Zika Infection May Affect Adult Brain Cells
newswire.rockefeller.edu
newswire.rockefeller.edu
I've taken to scanning the NHS's page analyzing health news stories. It's a very useful antidote to potential sensationalism: they go to the original source and summarize it fairly clearly.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/08August/Pages/Animal-research-s...
But for the most part it's being reported by the media in a very calm manner and I see relatively no panic. And that's not to say that mass panic is the right response to Zika, but just that our global reaction to Zika seems wildly inconsistent with our super-diseases of yesteryears. When the ebola crisis was going on across the Atlantic ocean, I saw many normal (albeit misguided) people in my Midwestern supermarket stockpiling bottled water and dry goods.
Meanwhile with Zika, they're estimating that 25% of Puerto Rico will have the disease before 2017. And yet I don't feel any real sense of panic in this country.
What gives? Is society just collectively becoming more reasonable? I find that hard to believe.
Consider Princess Diana shaking hands with an AIDS patient in 1991 and how big of a deal that was.
I'll admit that I don't know much about Zika outside of the few articles I've read. And I'll also admit that I'm pretty afraid from what I've read. But what I find most interesting about Zika is this sociological aspect where the soccer fans in Brazil are chanting "Ziiikaaaa" on goal kicks and it seems like we've kind of just accepted that this is going to happen. Thousands of babies have been born with abnormalities already. I'd expect more panic.
The effect on adults is not yet fully known (hence the OP!). This was just the first study on the topic.
1. The journalists really want to travel to Rio to report on the games, so they evaluate the risks rationally and suddenly the risk does not seem so great, none of them ever plan on traveling to rural West Africa.
2. News organizations don't want the Olympics cancelled. Olympics == page views.
This is something that can cause severe retardation in children at somewhere on the order of 5-10x more than Downs Syndrome where mothers are infected- and that's comparing to rates for Western countries with women having children at the extreme outer edge of the healthy childbearing age.
Bird flu is bad, but when it kills, it's a rapid death, and the places where it has occurred don't have particular problems with population replcement. Zika, on the other hand, can mean that the mother's life and a fair amount of government and NGO money is going to be tied up caring for the affected baby. Not as bad an impact as HIV has had in the third world (outside of Cuba), but it still needs stopping before the problem grows.
It is still among the swath of horrifying things for which we have little-to-no preventative or responsive care.
What are the known disruptions and consequences of this? Do we have ways to combat problems due to that?
What are the probable/theoretical distuptions and consequences? Do we have have to combat these?
Not that I'm suggesting we do this, but with our current understanding, how much trouble do we think it would cause in the case of mosquitoes?
There are extermination technologies being experimented with that have quite a high level of effectiveness:
http://fusion.net/story/333793/oxitec-zika-fighting-mosquito...
Aedes aegypti is not even native to South America- it's African. So eliminating it from the New World can't do that much damage given that the ecosystem got along fine before it arrived.
Could it not have crowded out some other niche that will be left empty if they were removed?
This logic may have been applicable way back when the first few Aedes aegypti made their way to the New World, but at this point, so much has changed in our New World, and we don't really know all the ecological changes that Aedes aegypti may have already caused. Perhaps, they have become an integral part of our society.
Perhaps, but I don't believe anyone has demonstrated that mosquitoes have this crucial in impact to he health of the ecosystem. In fact, the aforementioned Nature article explicitly argues against that idea, though obviously it's only a sample size of 1.
We need to build a net. They have to go back!
I wonder what kind of South American bug pollinates Cherimoya blooms? The Cherimoya fruit is exceptional, but producing it in California requires hand pollination since some bug that lives in the Andes isn't in California.
Hopefully whatever man dumps into the environment won't create some new nasty... flesh-eating locusts perhaps?
It is not reasonable to demand assurances of complete safety, or freedom from all possible adverse consequences, before taking action in defense of our own species.
Beavers get to do a little ecological engineering now and again.
So far i haven't seen any real argument against eradicating mosquito, and other species killing humans (ticks, tsetse kissing bugs)
Furthermore, where do you draw the line? We are very close to eradicating the polio virus. Do we know ALL the consequences of doing so? No. Does that mean we should stop? No. We have, at some point, decided that it causes an immense amount of human suffering and decided to eradicate it. Same with certain species of mosquitoes.
It reminds me of the Trolley Problem with the exception that you can't be completely sure what the lever does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
Basically, the easy option is to do nothing, avoid responsibility and potentially have the worst outcome happen that you could have prevented.
Yes, and as the above poster stated, often with unintended consequences - many of which have been disasterous. Even after thousands of years of agriculture we've still made monumental mistakes, such as the creation of the Dust Bowl. For an example involving pest elimination specifically, you can look at the Chinese effort to eradicate sparrows.
That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't try to eradicate the mosquitoes that are harmful to humans. However, when people are unable to appreciate the problems that unintended consequences have had in the past, and the risks they may pose for the future, it doesn't seem like we're making the decision based on an honest and sober look at the facts.
There's a huge difference between any virus and an organism which plays a role in a super complex ecosystem (and our food chain) we don't entirely understand.
Likewise, there is a difference between playing god in a self-contained environment like a farm, but which is not the case with the wider environment.
Yes, humans have driven many species to extinction but I think in retrospect this would have been inadvisable.
> Given the fact that species transmits so many dangerous pathogens it’s very unfortunate for humans that they are such great survivors, and have been rapidly expanding their range during the last couple of decades... Aedes albopictus is now considered to be one of the 100 world’s worst invasive species...
http://planetsave.com/2013/07/01/tiger-mosquito-asian-tiger-...
> The Asian tiger mosquito is about 2 to 10 mm length with a striking white and black pattern
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus
Oh, and also the gallinippers are worse.
Historically, South Florida engaged in annual mosquitoe controlling campaigns. Essentially aerial spraying during the Summer. These were stopped because of the budget cuts related to the collapse of the Florida housing market.
Not only did the mosquitoes become intolerable, but before Zika we had a breakout of mosquitoe transmitted Dengue fever. Moreover, the historical mosquitoe controlling never killed all mosquitoes but the were effective in preventing breakouts like Dengue Fever and Zika.
Well, largely by crowding them out of food or space. While species we compete with get the short end of the stick, those that we have parasitical or symbiotic relationships with have quite a different experience.
That said, hormesis is a conceivable factor.
I believe the eliminated mosquitos for a certain period of time but this technique didn't work in the states because Americans were adverse to government agencies coming into their homes and telling them what do to.
http://www.miamidade.gov/solidwaste/mosquito-control.asp
Searching on "mosquito control board inspections" returns lots of similar results. I suppose people might not always follow recommendations.
This is actually a pretty well-researched question! (Wish fulfillment I assume.)
A good summary of research is here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/wha... (includes links to studies)
TL;DR: probably worth it for humanity