As of March 26, we're $27,100 in the red for the quarter. Donate here to support this vital work
Subscribe here and join over 13,000 subscribers to our free weekly newsletter

Zika Virus Media Articles

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on Zika Virus from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Explore our comprehensive news index on a wide variety of fascinating topics.
Explore the top 20 most revealing news media articles we've summarized.
Check out 10 useful approaches for making sense of the media landscape.

Sort articles by: Article Date | Date Posted on WantToKnow.info | Importance

Why Didn't Zika Cause A Surge In Microcephaly In 2016?
2017-03-30, NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/30/521925733/why-didnt-zika-...

Back in 2015, Brazil reported a horrific a surge in birth defects. Thousands of babies were born with ... a condition called microcephaly. Scientists quickly concluded the Zika virus was the culprit. So when Zika returned last year during Brazil's summer months ... health officials expected another surge in microcephaly cases. But that never happened. "We apparently saw a lot of cases Zika virus in 2016. But there was no microcephaly," says Christopher Dye of the World Health Organization. The difference between 2015 and 2016 "is spectacular," he says. Health officials were predicting more than 1,000 cases of microcephaly in the northeast of Brazil last year. But there were fewer than 100, Dye and his colleagues report Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is a huge, huge discrepancy," Dye says. "So what could possibly be the explanation for that?" Scientists aren't sure, Dye says. But he and his colleagues suggest a few possibilities in their study. First off, Dye says, health officials could have vastly overestimated the number of Zika cases in Brazil. Another possible explanation: Zika might not be working alone. Maybe another infection combines with Zika to make the disease worse and increase the risk of birth defects.

Note: The hysteria around Zika was almost certainly manufactured, with complicity of the major media, as clearly evidenced by this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.


Like its been nuked: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes
2016-09-01, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/01/like-its-been-n...

On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested ... acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary - Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville - 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees. Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote ... was like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness. To the bee farmers, the reason is ... clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchesters own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes. On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. An airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement. Local beekeepers felt differently. Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, No you cant do this,' beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview. Stanley [said] that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey. The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives, Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm looks like its been nuked.

Note: The threats posed by the Zika virus appear greatly exaggerated. Explore other zika virus news articles suggesting this is largely fear mongering to bring more profits to corporations involved in creating vaccines and more.


Zika virus: Floridians fear 'Pandora's box' of genetically altered mosquitos
2016-08-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/14/florida-keys-zika-virus-genet...

The Florida Keys are three months away from a straw poll vote on whether to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes on an island just east of Key West. The tourist destination is awash in lawn signs ... that showcase the overhead view of a mosquito and read: NO CONSENT to release of genetically modified mosquitoes. For the last five years, the biotechnology company Oxitec has been developing a plan to experimentally release the GMO mosquitoes in the Keys, which scientists hope could eventually impede the spread of the Zika virus [by undercutting] the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. But the prospect of ridding the neighborhood of a disease-carrying pest hasnt quelled public dissatisfaction. Mila de Mier ... has led the charge against the mosquitoes release, collecting nearly 170,000 signatures in an online petition against the experiment. Its about human rights this cant be pushed down our throats without consent, said De Mier. If the trial goes well, the technology would be on track to commercial approval in the United States, opening a slice of the nations $14bn pest control market to the company. Globally, analysts predict Oxitecs mosquito could bring in up to $400m in annual sales for its parent company, Intrexon. With millions in potential sales at stake, the experiment in the environmentally sensitive, populous area hinges on the fundamental question proposed by opponents: do the people who live where an experiment is to be conducted have a right to decide whether to go forward?

Note: Oxitec, a company criticized for secretly releasing GM mosquitoes into the wild in 2009, was purchased last August by biotech giant Intrexon for $160 million. By December, the Zika virus was all over the news and Intrexon was ramping up production of these GM insects to "fight Zika" in Brazil. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMO controversies and Zika virus fear mongering.


Brazil asks whether Zika acts alone to cause birth defects
2016-07-25, Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/brazil-asks-whether-zika-acts-alone-to-cause-birth...

Government researchers in Brazil are set to explore the country's peculiar distribution of Zika-linked microcephaly - babies born with abnormally small heads. Zika virus has spread throughout Brazil, but extremely high rates of microcephaly have been reported only in the country's northeast. Although evidence suggests that Zika can cause microcephaly, the clustering pattern hints that other environmental, socio-economic or biological factors could be at play. We suspect that something more than Zika virus is causing the high intensity and severity of cases, says Fatima Marinho, director of information and health analysis at Brazils ministry of health. If that turns out to be true, it could change researchers' assessment of the risk that Zika poses. Zika was discovered in 1947 and hadnt been implicated in birth defects until now. The northeast was where the first reported surge in microcephaly cases in Brazil began a year ago. Health officials had expected that they would later see the same high rates in other parts of the country. But as of 20 July, almost 90% of the 1,709 confirmed cases of congenital microcephaly or birth defects of the central nervous system reported in Brazil since last November were in a relatively small area ... about the size of the United Kingdom, whereas Brazil is almost as large as the United States. There are many hypotheses about what might be going on. Marinho says that her team's data, submitted for publication, hint that socio-economic factors might be involved.

Note: The cluster of microcephaly cases in Brazil was reported in February to predate the latest Zika outbreak. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing Zika virus news articles from reliable major media sources.


Zika Virus – Fear is the Key.
2016-02-11, BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal)
https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i841/rr

I wonder how many of the readers remember the WHOs pandemic alert on swine flu some years ago? When the WHO was proactive to announce a pandemic then without any scientific justifications I was the one who wrote that that was a business stunt! People did not believe and the British Medical Journal rejected my paper. After one long year what I had predicted came true. Council of Europe Health Committee Chairman Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg said that the declaration of a swine flu pandemic was a false alarm. There are many signs that there is close cooperation between the WHO and pharmaceutical companies. We have to find out whether there was pressure or whether there was money given as an incentive to the WHO to have this pandemic declared, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg adds. To give a simple example of the swine flu drug Tamiflu when given to a million people, 45,000 will experience vomiting, 31,000 will experience headache and 11,000 will have psychiatric side-effects. These figures might be insignificant if Tamiflu cures swine flu. That is not the case. Raising the fear levels in society is the surest way of depressing their immune system! This is good for business. With peoples immune system depressed they are prone to all kinds of infections. What follows next is the usual history. Greedy drug companies will now vie with each other to produce a vaccine. Vaccination is big business. This pattern goes on and on as long as money and medicine are related.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.


Microcephaly cases in Brazil predate Zika virus outbreak, study says
2016-02-10, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/microcephaly-brazil-zika-reality-1.3442580

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Sandra Mattos had been collecting data on 100,000 newborns in the Brazilian state of Paraiba as part of her work. The microcephaly fears linked to the Zika virus drove her team to check back into hospital records for ... more than 1,600 babies born in the state in the last four years. "We were very, very surprised," Mattos said. Babies with mild microcephaly were present in the population dating back to at least 2012. Scientists think the original reports of 4,700 suspected cases were inflated by over-reporting that didn't stand up when specialists examined the babies. Lingering questions remain, including why more than 80 per cent of suspected microcephaly cases are confined to Brazil's northeast region. And why has microcephaly not appeared in other Latin American countries with similar climates, such as among the 2,100 pregnant women infected with Zika in Colombia? In Berlin, epidemiologist Dr. Christoph Zink has been charting publicly available data from the Zika virus outbreak in terms of when cases appeared, the geographic distribution and the continuous microcephaly epidemic. He proposes another potential explanation. "I would ask my toxicological colleagues in Brazil to please look very closely into the practical application of agrochemicals in their country," Zink said. Mattos said pesticides have been raised as a potential factor by her colleagues in Brazil.

Note: Another article describes a doctors group which has stated the increasing microcephaly may be caused by a larvacide. Notice how the media participates in creating fear of Zika around the world. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Zika virus: Brazilian survey calls into question cause of microcephaly
2016-02-07, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-08/zika-link-questioned-microcephaly-cause...

A four-year survey of more than 100,000 newborn babies in north-eastern Brazil has uncovered hitherto unrecognised patterns of microcephaly. The discovery suggests microcephaly is not necessarily a new phenomenon, and questions whether Zika virus is even the cause. Paediatric cardiologist Dr Sandra Mattos ... and her colleagues surveyed more than 100,000 newborns for congenital heart disease in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. "We tried to establish the pattern of microcephaly over the last four years," Dr Mattos said. "What we expected was that we would have something like ... what has been documented in the official sites. "But we then noticed that we had much, much higher numbers. "Independent of what criteria we used, we had between 28 per cent of babies that would fall into the criteria of microcephaly," she said. This represents between 2,000 and 4,000 babies per year in the state of Paraba - about 1,000 times more than the team expected. The survey goes back to 2012 and 2013 and shows a spike each spring and summer, and while the headlines are all recent, the biggest peak in north-eastern Brazil was actually in 2014. The survey calls into question whether these microcephaly cases are caused by Zika virus or something else. If it is Zika virus, it has been in Brazil for a lot longer than people have thought, but that does not explain why after 50 years Zika has only now been linked to microcephaly.

Note: Another article describes a doctors group which has stated the increasing microcephaly may be caused by a larvacide. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the zika virus from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Birth Defects in Brazil May Be Overreported Amid Zika Fears
2016-02-03, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world/americas/birth-defects-in-brazil-may-...

Brazils government is considering tightening the guidelines it currently gives doctors, hospitals, and health care providers for when to report infants born with abnormally small heads, a move intended to reduce the number of false alarms that it has received in wake of the Zika epidemic gripping Brazil. In the last few months, the nation has been grappling with a growing surge in medical reports of microcephaly, a rare condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads. According to data released this week by the Ministry of Health, there have been 4,783 reported cases since October last year. Before that, the nation had about 150 annually. But how many of the babies actually have microcephaly - and whether the condition was caused by the Zika virus - is still far from clear. Of the cases examined so far, 404 have been confirmed as having microcephaly. Only 17 of them tested positive for the Zika virus. Another 709 babies have been ruled out as having microcephaly, according to the government, underscoring the risks of false positives making the epidemic appear larger than it actually is. The remaining 3,670 cases are still being investigated. As is often the case with global health epidemics, the numbers have caused confusion. Some have wondered if Brazil was overstating the extent of its health crisis.

Note: Another article describes a doctors group which has stated the increasing microcephaly may be caused by a larvacide. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the zika virus from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Brazil: 270 of 4,180 suspected microcephaly cases confirmed
2016-01-28, MSN/Associated Press
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/brazil-270-of-4180-suspected-microcephaly...

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. Brazilian officials still say they believe there's a sharp increase in cases of microcephaly and strongly suspect the Zika virus, which first appeared in the country last year, is to blame. But the World Health Organization and others have stressed that any link between Zika and the defect remains circumstantial and is not yet proven scientifically. In 2014, only about 150 [microcephaly] cases were reported in Brazil in a year - a surprisingly small amount for a large country with nearly 3 million births a year. The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist. The birth defect can be caused by factors such as genetics, malnutrition or drugs. Brazilian officials said the babies with the defect and their mothers are being tested to see if they had been infected. 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.

Note: After spreading fear around the world, the numbers are now being lowered and in fact only six microcephaly cases have been proven to be linked to the Zika virus. Remember that the more we live in fear, the more easily we are manipulated. For more, see this report.


Zika virus: 6 things to know about the growing outbreak
2016-01-28, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/zika-virus-explained-1.3422663

The mosquito-borne Zika virus is drawing global attention. Earlier today, the head of the World Health Organization said Zika is "spreading explosively." Brazil has reported more than 4,000 cases of babies born recently with microcephaly, a brain condition characterized by an abnormally small head that can lead to developmental issues or even death. That number compares with fewer than 150 cases in the country for all of 2014. The virus is mainly a health concern for women who are pregnant and it does not have long-lasting effects on most people. The virus is primarily transmitted through the Aedes aegypti mosquito. So far there is limited evidence on whether Zika can be transferred from mother to child. ​But because of the rash of microcephaly cases in Brazil, which spiked after the first confirmed case of Zika, this maternal link is "strongly suspected" and being closely studied. Only one in five of those infected with Zika show symptoms, which develop up to one week after being bitten. Most symptoms are mild, and ... can be easily treated with rest and plenty of fluids. Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti told CBC News, "the one thing to make very clear is that Zika, once it's out of your body, it's gone. It's not something like Hepatitis B or HIV that can stay in your body forever. "Overall, Zika is a very mild illness apart from what we think might be happening in pregnant women."

Note: Lots more fear mongering with this latest virus. Yet there is actually very little risk, with the possible exception of pregnant mothers, and even this is being exaggerated. Remember, powerful people want to keep us in fear, as that makes it easier to manipulate us. The swine flu, avian flu and ebola are prime examples of supposed "doomsday diseases" that turned out to harm relatively few. For more on how these diseases were manipulated and who profited, see concise summaries of deeply revealing major media news articles from reliable sources on this.


Can GM mosquitoes rid the world of a major killer?
2012-07-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/15/gm-mosquitoes-dengue-fever...

The mosquitoes developed and raised here at the laboratories of Oxitec, a British biotech company based near Didcot, have already infiltrated wild populations in Brazil, Malaysia and the Cayman Islands. The company hopes that it will reduce populations of disease-carrying mosquitoes by 80%. [Oxitec] is primarily focused on ... the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries [dengue fever]. The main weapons against A aegypti, pesticides and education, have had little success in preventing its spread. Oxitec's chief scientific officer ... came up with an alternative using genetic modification. He produced mosquitoes that were engineered to need an antibiotic, tetracycline, to develop beyond larval stage. Critics of Oxitec say that the company is rushing to commercialise its products to provide a return on investment, massaging research while leaving key questions unanswered. Earlier this year, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany examined information regarding the release of modified insects into the environment in Malaysia and Grand Cayman, which were carried out by Oxitec. The scientists' findings suggest that there are "deficits in the scientific quality of regulatory documents and a general absence of accurate experimental descriptions available before releases start". Oxitec is now producing mosquitoes in Brazil. It recently reported that it reduced the number of Aedes mosquitoes by 85%, compared with an area where the company's mosquitoes weren't released.

Note: So GM mosquitoes were released in Brazil a few years ago (note this article was published in 2012). It turns out the area where they were released looks like the same area where the Zika outbreak occurred. Could the outbreak have been caused by these GM mosquitoes? For more, see this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.


Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.