microcephaly

Amino Acid Deficit Impacts Perinatal Mouse Brain Development, Leading to Microcephaly, Autism Behaviors

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A study in mice by researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) has identified a group of amino acids that play a key role during certain stages of brain development. In collaboration with scientists at several Viennese universities Gaia Novarino, PhD, and her team at ISTA demonstrated that starving nerve cells of these amino acids leads to severe effects after birth. The affected animals developed microcephaly—a reduction in brain size—that persisted into adulthood, eventually causing long-term behavioral changes similar to those observed in autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

The researchers reported on their work in Cell, a paper titled “Large neutral amino acid levels tune perinatal neuronal excitability and survival,” in which they concluded that their results, “… offer a model of how mammalian neurons coordinate the expression of a nutrient-associated gene with the regulation of neuronal activity to ensure proper brain development. Altering these processes during a limited but critical time window results in permanent cortical circuit defects.”

The upper layer’s thickness of the cortex was reduced in mice lacking LNAAs (right) compared to their healthy counterparts (left). [Lisa Knaus/ISTA]

Brain development consists of a sequence of coordinated steps, which are mainly instructed by our genes. During these steps, the proper positioning and functionality of nerve cells in the brain is critical. Nonfunctional, or incorrectly positioned neurons can lead to severe neuropathological consequences.

Mutations in genes coordinating this program are often linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. But while stressors such as nutrient scarcity or malnutrition can also influence brain development, very little is known about the importance of specific nutrients and the role of metabolism during brain development. The authors wrote, “In fact, little is known about the metabolic program unfolding during brain development and the specific nutrient dependencies that this entails … Understanding how specific nutrients can influence brain maturation may be key in preventing or correcting aspects of certain neurodevelopmental conditions.”

Metabolites are made or used when we break down food, and fuel our bodies. One set of these metabolites—large neutral amino acids (LNAAs)—caught the scientists’ eyes. Most LNAAs are essential amino acids that the body cannot synthesize on its own, and so they must be taken up via food. However, the team noted, “ … it remains largely unknown whether and how the level of these amino acids (AAs) changes over time in the brain and how fluctuations in their amount may influence the course of neurodevelopment.”

The Novarino group had previously identified a novel form of autism that was caused when patients could not transfer LNAAs into the brain due to a genetic defect in a gene called SLC7A5, which encodes the LNAA transporter LAT1. This possible link triggered their interest in further investigation. “We got really interested in the amino acids’ role in brain development,” said first author and doctoral student Lisa Knaus.

Using metabolic profiling, the scientists assessed the changes in metabolite composition of the cerebral cortex throughout brain development in mice. In mice and humans, mutations in SLC7A5 resulted in a reduction of brain size after birth and behavioral changes later on. [Lisa Knaus (Biorender)/ISTA]

The team carried out metabolomic profiling to study the metabolic states of the cerebral cortex across different developmental stages, and found that at a particular stage in development the forebrain demonstrated “an increased dependency on LNAAs.” Knaus said, by checking the levels of metabolites throughout brain development, they seemed especially important for the neurodevelopmental period after birth.”

Then researchers then engineered mice in which the murine Slc7a5 gene was knocked out in neural cells, and compared these animals with healthy mice to evaluate if the genetic depletion leds to a change in characteristic traits. They found that during embryonic stages, brain formation appeared to be normal in the Slc7a5 gene knockout animals. However, right after birth, these animals’ nerve cells started to be affected by the low levels of LNAAs. During this period the mutant mice developed microcephaly due to a reduction in the thickness of the cortex—the outer layer of the brain—when compared to healthy mice.

Starving neurons of certain amino acids during brain development leads to severe effects in mice after birth. [Lisa Knaus/ISTA]

The scientists then employed a method to label and manipulate individual neurons and found that in the Slc7a5-knockout mice a large fraction of neurons in the upper layer of the cortex vanished during the first days after birth. The cells were dying—but why? Further investigation indicated that neurons lacking LNAAs were less active. “Neurons that aren’t firing properly get eliminated shortly after birth, Knaus said. “It’s like natural selection, where only the fittest cells survive.” The authors further explained, “… we identified a pivotal and unexpected function of LNAAs during a temporal window crucial for cortical network refinement. Precisely, we found that altering the levels of LNAAs in cortical neurons changes their lipid metabolism along with excitability and survival probability in a cell-autonomous manner, specifically early after birth.”

While neuron death and activity rates in the mutant mice normalized after the critical period, the smaller brain size persisted until adulthood. The animals started to show several behavioral abnormalities, including motor deficits, sociability defects, and hyperactivity. Though not a complete representation, these behavioral patterns are very similar to the ones in patients with mutations in the SLC7A5 gene, who also exhibit microcephaly, autism, and motor deficits. “Altogether, our analysis highlights the importance of dietary obtained factors, such as essential AAs, for neurodevelopment,” the team stated. “The similar trajectory of the microcephaly onset observed in mice and humans with SLC7A5 mutations suggests that although our metabolic profile describes changes in the murine brain, humans and mice may employ a similar metabolic program across time.”

Knaus concluded “Our work presents a detailed look at how even small changes in the metabolism and nutrient availability can have severe consequences for brain development and function.” And as the team commented, “As several metabolites are linked to neurodevelopmental conditions, our data can be important to evaluate potential critical time windows in the context of brain disorders.”

Why Were There Fewer Microcephaly Cases from Zika Last Year?

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A new study of 2016 has some surprising findings.

Dr. Stella Guerra performs physical therapy on an infant born with microcephaly at Altino Ventura Foundation on June 2, 2016 in Recife, Brazil. 

Of the many mysteries that remain about the Zika virus and its attack on the Americas, perhaps the most puzzling one relates to the bizarre distribution of babies born with Zika-induced microcephaly.

After so many such births were recorded in Northeastern Brazil in the last quarter of 2015, the country — and other places where the virus fanned out to from Brazil — braced themselves for a similar tsunami in 2016. But it didn’t materialize — at least not to the same degree.

A new and intriguing letter to the New England Journal of Medicine offers a theory for how to explain the missing microcephaly cases, the babies that were predicted to be born in Northeastern Brazil after Zika’s second wave of infection in the early part of 2016.

The authors suggest the region’s first wave of Zika may have been its only wave of Zika to date. Something that caused similar illness, likely the chikungunya virus, was probably responsible for the high level of fever and rash illnesses Brazil recorded in 2016, they theorized.

The authors — from the Brazilian ministry of health, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the Pan American Health Organization, and the World Health Organization — used information from two databases that capture cases of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

When the data were slotted into a graph, the discrepancy was plain as day. In 2015, a large spike in GBS cases was followed about 23 weeks later by a wave of microcephaly births. But a corresponding spike in GBS cases in early 2016 was not.

Zika infection can trigger GBS, a progressive paralysis from which most people recover. And Zika infection in pregnancy can attack the fetus, leading to microcephaly and other neurological birth defects.

Chikungunya infection can cause GBS. But chikungunya infection in pregnancy is not known to cause microcephaly.

“This is not a statement of fact and proof. This is the best hypothesis,” said Christopher Dye, senior author and an epidemiologist with the WHO.

“The cases in the first year, back in 2015, were really Zika cases. And that’s why we saw the microcephaly in 2015. But in 2016, it was predominantly chikungunya, not Zika, and that’s why we saw Guillain-Barré, but not microcephaly.”

Dye said based on reports of rash and fever in Northeastern Brazil in early 2016, it was expected that about 1,000 babies would be born with Zika-induced microcephaly from late summer onward. Instead, about 80 were recorded in the region.

For many diseases, this type of data mining and hypothesizing would not be needed. During a wave of illness, testing of the sick would show what was infecting them. And studies looking at the blood of people who had previously been ill would indicate how broadly a pathogen had spread.

But one of the vexing dilemmas of the Zika virus is that it so closely resembles related viruses that testing cannot always tell whether a person is infected with Zika or something similar, like dengue. Widespread testing hasn’t been done, Dye said.

He and his co-authors acknowledged there could be other explanations.

For instance, from the earliest stages of the Zika outbreak in the Americas, questions were raised about the high number of microcephaly cases in Northeastern Brazil. No other place experienced so many, leading people to ask whether there was something else there — a co-factor — that exacerbated the impact the virus had on the population of the region.

Dr. David Heymann, who was the chairman of the WHO’s Zika emergency committee — which has been disbanded — told STAT the committee looked at issues like population crowding in the cities of Northeastern Brazil and the nutritional status of people there, among other things.

But no clearly obvious co-factor came to light. And some — questions about local use of insecticides — were ruled out, Dye said.

The letter’s authors cannot exclude the possibility that there was a co-factor there, Dye said. But the fact that there were few microcephaly cases the following year means that the co-factor would have been missing in 2016 — and that makes it less likely.

The authors also noted a third possibility — that women in the region who had seen the possible outcome of a Zika infection in pregnancy might have either avoided pregnancies in large numbers or terminated pregnancies. But if the maternity wards of hospitals in the region had emptied out in 2016, the world would have heard about it by now.

“If there was a huge effect like that, it would have been big news very quickly. It would have been very visible,” Dye said.

If the theory — that Zika blew through Northeastern Brazil in one wave — is correct, it likely means so many people there were infected in 2015 that there were few still vulnerable to the virus in 2016.  In some ways, that may be a good sign; it might suggest Zika outbreaks are swift.

But it doesn’t mean the virus is done. More likely, said Dye, is that Zika will return after births create pools of people who have no immunity to the virus, hitting perhaps when people aren’t expecting it.

“But we really can’t rule anything out. And we’re ready for further surprises on Zika virus,” he said.

Source:/www.scientificamerican.com

Zika Infants May Have Constellation of Brain Abnormalities

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Imaging shows abnormalities beyond microcephaly.

Brain imaging of infants with confirmed or presumed congenital Zika virus infection showed both a reduction in brain volume, as well as abnormal development in certain areas of the brain, a small retrospective analysis of Brazilian infants found.

In addition to more publicized abnormalities, such as microcephaly and intracranial calcifications, most infants had prenatal or postnatal evidence of ventriculomegaly (expansion of the lateral ventricles of the brain) and abnormal cortical development, reported Patricia Soares de Oliveira-Szejnfeld, MD, of Federal University of São Paulo in Brazil, and colleagues.

The authors published their findings in a special report in Radiology.
Congenital abnormalities, including neurological abnormalities, have been linked with classic TORCH infections, but anomalies associated with congenital Zika virus infection in this small sample appeared to be much more severe.
Not surprisingly, all but one of these infants had evidence of microcephaly — with head circumferences below the fifth percentile at least once during the second trimester. However, normal head circumference was misleading in several cases, as ventriculomegaly may have given the appearance of a normal head size.
But the researchers argued that “microcephaly” is a non-specific term that merely refers to head circumference smaller than normal for gestational age. They sought to identify more specific neurologic abnormalities linked with congenital Zika virus infection, which would be visible via diagnostic imaging.
Four radiologists examined images from two small cohorts: one with 17 infants whose mothers had confirmed Zika virus infection via RT-PCR or serologic testing, and a second cohort comprised of 28 infants with intracranial calcifications consistent with Zika virus infection. Overall, there were 42 postnatal CT scans, 12 fetal MRI examinations and 11 postnatal MRI examinations from the Instituto de Pesquisa in Campina Grande State Paraiba in northeastern Brazil.

“Microcephaly is only one of the severe radiologic features,” said co-author Fernanda Tovar-Moll, MD, of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in a statement. “Imaging is essential for identifying the presence and the severity of the structural changes induced by the infection, especially in the central nervous system.”
All examined neonatal images noted a reduction in brain volume, and ventriculomegaly was observed in 94%-96% of infants with confirmed or probable Zika virus infection. There were also cortical migration abnormalities in nearly all of these infants, potentially indicating structurally abnormal or missing areas of the cerebral cortex.
In addition, abnormalities of the corpus callosum (the band of nerve fibers joining both hemispheres of the brain) were seen in more than three-quarters of infants with confirmed or presumed Zika virus infection.
“The severity of the cortical malformation and associated tissue changes, and the localization of the calcifications at the grey-white matter junction were the most surprising findings in our research,” said Tovar-Moll.
Nearly all (88%-100%) of both cohorts had intracranial calcifications at the gray matter-white matter junction of the brain. Notably, calcifications on the basal ganglia (which helps control motor function) and/or in the thalamus (which helps regulate sensory and motor signals) were seen in two-thirds of infants. The authors noted that the gray matter-white matter junction is “an area not classically or commonly targeted in other congenital infections,” and may suggest a vascular component to congenital Zika infection.
Although up to 80% of Zika infections can be asymptomatic, around three-fourths of women in both cohorts presented with a rash during their first trimester of pregnancy.
“This correlates well with the finding of severe cerebral dysmorphisms associated with infection during a time of rapid brain development,” they wrote, adding that the CDC estimates the risk of microcephaly at 1%-13% after maternal infection with Zika virus in the first trimester.
Limitations to this research include that it was a convenience sample of imaging findings, which was taken from a referral center for high-risk pregnancy and may not be generalizable. The authors also acknowledge that microcephaly may be due to infections other than Zika virus, which had yet to be diagnosed.

Up to 270 Microcephaly Cases Expected in Puerto Rico Due to Zika

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U.S. health experts estimate that as many as 270 babies in Puerto Rico may be born with microcephaly caused by Zika infections in their mothers during pregnancy.

The estimate is the first to project the potential impact of Zika on Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory located in the Caribbean that has borne the brunt of the outbreak in the United States. Puerto Rico had 10,690 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika, including 1,035 pregnant women, as of Aug. 12.

Rising infection rates of the virus in Puerto Rico prompted the U.S. government to declare a state of public health emergency last week.

Using the most recent available data, researchers from the Puerto Rican Health Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecast that between 5,900 and 10,300 pregnant women in Puerto Rico will become infected with Zika during the initial outbreak, which began in Puerto Rico in December 2015.

“Based on the limited available information on the risk of microcephaly, we estimate between 100 to 270 cases of microcephaly might occur” between mid-2016 and mid-2017, said Dr. Margaret Honein, chief of the birth defects branch at the CDC, who was one of several authors of the study published August 19 in JAMA Pediatrics.

Honein said the findings do not paint the entire picture of Zika, which has also been linked to a number of other birth defects, including various brain abnormalities, limb joint deformities, club foot, deafness and eye abnormalities.

“It’s going to be very important to follow up on these infants,” she said.

Honein said the CDC was working closely with the Puerto Rican Department of Health to reduce the incidence or mitigate the impact of Zika infection, particularly in pregnant women.
“I think it’s critically important that we do everything we can to prevent Zika virus during pregnancy, and to minimize this very severe and devastating outcome.”

Honein said while the study was based on an imperfect understanding of Zika and its impact on unborn children, she said it was important to release the data to help the country plan for the services that will be needed to care for the children born with microcephaly.

The condition, in which infants are born with abnormally small heads for their age, is estimated to cost $10 million over the lifetime of one child.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infection in the mothers.

The Lethal Suspects for Microcephaly in Brazil, With Zika Virus at the Bottom of the List

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We often hear that correlation is not causation, so why are world renowned scientists treating the Zika virus as the sole cause of microcephaly in Brazil when there are so many other factors? 

Since the virus Zika was blamed for a cluster of cases in northeastern Brazil of the devastating birth defect microcephaly, the mainstream media have been dominated by fear of a Zika pandemic. Meanwhile, the real culprit(s) behind the surge in microcephaly in that corner of Brazil have been ignored, with the exception of a few scientists, and even fewer journalists.

This story started on Feb. 1, 2016, when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a pandemic emergency with the Zika virus, a much milder cousin of Dengue fever. The WHO blamed Zika alone for the sharp uptick inmicrocephaly (shrunken heads, resulting in shrunken and undeveloped brains, with a wide range of symptoms and disabilities possible, depending on the severity of the case) in babies born in impoverished areas of northeast Brazil.

Politics and an unscientific approach ensued, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) joining forces with the WHO. The twin U.S. health care agencies launched a propaganda campaign of fear to justify a money grab from U.S. taxpayers. But for a change, Congress developed a backbone and denied the pleas of President Obama, CDC Director Tom Frieden, and NIH Director Anthony Fauci, who were seeking $1.9 billion for Zika vaccine R&D.

On June 28, the “Zika Bill” was blocked by Senate Democrats, due to issues over the “provisions of the bill,” but apparently not the lower price tag of $1.1 billion.

Missing CSI Investigation

Whether it’s a failed structure or a broken marriage, it often isn’t one item alone that causes the collapse, but a series of them in a cascade of negative events that does the final damage.

Instead of announcing the Zika pandemic, the three international health agencies should have launched a CSI-type investigation in that quarter of Brazil examining all of the environmental triggers and toxins that might be contributing to the surge in microcephaly. But that didn’t happen.

“The increase in microcephaly in that part of the world is unique to Brazil. You don’t see rate increases anywhere else,” Dr. James Lyons-Weiler said in a telephone interview on the likely suspects causing the rise in deformed fetuses and babies.

He explained that the “interactions between two or more of the potential causal factors are rarely ever studied by CDC’s scientists. They are not very good with studying interactions,” which might be the underlying cause of an infectious disease or spread of a virus.

Author and research scientist Lyons-Weiler’s early problem solving skills in recognizing the utility in information in DNA-hybridization led him into deeper research on the evolution of diseases, cancer, and mammals.

In 2015, Dr. Lyons-Weiler launched the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge (IPAK), a non-profit organization that since its inception has been challenging half-baked science taken as gospel.

In a co-authored paper that Lyons-Weiler led, his scientific team identified nine likely suspects for the rise in microcephaly. The unpublished paper to date, “Areas of Research and Preliminary Evidence on Microcephaly,Guillain-Barré Syndrome and Zika Virus Infection in the Western Hemisphere,” outlined the suspects.

They range from “Direct Zika-related microcephaly through unspecified mechanisms” and “molecular mimicry” in two types of vaccines given to pregnant women, to “Glyphosate toxicity in bovine products” leaching into those vaccines, and the unintended outcome of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes, whose world pilot program was launched in 2012 in that same northeast corner of Brazil by the British concern Oxitec.

“The Zika virus has a protein that matches a human protein within 96 percent. Zika also has an element in its genomic sequence similar to one in other flaviviruses, too, like West Nile to Dengue fever. That means Zikacould enter the placenta and blood brain barrier of infants. Yet since there is no increase in acute microcephaly outside of Brazil, if it’s Zika, there may be a missing molecular or chemical co-factor,” Lyons-Weiler explained.

The ability of viruses to produce specific disease symptoms is often known to be modified by co-factors.  “Something is different in Brazil,” said Lyons-Weiler.

Overlooked Glyphosate

On June 1, 2015, Denmark, a farming country, banned the sale and use of Monsanto’s ubiquitous weed killer Roundup, as a result of the Danish Environment Authority declaring glyphosate as a carcinogen. Earlier that year, the WHO classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The ban and the statement had little effect on removing the sale ofglyphosate-containing products in the United States and South America. And that has bugged MIT Senior Research Scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., who conducts research at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

At this year’s Autism One Conference in Chicago, Dr. Seneff presented a 66-slide deck, “Glyphosate, Folic Acid, Neural Tube Defects and Autism,” highlighting potential associations between chemicals, biology, and children susceptible to autism. In mid-June, Seneff presented at a U.S. Congressional hearing on glyphosate, in Washington, D.C.

In an email, Stephanie Seneff wrote: “It is ridiculous that the only thing the research community seems to be focused on with respect to themicrocephaly epidemic in NE Brazil is the Zika virus. While the virus may be a factor in the epidemic, there are many other potential factors that deserve at least equal attention. These include:

(1) “Simultaneous exposure to two herbicides—glufosinate and glyphosate—due to the recent introduction of GMO glufosinate-resistant soybeans on top of the glyphosate-resistant soybeans (glufosinate substitution for glutamine during protein synthesis is a direct path to microcephaly via disruption of asparagine synthase);

(2) “The addition of larvicides directly to the drinking water;

(3) “The introduction of the GM mosquitoes from larvae that were likely fedglyphosate-contaminated sugar and glyphosate-contaminated blood following maturation;

(4) “The heavy use of ethanol as a fuel in the trucks driving through the region (derived from GM Roundup-ready sugar beets or sugar cane sprayed with Roundup just before harvest), and;

(5) “The recent implementation of policies that encourage vaccination of pregnant women with Tdap, flu vaccine, and possibly MMR vaccine. All of these potential contributors should be thoroughly investigated before concluding that Zika is the entire story with the epidemic.”

What do all of these potential triggers mean? Even if they are not the direct cause of microcephaly, they are contributing to both polluting the land and thus plant, animal, and human life. That should give governments around the world pause.

To date, it has not worked out that way yet.

Where there is big opportunity for billions of dollars in profits, there is Big Industry—Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big you name it—led by multinational corporations that seek home run-like profits. There are also big governments that either look the other way or are fine with raking in some of those profits, too.

“The timing is wrong for Zika” said Lyons-Weiler, who pointed to a study showing an increase in microcephaly in Brazil two years before Zika made it to Brazil.

“What is clear is the experimentation with whole-cell pertussis vaccination in the slums is ongoing, because the population cannot afford the fee for the clinic, where the safer acellular vaccine is available. The increase inmicrocephaly began one year after Brazil adopted a mandatory prenatal care program, which includes vaccinations during pregnancy,” he concluded.

Zika is not about science. It’s about money and profit at the expense of the people, domestic and foreign.

What we really know about Zika virus?

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Whatever we read and know it’s just an iceberg.
This is not mentioned in medical text or any text of virology..even if mentioned..not in such detail. It’s great that no report of Zika infection from Rio..thanks to the people of Brazil who made this Olympic safe from Zika.
So the issues are which we should discuss are…
1) Why suddenly this Zika became too infective and spread from Brazil to Florida beach?
2) Is there a direct relationship of Zika and Microcephaly?
3) Are the banned pesticides or larvacides responsible for microcephaly? And not the virus itself?
4) For those who are infected may develop pre senile dementia in the long run? Does Zika affects the adult brain too?
5) Is this Zika spread like Ebola is related to global warming?
6) Till now we don’t have a cure for Zika infection. Whatever is there is just symptomatic like in cases of Ebola or Dengue.
7) People are claiming for a vaccine but how effective would be this in phase IV ?
😎 Convince me that it’s not a normal strain..and it’s a some GM?
9) How GM mosquitoes work against Zika?
10) Chemitrail….Yes or No. This was done in Florida few days back but the government is covering this. Why?

 

I hope someone would answer my silly questions.

Please post your comment in the comment box.

Zika, microcephaly, and pesticides: Half-truths, hysteria, and vested interests

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People who think pesticides might have something to do with the microcephaly outbreak in Brazil are being attacked as irrational conspiracy theorists. Claire Robinson takes a closer look at who’s peddling the myths.

Adult mosquito emerging_from pupa

I recently published an article on reports by the Argentine doctors’ group, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, and the Brazilian public health researchers’ group Abrasco, which raised the issue of the potential role of the larvicide pyriproxyfen in the apparent surge in babies born with birth defects involving abnormally small heads (microcephaly). Pyriproxyfen is added to drinking water stored in open containers to interfere with the development of disease-carrying mosquitoes, thus killing or disabling them.

The Ecologist published a version of my article which, together with the original publication on GMWatch, quickly went viral, triggering a lot more media coverage. This in turn met with a furious backlash involving what has seemed at times like a “shouting brigade” condemning anyone who thinks the Argentine report worth taking seriously.

Yet at times this chorus of condemnation has been extraordinarily hypocritical, condemning the Argentine doctors as enemies of fact and accuracy while getting the most basic of facts wrong about what the doctors are actually suggesting.

Pesticide defenders invent “pesticide causes Zika” conspiracy theory

Take, for instance, the Washington Post food columnist, Tamar Haspel. Haspel tweeted: “No, GMOs and pesticides aren’t the Zika culprits. Could we evaluate groups by how often they spread fact-free theories? A cred rating.”

Tamar Haspel Zika Tweet

Andrew Noymer, a social epidemiologist at the University of California, Irvine, replied: “Pesticide is not Zika culprit but it hasn’t been definitively ruled out as birth defect culprit. Got it? Good.”

In response to Noymer’s challenge, Haspel claimed that she was just using Zika as Twitter “shorthand” for microcephaly! Noymer retorted, “Well then you’re just misinformed.

Andrew Noymer Tamar Haspel Twitter

It wasn’t just Haspel who seemed to accuse the supposed “conspiracy theorists” of linking the pesticide to Zika. Grist food writer Nathanael Johnson also appeared to fall into the trap with a headline attacking a “bogus theory connecting Zika” to the pesticide industry. But the Argentine doctors only ever suggested the larvicide pyriproxyfen might be a culprit in microcephaly. Nobody ever claimed pesticides cause the Zika virus!

Another well-known GMO supporter, Julie Kelly, made a similar mistake when she damned the Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo for tweeting what she said was an “egregiously inaccurate” article that blamed “pesticides – not mosquitos – for transmitting the Zika virus”.

Just good friends

This is not to say that some of the initial coverage of the pesticide theory didn’t suffer from real inaccuracies. One red herring was set running by the Argentine doctors themselves when they wrongly identified the company that makes the larvicide as a subsidiary of Monsanto.

In fact, Sumitomo Chemical is a long-term strategic partner of Monsanto’s – they’ve been working together for nearly two decades, but Monsanto doesn’t own the company. Even so, it’s a perhaps understandable error given the closeness of the companies’ cooperation in Brazil and Argentina. In any case, it’s an error that I was careful to avoid in my Ecologist piece, which correctly identified the larvicide manufacturer as only a strategic partner.

Nevertheless, it’s an error that was seized upon by Nathanael Johnson, for instance, with his headline, “A bogus theory connecting Zika virus to Monsanto could give mosquitoes a boost”.

Nathanael Johnson Headline

Ironically, that headline, as we’ve noted, is more misleading than the error about the extent of the Monsanto connection.

“Pesticides could be involved” – leading virologist

What is also misleading about Johnson’s headline is the suggestion that the pesticide theory (in relation to microcephaly, of course, not Zika) can be batted off as “bogus”. The idea that this particular pesticide – and/or other pesticides – could be linked to the birth defect problem in Brazil is not something that can simply be dismissed out of hand.

Although it’s been claimed that Dr Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “spoke out against the ‘sketchy’ report” of the Argentine doctors, Collins actually described their theory not as bogus but as “interesting”.

And the biologist Dr Pete Myers, in an editorial comment posted on the online news service Environmental Health News, pointed out that the reason the pesticide hypothesis is, as Collins rightly says, “sketchy”, is the lack of adequate investigation of pesticides before they are released on to the market:

“[These are] dueling hypotheses [as to whether the Zika virus or the larvicide is responsible for the microcephaly increase] with great consequences for getting it right, or wrong. We would be in a better position to make the choice if pesticides were tested more rigorously before being used.”

In fact, one of the world’s leading virologists, Dr Leslie Lobel, recently told The Guardian that it is not clear that the microcephaly cases in Brazil are linked to the Zika virus and that there was “a strong possibility pesticides could be involved and this needed to be studied”.

The reason it needs to be studied is because, as Myers’ points out, there’s a relative lack of hard and independently generated data on pesticides like pyriproxyfen, thanks to an inadequate regulatory system. The Argentine doctors are not to blame for this regulatory failure and they should not be censured for flagging up questions about the chemical.

Axes to grind

Why are some people so keen to dismiss the doctors’ suggestion out of hand?

It’s been suggested that those flagging up the possibility of a connection between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly have a hidden agenda. For example, Professor Andrew Batholomaeus, one of the “experts” quoted by the Science Media Centre of Australia in defence of the larvicide’s safety, said: “Journalists covering this story would do well to research the background of those making and reporting the claims as the underlying story and potential public health consequences may be far more newsworthy than the current headlines.”

But it’s surely no surprise if Argentine physicians, who have had to deal at first hand with the suffering caused by the GMO soy revolution in Argentina with its accompanying pesticide onslaught, should be particularly alert to the role of pesticides in health and development issues in Latin America – and suspicious of the safety claims of chemical corporations.

The doctors say their local communities are facing an exploding health crisis, which includes children suffering unusual birth defects. And in neighbouring Brazil the country’s National Cancer Institute says the release of GM crops has helped make the country the largest consumer of agrochemicals in the world.

Industry-friendly attackers

Also, some of those leading the attacks on the pesticides hypothesis could also be accused of having an agenda. Julie Kelly, for instance, uses her National Review article to attack Mark Ruffalo not just for drawing attention to the larvicide theory but also over his campaigning on climate change and fracking, his support for sustainable energy, and his publicly confronting the CEO of Monsanto over the impact of his company’s products.

National Review article

Kelly, who is married to a lobbyist for the agricultural commodities giant ADM, is a self-declared member, along with Monsanto personnel, of the Kevin Folta “fan club” – Kevin Folta being the GMO-loving/Roundup-drinking scientist who denied having any links to Monsanto even though he’d received $25,000 from the company for his biotech communication programme and had other notable industry connections besides.

Interestingly, Tamar Haspel appears far from keen to explore the ties between companies like Monsanto and academics at public universities like Kevin Folta, and has herself been accused of collaborating closely with the agrochemical industry and of batting for Monsanto.

And perhaps the most virulent attack on the Argentine doctors, published predictably in Forbes, was contributed by another Folta fan. Kavin Senapathy also regularly co-authors pieces with Henry Miller, a climate skeptic and staunch defender of DDT and other controversial pesticides, not to mention the tobacco industry.

So where does this leave us?

Yes, the Argentine doctors and some of their supporters may be said to have an agenda, but as we have seen, that charge can just as easily be levelled against some of those keen to debunk their concerns.

The connection to Monsanto may have been overstated by the doctors, and even more by some news outlets, but it wasn’t invented – Sumitomo Chemical is Monsanto’s long-term strategic partner.

There has also been a misplaced attack on those of us who have drawn attention to the concerns of the Brazilian public health researchers about pyriproxyfen and other chemicals. I’ll be looking at that in a subsequent article.

And as one of the world’s leading virologists has also flagged up the need to take seriously that notion that pesticides could be involved, I’m going to be looking more at this critical issue, including what scientists do and don’t know about pyriproxyfen.

Brazilian government denies microcephaly/larvicide link

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Government’s response is scientifically flawed

Recently we broke the story of the Argentine and Brazilian doctors’ and health researchers’ reports linking an increase in cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil with pyriproxyfen, a larvicide sprayed to combat mosquitoes.

Babies with microcephaly are born with an abnormally small head and often have brain damage.

The story quickly went viral, generating a mass of media coverage – for example, articles in Ecowatch and The Ecologist.

The doctors’ and researchers’ reports challenged the popular assumption that the microcephaly cases were caused by the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes. The larvicide pyriproxyfen was being sprayed to kill mosquitoes, but the doctors and researchers believed that the ‘cure’ for the mosquitoes may have been the actual cause of the birth defects.

Predictably, health officials in Brazil have now dismissed any potential link between microcephaly and the larvicide (see article below). This is expected, as they could be liable for any harm caused by this state-sponsored spraying programme.

Notably, the Brazilian federal government’s response is scientifically flawed. It states that “there had been no scientific study that linked pyriproxyfen to microcephaly”. But the inadequacy of industry-sponsored regulatory tests for teratogenic (causing birth defects) effects of pesticides is well known.

And pyriproxyfen does not appear to be well studied by independent scientists.

The Brazilian government also said, “Unlike the relationship between the Zika virus and microcephaly, which has had its confirmation shown in tests that indicated the presence of the virus in samples of blood, tissue and amniotic fluid, the association between the use of pyriproxyfen and microcephaly has no scientific basis.”

However, these tests showing the presence of the Zika virus in the blood of newborns and/or mothers affected by microcephaly do not prove a causative link between Zika and microcephaly. This presence could well be coincidental (the person happens to carry the virus but it’s not causally connected to birth defects) or “opportunistic” (taking advantage of a weakened immune system).

The government’s statement that “some localities that do not use pyriproxyfen also had reported cases of microcephaly” proves nothing. Glyphosate herbicides are also linked with microcephaly and are sprayed on GM crops in large areas of the country. And several studies link exposure to other pesticides with anencephaly, a more extreme form of microcephaly in which the foetus does not develop a forebrain.

What is needed before the pyriproxyfen/microcephaly link can be dismissed is epidemiological studies to see if there is an increase in microcephaly in areas where pyriproxyfen has been sprayed, as well as controlled animal studies using realistic doses comparable to those to which humans are exposed.

* Fears grow over a link between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly but the Brazilian health ministry played any link down

Health officials in Brazil have dismissed claims that a larvicide could be responsible for a rise in cases of microcephaly, and not Zika virus.

A report by Argentinian doctors suggested pyriproxyfen, which is used to control the Aedes aegypti mosquito, could be associated with the deformity, which impairs foetal brain development.

The organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, said the substance had been introduced into drinking water supplies since 2014 in affected areas of Brazil.

“In the area where most sick persons live, a chemical larvicide producing malformations in mosquitoes has been applied for 18 months, and that this poison (pyroproxifen) is applied by the state on drinking water used by the affected population,” the report said.

In response, the local government in Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the south of Brazil, suspended the use of pyriproxyfen on Saturday.

“We decided to suspend the use of the product in drinking water until we have a position from the ministry of health, and so, we reinforce further still the appeal to the population to eliminate any possible mosquito breeding site,” said Joao Gabbardo dos Reis, state health secretary in Rio Grande do Sul.

However, the federal government was quick to dismiss the fears in a statement.

It said there had been no scientific study that linked pyriproxyfen to microcephaly, which has been confirmed in 462 babies, with 41 cases linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

“Unlike the relationship between the Zika virus and microcephaly, which has had its confirmation shown in tests that indicated the presence of the virus in samples of blood, tissue and amniotic fluid, the association between the use of pyriproxyfen and microcephaly has no scientific basis,” the statement said.

“It’s important to state that some localities that do not use pyriproxyfen also had reported cases of microcephaly.”

The government said it only used larvicides recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Hawaii declared a state of emergency over Zika on Monday, becoming the first US state to take such action.

David Ige, governor of the islands, said that the proclamation was “a preventative measure” as there have been no cases of the virus being transmitted in the state so far. Four people in Hawaii have caught the virus while abroad, the Center for Disease Control said.

There have, however, been some cases of dengue fever on the island of Hawaii. The statement from the governor’s office said such cases “continue to be fewer” and further between, but the battle to break the cycle of transmission continues.

“There have been no locally acquired Zika cases in the US or Hawaii, and we’d like to keep it that way,” said Mr Ige. “This is about getting in front of the situation across the state.”

Around 50 people in the US are known to have contracted the virus, in 17 states. All of them had travelled to Latin America.

Scientists around the world are currently racing to develop a vaccine for Zika virus, with clinical trials expected within a year to 18 months.

Argentine and Brazilian doctors name larvicide as potential cause of microcephaly

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Zika Virus Outbreak in Brazil

Are the Zika virus – and GM mosquitoes – being wrongly blamed? Report by Claire Robinson

A report from the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns,[1] challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns.

The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014. This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes.

The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese “strategic partner” ofMonsanto. Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects), according to the Physicians.

The Physicians commented: “Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.”

They also noted that Zika has traditionally been held to be a relatively benign disease that has never before been associated with birth defects, even in areas where it infects 75% of the population.

Larvicide the most likely culprit in birth defects

Pyriproxyfen is a relatively new introduction to the Brazilian environment; the microcephaly increase is a relatively new phenomenon. So the larvicide seems a plausible causative factor in microcephaly – far more so than GM mosquitoes, which some have blamed for the Zika epidemic and thus for the birth defects. There is no sound evidence to support the notion promoted by some sources that GM mosquitoes can cause Zika, which in turn can cause microcephaly. In fact, out of 404 confirmed microcephaly cases in Brazil, only 17 (4.2%) tested positive for the Zika virus.

Brazilian health experts agree Pyriproxyfen is suspect

The Argentine Physicians’ report, which also addresses the Dengue fever epidemic in Brazil, concurs with the findings of a separate report on the Zika outbreak by the Brazilian doctors’ and public health researchers’ organisation, Abrasco.[2]

Abrasco also names Pyriproxyfen as a potential factor in the outbreak of microcephaly cases and calls for suspension of its use. It condemns the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes, which it says is contaminating the environment as well as people and is not decreasing the numbers of mosquitoes. Abrasco suggests that this strategy is in fact driven by the commercial interests of the chemical industry, which it says is deeply integrated into the Latin American ministries of health, as well as the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organisation.

Abrasco names the British GM insect company Oxitec as part of the corporate lobby that is distorting the facts about Zika to suit its own profit-making agenda. Oxitec sells GM mosquitoes engineered for sterility and markets them as a disease-combatting product – a strategy condemned by the Argentine Physicians as “a total failure, except for the company supplying mosquitoes”.

The poor suffer most

Both the Brazilian and Argentine doctors’ and researchers’ associations agree that poverty is a key neglected factor in the Zika epidemic. Abrasco condemned the Brazilian government for its “deliberate concealment” of economic and social causes: “In Argentina and across America the poorest populations with the least access to sanitation and safe water suffer most from the outbreak.” The Argentine Physicians agreed, stating, “The basis of the progress of the disease lies in inequality and poverty.”

Abrasco added that the disease is closely linked to environmental degradation: floods caused by logging and the massive use of herbicides on (GM) herbicide-tolerant soy crops – in short, “the impacts of extractive industries”.

The notion that environmental degradation may a factor in the spread of Zika finds backing in the view of Dino Martins, PhD, a Kenyan entomologist. Martins said that “the explosion of mosquitoes in urban areas, which is driving the Zika crisis” is caused by “a lack of natural diversity that would otherwise keep mosquito populations under control, and the proliferation of waste and lack of disposal in some areas which provide artificial habitat for breeding mosquitoes”.

Community-based actions

The Argentine Physicians believe that the best defence against Zika is “community-based actions”. An example of such actions is featured in a BBC News report on the Dengue virus in El Salvador. A favourite breeding place for disease-carrying mosquitoes is storage containers of standing water. El Salvadorians have started keeping fish in the water containers, and the fish eat the mosquito larvae. Dengue has vanished along with the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. And so far, the locals don’t have any Zika cases either.

Simple yet effective programmes like this are in danger of being neglected in Brazil in favour of the corporate-backed programmes of pesticide spraying and releasing GM mosquitoes. The latter is completely unproven and the former may be causing far more serious harm than the mosquitoes that are being targeted.

Microcephaly: Pesticides once again in the crosshair

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Microcephaly: Pesticides once again in the crosshairs

Doctors and researchers say the widespread use of the toxic chemicals heavily promoted by the chemical and pharmaceutical industry to combat mosquitoes is not preventing the spread of Zika virus, but is putting at risk the health of the general population

Below is an interesting article by the Argentine journalist Dario Aranda, who has reported for years on the problems caused by the spraying of pesticides on GM soy and other crops.

The article explains how concerns about the spread of dengue and theZika virus, and the microcephaly increase in Brazil, are being exploited by pesticide firms.

Microcephaly is a birth defect in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head.

Although evidence is now beginning to emerge that suggests that the Zika virus may have a role in some cases of microcephaly, Aranda reports the concerns of researchers that pesticides may also be a factor.

He also reveals the immense lobbying effort by pesticide companies, in collaboration with government officials, behind the organisation of vast spraying programmes to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes, even though the mosquitoes are known to be resistant to many chemicals. The companies’ lobby group is even reportedly promising people that they can “save human lives and prevent malformations” by opening the doors and windows of their houses during the spraying, so that the pesticide can penetrate their homes.

The critical perspective presented in Aranda’s article has all but been stamped out in the English-speaking media. There is a determined effort to convince the world that there can only be one cause of the microcephaly increase and that is the Zika virus. But this hypothesis still lacks the kind of evidence that could prove causality.

Between the notion that all the microcephaly cases are solely caused by Zika, and the opposing notion that Zika is not responsible, there are many plausible intervening hypotheses. These include the possibility that Zika is a co-factor, together with other agents such as pesticides, or that Zika is responsible for some, but not all, of the cases of microcephaly and that pesticides may be responsible for other cases. All possible hypotheses should be explored and firm conclusions should only be drawn on the basis of evidence of causality.

A climate of fear is being generated around the Zika virus that is not as yet justified by the state of the evidence. The resulting panic is being exploited by corporate interests that are indifferent to the risks of exposing people to the mass spraying of inadequately tested pesticides, many of which are endocrine disruptors, reproductive toxins, and/or linked to birth defects.