(This relates to the separate NYP post about phony food, which says "Fake olive oil...has killed people...more than 20,000 people were poisoned in Spain...")
The last line of the article is most telling indeed:
> "Under no circumstances should the general public be informed."
This is the main problem. We would all be much more selective when it comes to our food if we knew how flaky the quality is. But instead we trust the gov't in controlling the food supply; which the quote shows we should not be doing.
You're making a claim here that pretty radically departs from scientific consensus. Do you have any background information on where you read this/how you determined this?
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/doctors-groups-deny-microce...
Only days after a list of articles claiming no link with pesticides were published, here a link to one of them:
http://www.sciencealert.com/argentinian-report-says-monsanto...
I'm quite close to some people in academic virology and they also were not to keen on calling for a Zika outbreak.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...
From the article: The original study on which the oil theory is founded, by Dr Juan Tabuenca Oliver, was published in the Lancet
Also from the article: they concluded that, without any doubt, the contaminated foodstuff was tomatoes, and it was the pesticides on them that were responsible for the epidemic. The organo-phosphorous chemicals would indeed cause the range of symptoms observed by clinicians.
Getting published in The Lancet does not prove anything. eg MMR vacine\autism.
The article is well worth a read.
1. That there is no Zika outbreak / outbreak of Zika-like symptoms (this seems irrefutably wrong and as far as I know even the typical conspiracy theorist sites aren't claiming this much).
2. That the symptoms of Zika are in fact caused by the organo-phosphate pesticide Pyriproxyfen (Zika has been a recognized viral illness just like others e.g. Dengue for at least 50 years, predating the widepread use of organo-phosphates in Brazil, so this also is very, very unlikely).
3. That the microencephaly in babies borne to mothers with Zika, that is being attributed to the Zika virus, is in fact caused by Pyriproxyfen (for epidemiological reasons [1], this seems very unlikely but it cannot be ruled out at this point).
By the way, your second source didn't seem terribly bad, and assumed an appropriate amount of skepticism toward the claims in question. Your first source, written by an "political analyst" currently pursuing a global affairs degree, and with no apparent scientific credentials, wasn't as convincing.
Are any of the academic virologists you're referring to on public record with their skepticism about the Zika outbreak?
1. In the three cities reporting the most cases — Recife, Jaboatao and Paulista — pyriproxyfen is not in use, according to: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/18/46713891....
The symptoms are witnessed, sure. But are they caused by Zika; I think not. Zika is around for a long time, and seems to be relatively harmless (as in: no obvious symptoms). Therefor I do not speak of Zika-symptoms.
The sources are merely by Google'ing, I did not do proper background checks. I did my own research on this some time ago and talked it though with a virologist I know; she was surprised that I knew about the absense of link and that they are also coming to that conclusion (though I do not know if her department made an official statement on that).