5 ms·

Zika Is Coming

25 points by aaronbrethorst 11y ago

panchicore2 11y ago
Zika HOAX exposed by South American doctors: Brain deformations caused by larvicide chemical linked to Monsanto; GM mosquitoes a 'total failure' Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/052943_Zika_virus_hoax_larvacide_chemical_GM_mosquitoes.html#ixzz45MeBMHxV http://www.naturalnews.com/052943_Zika_virus_hoax_larvacide_...
- dylz 11y ago
  Do you have an actual source as opposed to an ad-packed blog that says autism is caused by vaccines and promoting 'natural cures' and homeopathy to cure cancer?
- cbd1984 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News > Natural News (formerly NewsTarget) is a website for the sale of various dietary supplements, promotion of alternative medicine, controversial nutrition and health claims,[2] and various conspiracy theories,[3] such as "chemtrails", chemophobic claims (including the purported dangers of fluoride in drinking water,[4] anti-perspirants,[5] laundry detergent,[6] monosodium glutamate[7] and aspartame), and purported health problems caused by allegedly "toxic" ingredients in vaccines,[2] including the now-discredited link to autism.[8] It has also spread conspiracy theories about the Zika virus allegedly being spread by genetically modified mosquitoes.[9] It's a whole big bag of crazy. Wikipedia is rather unusually to-the-point on how nuts it is, given that that's the first paragraph of the article. This place is just that insane, to the point that any attempt to portray it as even minimally rational would be a massive violation of neutrality and show an utter disregard for what actual experts think.
debacle 11y ago
This isn't news. It's fear-mongering.
StanislavPetrov 11y ago
If you are so worried, don't have a kid. The world is overpopulated enough as it is.
unclebucknasty 11y ago
Am I the only who's noticed that there is always one and exactly one major disease of which we should all be mortally afraid?
- diminish 11y ago
  I second this, it was HIV, then bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, now Zika. Edit: Actually the NYT article is quite nice in evaluating the risk and giving information about the danger zones. But most probably all those viruses/microbes required public attention to get required funding to stop and confine them.
  - lern_too_spel 11y ago
    And global warming, right? How is it that people who are sensible about energy policy suddenly turn into conspiracy theorists when it comes to public health policy? This guy isn't making any radical proposals. He's just suggesting a sensible mosquito abatement strategy in a particular part of the US where it makes sense.
    - unclebucknasty 11y ago
      >just suggesting a sensible mosquito abatement strategy Sensibly suggesting it with the foreboding headline "Zika Is Coming"? And, this, in the context of the fear that is already being ginned up about the virus. I don't know that it's a conspiracy, but it's pretty predictable by now: "This New Virus Will Kill Us All" headlines. Story after story, then the fizzle when fears prove to be overstated. So, just as suddenly, the headlines completely disappear. Ebola headlines stopped literally overnight from just about every media outlet. But, within a few months another mortal fear arises. You can set your watch to it.
      - lern_too_spel 11y ago
        This guy isn't saying that Zika will kill us all. The headline you're complaining about simply states that Zika is coming. Are you claiming that Zika isn't coming? Ebola didn't disappear on its own. It was sound containment policy that kept it from gaining a foothold in developed countries. Exactly the kind of sound policy that the author is advocating. Your line of thinking is what makes measles come back.
ddt_Osprey 11y ago
It's either DDT or Ospreys. One comes with micro-cephalic children. The other dooms an endangered species to extinction. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
- mikeash 11y ago
  The world is rarely so conveniently simple as to present exactly two choices. I doubt this is an exception.
- antiquark 11y ago
  DDT is still used in the third world, and mosquitoes are evolving resistance to it. So choosing DDT will eventually end with extinct ospreys, and DDT-resistant mosquitoes.
kafkaesq 11y ago
I take the top-level comments so far as an indication that -- if they aren't exactly afraid -- deep down inside, people are definitely feeling a certain amount of anxiety about the sudden rise of the Zika virus, and more the the point, what it really means about this new world we we're lurching into. A world which isn't coming to an end -- but slowly but surely, from one day to the next, it's a world which is changing, and generally for the worse. And in which ideas we might have taken for granted until now -- like "Hey, I could just move to Miami, and start a family, if I wanted" -- suddenly become quite complicated, indeed, and fraught with uncertainty. And unfortunately, the only tool they know of to defend themselves with is snark.
- jeremysmyth 11y ago
  it's a world which is changing, and generally for the worse Ah, but this is objectively wrong, by almost every metric (crime, security, murder, health, longevity, happiness, poverty). What is getting worse is the general level of fear, and this comes from the fact that we can hear bad news faster and more generally than ever before, combined with our evolved nature to implicitly feel that everything that we hear about might personally affect us (see Dunbar's number), and clickbait tactics of news editors and the need to fill the 24 hour news cycle with sensationalism. Fear causes stress, and both fear and stress cause physically and socially damaging effects. To wit: I never met anyone affected (directly or indirectly) by the recent Ebola outbreak in any social environment (online or offline) to which I belong, but almost everyone I spoke to about it was afraid of it. That's not to diminish the effect on the (globally) few people it impacts, which is horrible and terrifying, so the imbalance is not at all universal. However, it's a fair assumption that fear of Zika is considerably more dangerous to the average person (globally) than the risk of the virus itself. Multiply this across all the other things that people are afraid of but that are actually less dangerous now than at any time in our recorded past, and you end up with fear being the most damaging change for the worse.
brianmcconnell 11y ago
Notice that the hot zone spans across jurisdictions that deliberately opted out of Medi-Cal, and generally opposed public health measures in general. Sad, because if Zika gets rolling there, the people who will most need access to health care will be the working poor.
dogma1138 11y ago
Have they actually proved that Zika is even causing microcephaly?

Zika HOAX exposed by South American doctors: Brain deformations caused by larvicide chemical linked to Monsanto; GM mosquitoes a 'total failure' Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/052943_Zika_virus_hoax_larvacide_chemical_GM_mosquitoes.html#ixzz45MeBMHxV http://www.naturalnews.com/052943_Zika_virus_hoax_larvacide_...

dylz 11y ago
Do you have an actual source as opposed to an ad-packed blog that says autism is caused by vaccines and promoting 'natural cures' and homeopathy to cure cancer?
cbd1984 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News > Natural News (formerly NewsTarget) is a website for the sale of various dietary supplements, promotion of alternative medicine, controversial nutrition and health claims,[2] and various conspiracy theories,[3] such as "chemtrails", chemophobic claims (including the purported dangers of fluoride in drinking water,[4] anti-perspirants,[5] laundry detergent,[6] monosodium glutamate[7] and aspartame), and purported health problems caused by allegedly "toxic" ingredients in vaccines,[2] including the now-discredited link to autism.[8] It has also spread conspiracy theories about the Zika virus allegedly being spread by genetically modified mosquitoes.[9] It's a whole big bag of crazy. Wikipedia is rather unusually to-the-point on how nuts it is, given that that's the first paragraph of the article. This place is just that insane, to the point that any attempt to portray it as even minimally rational would be a massive violation of neutrality and show an utter disregard for what actual experts think.

debacle 11y ago

This isn't news. It's fear-mongering.

StanislavPetrov 11y ago

If you are so worried, don't have a kid. The world is overpopulated enough as it is.

unclebucknasty 11y ago

Am I the only who's noticed that there is always one and exactly one major disease of which we should all be mortally afraid?

diminish 11y ago
I second this, it was HIV, then bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, now Zika. Edit: Actually the NYT article is quite nice in evaluating the risk and giving information about the danger zones. But most probably all those viruses/microbes required public attention to get required funding to stop and confine them.
- lern_too_spel 11y ago
  And global warming, right? How is it that people who are sensible about energy policy suddenly turn into conspiracy theorists when it comes to public health policy? This guy isn't making any radical proposals. He's just suggesting a sensible mosquito abatement strategy in a particular part of the US where it makes sense.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    >just suggesting a sensible mosquito abatement strategy Sensibly suggesting it with the foreboding headline "Zika Is Coming"? And, this, in the context of the fear that is already being ginned up about the virus. I don't know that it's a conspiracy, but it's pretty predictable by now: "This New Virus Will Kill Us All" headlines. Story after story, then the fizzle when fears prove to be overstated. So, just as suddenly, the headlines completely disappear. Ebola headlines stopped literally overnight from just about every media outlet. But, within a few months another mortal fear arises. You can set your watch to it.
    - lern_too_spel 11y ago
      This guy isn't saying that Zika will kill us all. The headline you're complaining about simply states that Zika is coming. Are you claiming that Zika isn't coming? Ebola didn't disappear on its own. It was sound containment policy that kept it from gaining a foothold in developed countries. Exactly the kind of sound policy that the author is advocating. Your line of thinking is what makes measles come back.

ddt_Osprey 11y ago

It's either DDT or Ospreys. One comes with micro-cephalic children. The other dooms an endangered species to extinction. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

mikeash 11y ago
The world is rarely so conveniently simple as to present exactly two choices. I doubt this is an exception.
antiquark 11y ago
DDT is still used in the third world, and mosquitoes are evolving resistance to it. So choosing DDT will eventually end with extinct ospreys, and DDT-resistant mosquitoes.

kafkaesq 11y ago

I take the top-level comments so far as an indication that -- if they aren't exactly afraid -- deep down inside, people are definitely feeling a certain amount of anxiety about the sudden rise of the Zika virus, and more the the point, what it really means about this new world we we're lurching into. A world which isn't coming to an end -- but slowly but surely, from one day to the next, it's a world which is changing, and generally for the worse. And in which ideas we might have taken for granted until now -- like "Hey, I could just move to Miami, and start a family, if I wanted" -- suddenly become quite complicated, indeed, and fraught with uncertainty. And unfortunately, the only tool they know of to defend themselves with is snark.

jeremysmyth 11y ago
it's a world which is changing, and generally for the worse Ah, but this is objectively wrong, by almost every metric (crime, security, murder, health, longevity, happiness, poverty). What is getting worse is the general level of fear, and this comes from the fact that we can hear bad news faster and more generally than ever before, combined with our evolved nature to implicitly feel that everything that we hear about might personally affect us (see Dunbar's number), and clickbait tactics of news editors and the need to fill the 24 hour news cycle with sensationalism. Fear causes stress, and both fear and stress cause physically and socially damaging effects. To wit: I never met anyone affected (directly or indirectly) by the recent Ebola outbreak in any social environment (online or offline) to which I belong, but almost everyone I spoke to about it was afraid of it. That's not to diminish the effect on the (globally) few people it impacts, which is horrible and terrifying, so the imbalance is not at all universal. However, it's a fair assumption that fear of Zika is considerably more dangerous to the average person (globally) than the risk of the virus itself. Multiply this across all the other things that people are afraid of but that are actually less dangerous now than at any time in our recorded past, and you end up with fear being the most damaging change for the worse.

brianmcconnell 11y ago

Notice that the hot zone spans across jurisdictions that deliberately opted out of Medi-Cal, and generally opposed public health measures in general. Sad, because if Zika gets rolling there, the people who will most need access to health care will be the working poor.

dogma1138 11y ago

Have they actually proved that Zika is even causing microcephaly?