As I sit here on my patio after a long night of rain, I’m trying not to get too close to the citronella candle because it has a warning label that advises me that California has determined that breathing its fumes is carcinogenic. On the other hand, I’m trying not to scratch the mosquito bite I received right between my should blades in that spot you need to be a yogi to reach. Have my neighbors been to the tropics, lately? Do they have the Zika virus? Could these mosquitos swarming around my workspace have the Zika virus, too?
It’s just a thought. Not quite a paranoid thought, but probably not a productive use of my stress hormones. All I know is that I feel like I should take some affirmative measures to avoid getting eaten alive by mosquitos this year. It’s not unheard of for people to get West Nile virus in these parts, either, so I’m disregarding California’s warning. Maybe I’ll switch to using some Off! Deep Woods Insect Repellent if I can locate my swimming bag and dig it out of there. It might help with the ticks, which are bad this year, although not as bad as last year’s unprecedented population. Fortunately, they’re mostly the “good” Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever ticks and not the “bad” Lyme Disease ticks. Of course, everyone in my family including the pets has had Lyme Disease, most of us more than once. I might have it right now.
But Zika is particularly frightening because it appears to cause birth defects in utero, including microcephaly, a severe brain abnormality. And it can be transmitted by the mosquitos that are swarming around me right now. All they need is a population of infected people to bite, and that is fortunately what they do not yet have here in Pennsylvania. There was a baby down in Florida born with Zika-related microcephaly recently, but the mother contracted the disease in Haiti. So far, they’ve found about two dozen cases of Zika in my state, but they are likewise cases of people coming home from the tropics. Unless a mosquito bites one of those travelers and then bites me, I don’t have to worry because I don’t think I’ll be having intimate relations with any of them (which could also transmit the virus to me). It’s easy to see how the virus could go from being extremely rare to a full blown epidemic if we aren’t very vigilant.
And that’s why the president has requested $1.9 billion in emergency spending. But the Republicans in Congress see this emergency as an opportunity to win concessions from the Democrats and the administration that they could not otherwise get. That the Republicans’ funding bill is $800 million short of what was asked of them is a concern, but I also assume that the administration highballed them knowing that they’d get shortchanged. So, I’m not all that worried that the funding level will be inadequate. What concerns me is that the Democrats in the Senate feel compelled to filibuster the bill and that the administration has issued a veto threat.
Why, for example, was this funding tied to a bill for the Veterans’ Affairs administration? And why does the bill remove language that already passed in Congress to limit the display of the Confederate Flag in veterans’ cemeteries? What does Robert E. Lee have to do with the Zika virus? And why does it block spending for Planned Parenthood and contraceptive efforts that could be key to preventing tragic pregnancies? Even Pope Francis has relaxed the Catholic Church’s traditional opposition to contraception in response to the Zika outbreak, but Congressional Republicans can’t make the same concession?
Meanwhile, the Republicans are eager to blame the Democrats if they refuse to go along with their hardball tactics.
“The first TV picture of an American woman bearing a child with a birth defect caused by this virus will be on [Democrats],” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I wouldn’t want to be in their position.”
Can you just picture Sen. Cornyn rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation? He’s a real pro-life guy, that one.
If you remember the House Democrats’ gun violence control sit-in, you might know that Speaker Paul Ryan rammed home this Zika bill at something like 3:30am while that was going on. There was no debate.
And now the GOP is saying “take it or leave it” because they’re leaving town and they’re blaming the president and the Democrats if they don’t accept their terms and there is an outbreak during the peak summer mosquito season.
It just seems like there are some things that should be so important that trying to win a political advantage would take a back seat.
But if the Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, cannot get a bill to the president to sign then they can explain why flying the Confederate Flag is more important than protecting women from having catastrophic pregnancies.
Zika may not be the problem in Brazil. There were 10,000 pregnancies in Bolivia (I think, I read the article the day before yesterday) without any microcephalism. It appears that a chemical used to cut down mosquito fertility, an analog for some mosquito hormone that in quantities will affect their development, may actually also affect fetal development in humans.
So the cure may be the cause. I’ll look for the article.
But yeah, Republicans are awful human beings.
Two strains of Zika. Ugandan and Polynesian. The Polynesian one DID produce microcephaly. The virus has been demonstrated in the brain of affected babies in this outbreak.
I have NOT read of any lab finding comparable with the insect hormone regulator that has been in used for ages in the commercial SPOT-ON flea product for cats and dogs.
Here was the article I saw, but apparently Fortune Magazine is denying that Monsanto has anything to do with it.
I’d say the jury is still out and more evidence is needed. Something else to lay at the feet of corporate-loving Repubs.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624150813.htm
Monsanto is never responsible for anything.
Here’s another story that says that there are now cases of microcephaly outside of Brazil. Not sure what this means. The Zika virus has been around and known a long time, and microcephaly is something that wouldn’t pass unnoticed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160628093035.htm
I’m not convinced by anyone yet, but it is curious that Zika appears simultaneously with the Olympics and the soft coup that the Western powers pushed on the former president of Brazil.
http://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/16-171082/en/
WHO epidemiological significant history:
“28 November 2015: Brazil detects Zika virus genome in the blood and tissue samples of a baby with microcephaly and other congenital anomalies who died within 5 minutes of birth.”
Also, lab findings: Zika virus and microcephaly http://www.virology.ws/2016/02/10/zika-virus-and-microcephaly/
Unfortunately, with NO comparable lab evidence, some people have found it useful to make it a pollution issue and blame Monsanto and other corporates. Meanwhile, anti-mosquito programs are weakened by their hysteria over using IGRs.
As I said, spot-on pyriproxyfen has been directly applied to cats and dogs for years with NO iatrogenic warnings and no talk of birth defects in puppies or kittens.
Well, either a larvacide or a virus, neither of which had a history of producing microencephaly, are the two suspects. That suggests that there is another cause.
The problem is that it does involve testing.
While one can argue the political damage done to weaken anti-mosquito programs, it can be said that this Zika crisis also hurt Brazil’s standing in the world after it became a part of BRICS. And, again, there was a coup in the middle of this.
One should remember how the CIA’s use of the polio program in Central Asia to spy on bin Laden weakened that program. And large swaths of Africa still believe that AIDS arose from a vaccination program there in the late seventies.
But we are talking about two things here. One is about authorship, if any, and the other is about the science behind what is causing the disease.
We can all agree that the politics of the Republicans in this matter has been horrendous.
The AIDS theory has a lot to recommend it. Not the “West deliberately did this to kill black people” theory, but the “Use of Green Monkeys instead of Rhesus Monkeys because of a monkey shortage” theory.
Actually, among my other curious afflictions I seldom trust my government, which finds me on conspiracy trails.
There is a lot of information regarding the US working on an AIDs-like virus (from the Congressional Record among other sources) which I guess that I could write an essay about, but I won’t clog the main blog with it. Maybe if I figure out how to access the diary I will. I personally know of a character in San Francisco at the time of the outbreak, and it should give the creeps to you.
Also, back in the sixties the Germans were working with the Marburg virus (a close relative to Ebola, which hadn’t been “discovered” yet). Lab outbreaks then were deadly.
It’s fascinating, but most people wouldn’t think that anyone in our military-industrial complex would intentionally try to kill millions of, what did the Nazis call us, “useless bread gobblers.”
Bob, perhaps one of these days you’ll consider giving citizens of other nations some agency and responsibility for shenanigans in their government.
Sure. But what other government absorbed wholesale Nazi spies, scientists et al after WWII? I’m sure the Soviet Union had parallel plans for Nazi rocket scientists. I’m not sure they got many biological scientists. Most Nazis knew the safest direction to run. Americans and the British recruited them, hid them, helped many of them set themselves up in safe locations, to include some of the most notorious Nazis, get out of Europe after the war. The Soviets pretty much lined them up against the wall.
As far as shenanigans within government, I suspect every government is afflicted. I mean, it was Guatemalan death squads that murdered all those people. We just put the people in power to do the job. Likewise, in Indonesia.
Remember this is America’s Century and has been.
Bob,
We’re talking about Brazil here and only Brazil since you brought it up. There is scant proof of Western involvement and a few year’s worth of domestic propaganda that implicates Brazilian media and elites. Why do you pretend that the West is responsible for this?
Well as I’ve said before, I support illegal measures if it means stopping disease. Its my particular fear/aithoritarian button.
Why is it that there is no detailed information in news articles about what the money to fight Zika would be spent on and how public health authorities tend to act.
This is significant when talking about mosquito eradication programs because a study was reported of microencephaly and other birth defects being associated with a Sumitomo-branded insecticide being widely used in mosquito eradication programs.
These chemicals are intended to be sprayed on mosquito habitats but too often, like DDT before it, they are sprayed widely on unprotected populations.
The GOP legislative casserole cookery is at it again to make sure the public has zero sense of what with respect to policy is going on. It’s approaching Phil Gramm’s office in Gramm-Leach-Bliley sneakiness as to what’s in the sausage casserole. Just wait for the Omnibus Appropriations Bill this year. It likely will be a doozy–more so if the GOP loses Congress.
It has been so long that I’m losing hope that Congress will ever operate as a deliberative body again instead of a Sunday afternoon frat governing council. Of being about policy differences instead of about personal power moves for LULZ.
With caveat on the larvacide, I agree.
I’m from a generation that grew up with DDT fogging our communities with us still outdoors and no concerns or warnings. Statistical studies are still statistical; human consequences are absolute. There are smart ways to use chemical products; massive indiscriminate applications are not one of them typically.
The article on the larvacide (not the study it referenced) did report that apparently the chemicals were applied masssively and indiscriminately in some communities of Brazil but not so throughout the country. Countries where they were not used (using other methods of mosquito control) or used carefully did not have cases of microencephaly.
Sumitomo was knocked because it found internally (as subsequent action – legal or governmental discovered – that birth defects were noted internally but not reported during its safety review for its product pre-release. There is no reporting on whether this was a formulation problem, a batch problem, or an underlying issue with the active ingredient.
Teasing out the cause of microencephaly is important because more application might increase cases (which are a relatively small number right now compared to Zika infections).
A healthy bat population can deal with a lot of mosquitoes. But bats have their own issues in highly populated areas.
Eliminating standing water is by far the first task. Many people have reservoirs of standing water all over their property and are not aware of where the mosquitoes are coming from, often assuming a waterway when it is coming from their own carelessness.
Southeastern states especially have long experience with mosquito control that goes beyond spraying. Pumping, some filling, and predator introduction (especially larva eaters) are old methods that work and once came close to eradicating the Aedes mosquito entirely from the US.
Leaving us with the native (?) Culex mosquito and, for the northern part of the nation, blackflies.
Ah yes. Growing up on the Jersey Shore, having DDT trucks spraying at the drive-in on Route 35, during the cartoons, before the first feature film. Just a little after dusk. A truck driving up and down the aisles between rows of cars spraying the stuff.
It did kill mosquitoes, though.
Those were the days….
One of the things that I liked about living in NoVa (besides snow melting in two days tops) was that the County sent a sound truck through with a ten minutes warning to close all windows for mosquito spraying. In Illinois, you just found out when you starting choking and coughing. And that was conservative Loudoun County and “progressive” Cook county.
Bat populations are in deep trouble.
What KIND of birth defects did Sumitomo record? Crossing the blood/brain barrier in utero is a rare talent, thank heavens.
And I got my share of DDT, too, as a kid.
This, and the gun control business, might be a good time for Obama to use his power to convene Congress.
Best argument for marriage ever! Mutual scratching that primates are well known for since we are not as agile as dogs.
Politically, the important question is will blaming the Democrats work? Clinton is the one with the megaphone. She should hammer the Repubs over this now to imprint that they are imperiling everyone’s safety with unrelated ideological nonsense. Then return to regular campaign, but have the back of your party.
Good question. Work with whom? Who are they targeting besides their base with this nonsense?
We’re talking about a congressional group that is so A-Ok with 30,000 Americans being killed by gun violence every year that they have forbidden, (Got that? Forbidden!), America’s CDC – an agency of our United States who’s mission is: “…to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.” from doing it’s constitutionally, legislatively, judicially, and Presidentially approved job.
Why aren’t these people in prison?
I’ve come to think Republican congresspeople are really the lowest scum of the entire corporate system. I suspect that almost everyone they work for, their true bosses-donors, lobbyists, think-tank execs-makes better money then them. They can’t do better! They are the foot soldiers. Think about that.
Think about how dumb political television is. They don’t have to know anything at all. All they have to do is repeat talking points sent to them by their bosses, and basically do what leadership tells them to do. Louie Gohmert might be an outlier, but these guys are almost unimaginably narrow-minded and ignorant.