorithms expert, masters in economics, masters in industrial engineering, German army officer -- and I was, like, "wow." But no mention of virology, genetic engineering, or any training related to transposon-related neural-tube defects.
@Hoax 73 & 74
I consider your contribution an insult to all the assaulted women!
New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
Posted by: Karin | Feb 6, 2016 3:08:36 PM | 75
Whereas I consider your risible contribution to be an insult to everyone else's intelligence.
Like I said earlier "I have no interest at all in hearing from ranting-hystericals screaming "How DARE You!!".
I'm interested solely in video evidence recorded on the evening of the alleged assaults showing an assault or it's immediate aftermath.
Despite your claimed (faux?) outrage, you clearly cannot provide such evidence, so I don't know why you bothered to reply since I have no interest in hearing from ranting hysterics like yourself who cannot provide such evidence.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 6 2016 20:23 utc | 77
Hmph. And here we thought fearmongering over wars, pestilence, financial shenanigans and obeisance to israel would be a thing of the GW Bush jr. past once St. Barry the Immaculate was elected to office.
Posted by: farflungstar | Feb 6 2016 20:26 utc | 78
Panic narratives sell. It's that simple. No conspiracy theories needed.
Posted by: Thirdeye | Feb 6 2016 20:41 utc | 79
Regarding Cologne -- it was dark, it was very crowded ... the CCTV recordings are not available. I didn't post any of the videos I found because I assumed you had already rejected them ... nuf.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 21:53 utc | 80
>> Panic narratives sell. It's that simple. No conspiracy theories needed.
Doesn't corruption and murder sell, too? We could panic over that. Someone prefers other stories.
"It sells", Hanlon's Razor, and other various "razors" could hypothetically be the best cover stories ever.
Posted by: dumbass | Feb 6 2016 21:56 utc | 81
@Denis #76 it is you who are twisting numbers. As I stated there is no context for any of these "suspected cases of microcephaly" many are historic; they may have been reported in the last 3 months but the births occurred over a period of decades. Further the Brazilian health authorities have been dealing with the contemporary cases immediately during pre & post-natal checks, so it is highly likely that the 732 cases represent the sum total of the contemporary 'suspicious cases'.
It is worth noting that that 732 number has barely shifted in the 3 weeks that this has been an international story. We've been down this road before with Ebola, bird flu and the like every new confirmed case will generate a headline.
The 4000 figure represents a typical over-inflated reportage that occurs during such shock horror media beat ups and will be used less and less once the numbers have done their job of scaring idiots shitless and generating 'funding streams'.
I strongly suggest you watch and learn because what we are witnessing has nothing to do with keeping people healthy - there is only one way to do that - eliminate poverty, diseases predominately occur among the poor (eg malaria used to kill the poor in large numbers in the US & Europe until the mid 20th century when post war egalitarianism pretty much wiped out extreme poverty in those two areas - malaria left with the poverty although the return of poverty to the US & Europe has presaged a return of preventable illness eg TB you'll notice the WHO article I linked to seeks to blame filthy furreners for TB's rise in the west but TB has always been used by xenophobes - the biggest variable in evidence is an increase in poverty).
What we are actually witnessing is the misuse of power by greedies and incompetents or both.
I dunno you Denis, I dunno if yer a regular or a blow in just dropping by to disseminate lies, but I do know that when the entire western world media pick up and run with a story with sparse evidence deliberately twisted to support one particular point of view, we the people, always discover afterwards that we have been sold a pup, the few have screwed the many again.
Examples are legion but maybe you're one of those people who find life easier if you go with the flow. Fine I no longer debate with such types. However you should be aware of two salient points - firstly if that is your bent you should know it is people such as you who blindly repeat such 'factoids' who will be scapegoated and hung out to dry once the truth does out. Not by ordinary humans but by the greedies moving to 'protect their position'. I doubt it will be you this time Denis, the assholes will be after a bigger target to blame than a part time astroturfer - which brings me to my next point. If you want to blindly follow what you are told, MoA is an unsuitable venue for you, you won't be able to sit like a factory farm cow munching & quietly ruminating. You will be uncomfortable.
Most people here have been badly burned by bullshit over & the years adopt a more Socratic approach to the media, questioning everything and believing nothing until it is irrefutable.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2016 22:23 utc | 82
vox.
If you'd like to get pregnant in the more distant future, however, there appears to be no need to worry. Zika virus does not seem to pose a risk of birth defects for future pregnancies. As best researchers can tell, the virus clears itself from the body pretty quickly, remaining in the blood for only about a week after infection. (If you're traveling to a place with Zika and worried, read our travel explainer.)(so having had Zika eliminates later problems)
stanford on Microcephaly - can be from outside or a predisposition that "run in families" (genetic) -- it's a matter of fetal development, not "infection"
e360yale: Genetically Modified Mosquito Sparks a Controversy in Florida (June 2015). discusses mosquitos and genetic engineer wrt dengue fever in Florida
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District first consulted with Oxitec when 28 people in Key West were infected with dengue in 2009 and 2010 — the first outbreak of the disease in Florida in 75 years. Dengue is also known as “breakbone fever” because it causes debilitating bone pain and flu-like symptoms. A severe form of the illness, dengue hemorrhagic fever, can lead to death, although rarely in areas with good medical care.No dengue cases have been reported in the Keys since 2010. Since the outbreak, local officials have fought the Aedes aegypti — the primary vector for dengue — using every means possible. They spend $1 million of their $10 million annual budget specifically trying to control this one species. It is one of 46 species of mosquitos that live in the Florida Keys, and accounts for 1 percent of the total mosquito population there.
While other mosquitos are nuisances, the problem of the Aedes aegypti is not the itch. The bug contracts diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever from humans and then transmits it to people through bites. Only female mosquitos bite, and while other mosquitoes can take their blood meals from animals like dogs and birds, this species relies on humans to survive. It can fly just 100 to 200 yards, so it lays eggs in water that collects near homes, such as in garbage cans, barrels, or in plants. It’s an invasive species in Florida and likely came to the U.S. from Africa on European ships carrying early explorers. The Aedes aegypti was once eliminated through the use of chemicals like DDT, but the species has re-emerged in Florida over time.
sorry for any duplication
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6 2016 22:41 utc | 83
Regarding Cologne -- it was dark, it was very crowded ... the CCTV recordings are not available. I didn't post any of the videos I found because I assumed you had already rejected them ... nuf.
Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Feb 6, 2016 4:53:16 PM | 80
I haven't rejected anything so far, because no one here, including your fellow hysterics, have posted any such videos.
And despite commenting twice now on this subject you too have yet to post any of these alleged videos allegedly showing evidence of these alleged assaults.
This is very curious behaviour for one that seems to be implying that they are sure the alleged assaults actually occurred, because such video exists, because they have seen such video footage.
If you had actually seen such video footage then I'm sure you would have posted it by now.
Since you have not, and along with the other hysterics commenting on this you continue to refuse to post links to video showing these assaults or their immediate aftermath, despite claiming to have seen such video footage, once again I have to conclude that you are not being 100% honest if you are claiming to have seen such video footage.
the CCTV recordings are not available.
Indeed.
The Koln Polizei have released video-footage shot outside the Koln Cathedral which shows absolutely no evidence of any assaults occurring in those videos.
So far, to my knowledge, no video showing any sexual assault in Koln Hauptbahnhof has appeared.
But from the few videos I have seen there was certainly enough light available outside Koln Hauptbahnhof for anyone to capture evidence of any assaults occurring, if any such assaults actually did occur.
And since I have been both inside Koln Haupbahnhof and outside in the square, at night time, and know for certain it is well lit, your claim that "darkness preventing the capturing of such video footage" appears to be nothing but disingenuous nonsense.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 6 2016 22:42 utc | 84
@ Denis 76
Your links didn't work for me, but I dug them out on a readable site. Miz Ho seems to be fairly well credited from what I can tell (in my ignorance). Both are Greek to me.
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/archive/2001/5250-terminator-insects-give-wings-to-genome-invaders
http://permaculturenews.org/2014/06/25/beware-new-breakthrough-transgenic-mosquitoes/
Posted by: wendy davis | Feb 6 2016 23:41 utc | 85
juliania @ 70
I'd just pasted in a bit from the original oliver tickell piece I'd seen at Counterpunch, this time at ecowatch.
Dunno about the over-the-top fear or the numbers, but I took note over the 'Ebola!' stories partially due to the ubiquitous blood-filled mosquito photos. (Itch, scratch, and Ewww.)
But unintended consequences of GM foods have made me crazy, so this...I thought might be worth asking any science geeks here about. Now there's virtually no testing (other than in-house) done on GM products, since: no public funding, so we have to rely on studies from nations that DO fund it. Bt corn, for instance, seems to not only not work to prevent corn borers once they adapt to it, but the biotoxin acts in our guts as little pesticide factories, killing all of the beneficial bacteria as well. Well, b may not appreciate my saying what various naturopaths say can help, but I'll update my 'spices as medicines' post at the Café about it.
And yes, even a French study on Round-up and rat tumors a few years ago...seemed to have flunked peer reviews. (Wow, this software is correcting my mis-typing; thanks again, b.)
Posted by: wendy davis | Feb 7 2016 0:25 utc | 86
Thought you'd like to know where Zika comes from. Seems Rockefeller Foundation workers
took a monkey from their lab & put him in a cage into a tree cuz they were researching
yellow fever. After he was pretty well bitten up they took him back to the lab, but whaddaya know,
he wasn't carrying yellow fever. Zika, a heretofore unknown virus. Maybe to the mosquitos, too.
(1947) Zika Forest, Uganda. I guess that's the reason Rockefeller has the patent; they discovered it.
Oxitec also subjected the pink bollworm and the fruit fly to GM treatment.
Third Security LLC, which owns 2/3 of the publicly traded shares of Intrexon was shorting the stock on 12/15 & 12/30. They are an investment fund, which appears to be entirely innocent.
Bill Gates and Monsanto have always been in the Rockefeller sphere. Gates' foundation supplied partial funding for the development of Oxitec GM mosquito. Intrexon which now owns Oxitec-- guess who is a member of the board: Robt B Shapiro, former Chairman and CEO of Monsanto. Gates owns 500,000 share of Monsanto & actively pushes GMOs.
As to the results of some of Gates Third World vaccinations:
http://nsnbc.me/2015/04/06/polio-or-something-more-sinister/ By Wm Engdahl
"In India Gates, Rockefellers and WHO with their Big Pharma partners convinced the
Indian government to spend some $8 billion of their scarce funds, along with a tiny amount
of “seed” money from GAVI partners, to vaccinate Indian children.
The result?
An article in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2012 concluded, “In 2011, there were
an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but
twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio
received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not
investigated.” Instead, Gates and Company proclaimed India “polio” free."
If it's real, I think it's more likely to be the vaccination.
The cui bono is that now they'll be paid mega-bucks to release many more skeeters.
Posted by: Penelope | Feb 7 2016 0:34 utc | 87
Hoax? I suspect that there IS no video, just as you say. But even if it
happened, the govt probably permitted/staged it, since police are always at
railway stations.
Certainly the media (which is rarely an independent actor) is being allowed
or instructed to hype it, not calm it. My guess is that an important purpose
is to help the European Right whose issues are immigration & security in order
to depress the European Left whose issues are anti-war and anti-austerity. And
I would guess that all threats of any kind reinforce EU, rather than secession.
Posted by: Penelope | Feb 7 2016 0:41 utc | 88
@88 Well there is this....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7CoV0_jTbs
I know, I know....it's fake, different location, no proper info etc. etc. It's posted purely in the interest of lively debate.
Posted by: dh | Feb 7 2016 1:40 utc | 89
LOL
Posting a video that when I click on it says "Content warning log in to view"?
Seriously?
GTFO
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 1:52 utc | 90
Posting a video that you claim is evidence and when I click on it says "content warning - log in to view"
Seriously?
GTFO
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 1:53 utc | 91
Signed it to watch it and saw . . . well I don't know what it is - it certainly wasn't a video of a sexual assault as far as I could see..
It contained no sound whatsoever so one cannot tell what is going on in the video, nor can one tell where it was shot, nor when it was shot.
it could be anywhere, anytime.
But it does contain an image of a blonde woman and some swarthy males, so I guess that will be enough to cause the hysterics and the racists to start ranting again.
Thanks for adding more bullshit to all the bullshit that has already been spewed on this subject so far.
Unfortunately, as I suspected before clicking on it, it shows nothing of any use to help anyone determine anything, other than that there really are people out there that will swallow anything.
I guess whoever removed the sound track did so so that people would not hear what languages were being spoken - that might have given away the con being pulled.
the description of the video is "Video of one encounter which led to 90 gropings and robberies on the same night"
Really?
THIS one encounter "lead to led to 90 gropings and robberies on the same night"?
Really?
Even the description sounds like complete and utter BS.
I knew it would be bullshit the minute I saw the age restriction - especially since there is absolutely nothing in that video that would in any way require an age restriction
I guess whoever applied the age restriction was desperate to add some sort of air of authenticity to their BS and figured an age restriction might cause people not to think and question what they are seeing
So thank you for wasting my time by posting unverifiable BS - it's pretty much what I expected and you and your little age restricted BS certainly didn't disappoint in that regard
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 2:11 utc | 94
Depends which browser you're using I guess.
Posted by: dh | Feb 6, 2016 9:01:59 PM | 91
no it doesnt.
And I'm not claiming anything.
Posted by: dh | Feb 6, 2016 9:02:53 PM | 92
YOU posted it - YOU own it
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 2:12 utc | 95
Ps
The very fact that someone put in time and effort to actually remove the sound track before uploading that crap to YT should tell you all you need to know about the likelihood of this being alleged Koln video being a con
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 2:19 utc | 96
@94 I can't verify it but you keep asking to see a video so there it is. I already predicted your objections when I posted it.
I post something so I own it? Wow. Is this some kind of internet ruling?
Next you'll tell us there were no young muslim men in Koln and they all behaved themselves impeccably.
Posted by: dh | Feb 7 2016 2:28 utc | 97
On the YT side bar for dh's little age-restricted no-sound BS video there appears this video entitled "Woman in Cologne Germany dragged into subway by migrants" which is definitely NOT a video of a German woman in Koln being dragged into the subway, but appears to be a video shot during some riot in some obviously non-European country somewhere.
Also interesting is that in the comment section on YT for that video none of the racist idiots commenting seems to notice (or care) that that video is NOT a video of a German woman in Koln, even after it is pointed out to the racist idiots that the video is apparently from Tahrir Square, in Cairo, Egypt in 2011 and not Germany 2016
Why do people post crap like this and expect to be taken seriously?
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 2:31 utc | 98
@94 I can't verify it but you keep asking to see a video so there it is.
Posted by: dh | Feb 6, 2016 9:28:53 PM | 96
There what is?
You posted some unverifiable no-soundtrack crap - I certainly never asked anyone to post unverifiable no-soundtrack crap.
In fact I'm pretty sure that unverifiable no-soundtrack crap is the exact opposite of what I asked for, so I'm a little surprised that you seem to think that posting the exact opposite of what I asked for somehow equals posting what I asked for.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 7 2016 2:36 utc | 99
@97 By Golly I believe you may be right. All the sexual assaults happened in Egypt. Koln gropings never happened. Sorry about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGMSO1M0W00
Posted by: dh | Feb 7 2016 2:37 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Speaking of hysteria and hoaxes:
Can anyone point me to some actual video evidence that the alleged sexual-assault events on Sylvestre(NYE) in Koln, Hamburg, Finland etc actually happened?
I don't mean alleged statements made to the media etc
I mean actual video evidence recorded on the evening of the alleged events showing at least ONE person being sexually assaulted.
Or failing that actual video evidence recorded on the evening of the alleged events showing the immediate aftermath of one such event (eg: video of hysterical/distressed persons recorded shortly after she/they/he was/were allegedly sexually assaulted)
Try as I might I have yet to find so much as one video fitting those descriptions. The complete and utter absence of such video is highly suspect. Indeed, in this day and age of ubiquitous inner-city cctv surveillance, Phone-cameras etc, the absence of such video evidence is frankly impossible to believe.
It is frankly impossible to believe that so many people could have been assaulted without so much as one video of such an event or it's immediate aftermath being captured on video and uploaded to the net
PS - just to repeat - I'm not even slightly interested in statements of alleged events, nor am I even slightly interested in media reports concerning such alleged events, nor am I even slightly interested in Polizei reports alleging such events (and I have no interest at all in hearing from ranting-hystericals screaming "How DARE You!!")
I am looking for hard video evidence of such events or their immediate aftermath - so far I have found none.
The absence of such evidence, which absolutely should exist in these days of ubiquitous inner-city cctv surveillance, Phone-cameras etc, is a glaring hole in the alleged narrative of rampant sexual assault.
Posted by: Hoax? | Feb 5 2016 20:27 utc | 1