The unfolding story of birth defects from the zika virus has raised a host of fears, and skepticism. There is conflict over delays in funding government responses, and what those responses should look like. In this article, Vermont farmer and lawyer John Klar explores the implications of using chemicals to somehow eradicate the mosquitoes thought to carry the virus.
by John Klar
With horrific images of infants permanently deformed by microcephaly from a mosquito-born virus, it is understandable that we should fear for the health of pregnant women. We are told this unfolding threat will spread through America: the Aedes aegypti species of mosquito which carries Zika includes even Vermont within its range, according to Centers For Disease Control (CDC) maps. It may take years to fashion a cure for the disease, so government has rushed to reassure us that spraying of insecticides to kill the mosquitoes will offer protection. But as often happens when government officials and chemical vendors conspire to help the public, this false hope presents new and certain dangers.
I do not question that the Latin American cases of microcephaly are being caused by a newly mutated mosquito-borne virus. Some groups have recently panicked the world by arguing that instead the microcephaly is being caused by larvicides engineered to destroy the genetic development of insects but which have found their way into drinking water. This does not appear to be the case – but it raises vitally important concerns for all of us.
There are powerful arguments against the use of insecticides or other chemicals to combat the threat of Zika virus in the United States:
- Mosquitoes develop resistance to the poisons, making it harder to eradicate them at all in the future. Natural predators are often wiped out, so that when spraying stops the resurgence of the pests explodes. Such resurgence invites more spraying, with yet less effect.
- This type of mosquito does not travel very far. Indiscriminate spraying of vast areas is useless; targeted spraying would need to focus on areas populated by humans, which means that humans will be exposed.
- Glyphosate (Round-Up) is turning up in human breast milk and foods that are supposed to be organic – we risk exposing the unborn to more threats by loading up on unstudied chemicals than the threat posed by Zika. The mosquitoes are seasonal and regional: the chemicals never leave our ecosystem or our bodies.
- We have a horrible track record, curing problems with chemicals. The only winner is Wall Street profits: our environment suffers every time. And threats of cancer (especially in children) grow.
We must reflect upon why we continue to seek magic scientific solutions to environmental threats, when those solutions are even greater environmental threats. The great thinker Wendell Berry calls this “techno-mysticism”: “faith” in science to “save us” from nature. But how do we continue to cling ignorantly to a faith which has been so thoroughly demonstrated to be false? We sprayed our troops with Agent Orange (manufactured by Monsanto and others, the chemical companies that now dominate our agriculture “industry”) and they and their children suffered for decades. We gave pregnant women thalidomide and told them it was safe.
And who are these “we” people? Are they the scientists and regulators who told us everything was OK, or are they us – because we keep trusting their arrogance, no matter how many times they are proved wrong? Similarly, why would we continue to trust the federal government, when it has so thoroughly and powerfully demonstrated that it is compromised by special (corporate) interests, that it has no sense of accountability, or even know how to balance a budget? Yet we do. We do.
We must get informed not just about Zika virus, but about what is insinuating itself into nearly every American woman’s breast milk. We know that DDT is bad. We decimated the ozone layer with fluorocarbons. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has shown up in dozens of wells in Vermont – like most pesticides, it has been linked to cancer and disruption of endocrine systems: at least we no longer employ it as a food additive in our Teflon frying pans.
In 1962, scientist and author Rachel Carson chronicled many of our nation’s failed experiments with the chemical panacea. Humanity’s love affair with chemical “solutions” arose after many new chemicals were created for warfare against fellow humans, in World War II. In the years following that human conflict we began to wage war against our own ecosystem, with aerial bombardment against Japanese beetles, budworm, fire ants, mosquitoes, gypsy moth caterpillars and other pests. In every case we failed in the long term to eradicate or even control these pests. In every case we killed fish, birds, livestock, and other creatures. In every case we exposed millions of humans to toxins, and many suffered illness. Each time, we allocated government funds to purchase and distribute toxins without investing much at all in determining (before or after) what the effects on other life would be. And in every case we exhibited a grand and incredible hubris.
When we sprayed for budworm, we killed whole populations of salmon. When we sprayed for Japanese beetles, the toxins were absorbed by earthworms, and eaten by robins and other songbirds, which then died horrible deaths by the thousands – which is where Rachel Carson drew her book’s title, “Silent Spring.” There are now about 80,000 manmade chemicals in use in our environment: less than 1% of them have been evaluated for human health effects. And we are dosing our children, and our children’s children, with them.
Our state and federal “authorities” console us with measurements that say “levels are OK.” But the levels are not OK. Of such “standards’ (which are often simply adjusted upwards when exceeded), Rachel Carson observed that they provide “… mere paper security and promote[] a completely unjustified impression that safe limits have been established and are being adhered to. …[M]any people contend, with highly persuasive reasons, that no poison is safe or desirable on food.… [A laboratory animal] …is very different from a human being whose exposures to pesticides are not only multiple but for the most part unknown, unmeasurable, and uncontrollable….This piling up of chemicals from many different sources creates a total exposure that cannot be measured. It is meaningless, therefore, to talk about the “safety” of any specific amount of residue.” (Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1962, 1994, pp. 181-182).
We kid ourselves if we believe that modern chemicals are harmless – that the scientists somehow learned from past errors and make “safe” chemicals today. They will not change if we do not demand change. They will still spend public money on toxic chemicals that poison our children (and human breast milk), for private corporate profits – profits that will never be used to test for harmful effects, remediate pollution, or cure, treat, or prevent cancer and other problems.
Yet here we are again – the World Health Organization advises that “Old-fashioned fogging using insecticides is also an important part of mosquito control.” And an “expert” on human infections and immunity recently offered this not-so-comforting solution: “”If you just spray an aerosol of insecticides up and down the streets, like we typically do in the U.S. or out of airplanes in some locations, those insecticides are not likely to penetrate into people’s houses where the mosquitoes are resting….The best kind is to go inside people’s houses and spray residual insecticides on the walls and their closets in dark places where mosquitoes like to rest, which is extremely labor intensive.”” (USA Today, “Controlling Zika Mosquitoes May Be ‘Lost Cause’,” Lisa Szabo, May 3, 2016).
Here in Vermont, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets oversees mosquito-spraying efforts (Vermont Statutes Annotated Title 6 Chapter 85). Our state offers grants for the purchase of larvicides and adulticides to use to “control” mosquito populations. It is quite evident that the mosquitoes refuse to be controlled: but our human bodies continue to absorb the chemicals we spray. Perhaps we should stop.
I know this will cause shrieking to high heaven and controversy beyond belief, but DDT was actually a good thing. However, it was overused, misused and misrepresented for profit. It actually did what it was supposed to do – it killed mosquitos which stopped the malaria to a great degree. But you know what? It cut into the medical industry profits so badly that it was soon portrayed as being bad.
Now, I’m no fan of chemicals and anyone who’s been reading here for very long knows how I feel about BIGCHEM, et al. BUT, we must learn to face reality that not all things chemical are strictly bad. If something does what it’s supposed to do without unintended consequences, then it’s pretty good. But when it’s misused for profit, we get our buns into big trouble.
There are literally thousands of documents online to support my stance on DDT, but they are few and far between anymore, and mostly hidden from the view of the general public unless you really dig for them. Some are quite old because NO ONE wants to admit or come to the realization that DDT actually did what it was designed to do, as long as it was used properly. None of the chemicals today can say that with even a grain of truth. So I suggest if people want to explore the issue they should do their own, independent research. I could post links here but I prefer for people to do their own detective work. I’ve read articles that have long lists of references, and some of the top references in the field, too. But there will always be disagreement on this issue because of the fact that DDT is, indeed, a chemical.
Just some food for thought.
See the last paragraph below in which links to DDT and Polio are very strong in evidence.
@ brad: I do not believe in propaganda. If you want truth, you’ll have to dig for it.
“The truth is that toxicity is not DDT’s primary mode of action when sprayed on house walls. Throughout the history of DDT use in malaria control programs there has always been clear and persuasive data that DDT functioned primarily as a spatial repellent. Today we know that there is no insecticide recommended for malaria control that rivals, much less equals, DDT’s spatial repellent actions, or that is as long-acting, as cheap, as easy to apply, as safe for human exposure, or as efficacious in the control of malaria as DDT. Attached as Annex 1 is a more technical explanation of how DDT functions to control Malaria. The 30 years of data from control programs of the Americas plotted in Figure 1 illustrate just how effective DDT is in malaria control. The period 1960s through 1979 displays a pattern of malaria controlled through house spraying. In 1979 the World Health Organization (WHO) changed its strategy for malaria control, switching emphasis from spraying houses to case detection and treatment. In other words, the WHO changed emphasis from malaria prevention to malaria treatment.”
Taken from this link, information provided by Donald R. Roberts, Ph.D.
Professor, Division of Tropical Public Health
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics
http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=246769
ALSO, if you knew your viropathology, you would not try to connect DDT and polio.
i said nothing about DDT and mosquitoes, i referred to the fact that it seems to have required BOTH the polio virus and a pesticide to develop polio. Initially, the first outbreaks (until DDT replaced it) the poison was the only effective deterrent to Gypsy Moth infestation, and the arsenic/lead poison was used exactly WHEN and exactly WHERE all the outbreaks occurred from the 1800s until that poison was replaced.
All subsequent outbreaks occurred where DDT was used. Since we have the polio virus, apparently for millenia, the combination was available when spraying began. As for DDT, i know the egg-shell thing was pretty faked – the measurements of egg shell thickness were so subjective that portion of attack on DDT was pretty much scare tactics. i know it didn’t seem to be the huge cancer causative agent – as a kid we RAN THROUGH CLOUDS OF DDT SPRAYED ON THE STREETS OF OUR SUBURB and the parents allowed it. Of course we have increased cancer rates today and virtually ineffective “standards of care” from lamestream medicine – so perhaps there is a bit of causation, but i suspect other influences are much more valid than blaming it on DDT.
As you can see, i’m not some rabid, foaming, moron – but there is a link btwn polio and DDT. As for polio itself – the arsenic alone from the initial insecticide causes polio like symptoms. The 40s/50s version was known to have the polio virus up the damaged nerves to the neck where it attacked the myelin sheathing. Thus: polio (gray) myelitis. (inflammation of the myelin sheathing) The damaged nerve sheathing allowed neural misfiring. MOST people self-repaired within a few days to weeks after experiencing this – 999 out of a thousand. Before the vax – all 1,000 were POLIO victims. As soon as the vaccine came out (and the polio incidence increased) the diagnosis for polio changed. It then lengthened the time in which people had paralysis in two or more muscle groups from the initial “two days” to at least 2 weeks, and at that point the definition ALONE eliminated 99.9% of the people getting polio through that wording change. NOT from the vaccine.
States which had never had polio developed polio cases as soon as the vaccine came out – because there were the two ingredients pretty much everywhere then. People who may have never had polio surely had the virus when they took the sugar cube, and the poisons were sprayed ubiquitously.
Do this first:
Prevent Mosquito Production in Your Neighborhood, Eliminate Standing Water
from old tires, pots, gutters, etc
Joseph,
In my neck of the woods in Northern Ontario the mosquito and black fly population is alive and well. Indeed, and if you recall when the West Nile virus was a concern municipalities had bylaw enforcement officers roaming the countryside searching for pools of stagnant water and instructing landowners to do exactly as you suggest. Indeed as one landowner exclaimed they want me to eliminate standing water from old tires, pots, gutters, etc. but they won’t let me drain the mosquito laden swamp that borders tree sides of my property because it is under a development constraint due to its designated wetland status.
@ Joseph & Ken: You know, it’s strange but standing water is a big culprit in the populations of unwanted bugs, yet many people either don’t believe it or refuse to see it. Birdbaths are a big one, particularly if it only holds a small amount of water, and even if it’s a newfangled one where it keeps the water “circulating”. Still, we see bugs galore around a birdbath and every other house in this town has a birdbath. Go figure.
It’s odd, and maybe one of you (or anyone for that matter) can add to this or at least fill me in on what might be the reason: in the area of the country where I live now we have very few bugs of any kind. Of course, in the summer months we have some black flies, horse flies, mosquitos and quite a few wasps & bees, but nothing at all like the numbers of these things I saw in the area where I grew up for the first 30 years of my life. Same State, just different locations. I grew up on the flatlands about 30 miles from the Missouri River until high school, and then I lived in a town that was practically on top of the Missouri River; in fact if you crossed the bridge you were on an Indian Reservation (actually two of them split down the middle). Also, in the middle of that bridge was where the time zone changed from Central to Mountain time. Because of the river/water, we learned to live with bugs of all shapes, sizes and types. The joke was if you didn’t see a mosquito the size of a 747, it wasn’t a REAL mosquito!
The place I live now is mountainous and full of mostly pine trees, aspen trees and whole standings of birch trees. Do you suppose it’s because of the trees that we don’t see as many bugs here? Do trees exude something that would deter bug populations? We do have lots of spiders, however. There are many lakes in this area and a huge reservoir, so it’s not like there isn’t water around here. There is a creek which flows right through the entire city. The summertime temps stay much cooler here (for the most part) than where I grew up (where it was like a blast furnace from daybreak til sunset and then some). Some people up there joked that from that portion of the State, through all of ND and up to the Canadian border there weren’t more than a dozen trees! Here where I live now, we have cool nights even if we have a few blasting hot days. Anytime you go to an outdoor event in this area, even in July, you take a sweater, it’s a given.
So whaddaya think? Why is the bug population proportionately less here? Ideas??
D, I don’t think it has much to do with the trees or vegetation. The cold nights and the lack of moisture on the other hand are the two main reasons why insects such as mosquitos tend to be lacking in certain areas.
Standing water is not a problem, it’s a fact of life in many parts of the world, such as mine; and if we think that eliminating and/or spaying standing water is a constructive solution to insects such as mosquitos that are perceived by tptb to be problematic then we’ve been hoodwinked into accepting a control driven philosophy that lacks a sound and balanced perspective of reality. Namely, that insects just like microbes serve a useful purpose. In truth the only ones to reap the benefit from such a perspective/attitude will be those that stand to gain from it not the people, nor the environment.
They have gone from using Paris Green to DDT to Bti along with host of other chemicals in their attempt to control insects and what have they really gained other then to poison the environment, essential pollinating insects, aquatic life, livestock and humans?
@ Ken: We have LOTS of water here in the area where I live, but few mosquitos. Most of the water, however, is moving/flowing. I’ve seen mosquitos hovering over birdbaths and have been told they lay their eggs on non-moving waters, so I hafta think that standing water, possibly standing stagnant water, has a lot to do with the fact that they breed more in some places than in others. Mosquitos are a problem because they are annoying, not always because they transmit diseases (or whatever people believe). But as you point out, getting “rid” of them has become big business.
Well, Zika very definitely doesn’t cause microcephaly. Colombia has thousands of cases of Zika every year – generally mild, flu-like symptoms, and has ZERO cases of microcephaly. Furthermore, the timing of the outbreaks in Brazil EXACTLY COINCIDE with both the timing and location of the DTaP vaccine being MANDATED on women who are pregnant.
DTaP has a history of intensive neurological damages to fetal/infant development – primarily with uncontrolled spasms, but also with microcephaly. This is not the most in-depth study out there, but http://www.nvic.org/about/workshop.aspx
Zika was patented by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1947. DON’T think of them as having a good bone in their organization – they do NOTHING good. They developed the antigen to HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotriptin) and have had is snuck into multiple vaccines to make millions of poor women sterile – secretly of course.
The antigen works by shutting down the HCG molecule so that it does not inform the female body that a fetus is viable. This prevents the body from making the necessary hormonal and other biochemical changes to bring that life to term. Instead, the fetus is aborted/miscarried at the onset of the next menstrual cycle.
As you know, flu shots and tetanus shots are one-injection events. In Africa, the catholic church became very curious when ONLY child-bearing aged females were given a “tetanus” shot consisting of a series of THREE injections. Two million, three hundred thousand females. In the Philipines, over 200,000 (only) childbearing females given another series of three “tetanus” shots. They contained the antigen to HCG.
In Haiti and in Mexico – unknown thousands of ONLY females of childbearing age, were given “flu” shots as a series of three injections. Again, the stupid flu shot is not a series of three shots – and in neither case are ONLY females of childbearing age susceptible to tetanus or flu infections.
As for the above DDT reference, note that after the initial Polio outbreaks in which an arsenic/lead insecticide was the ONLY thing that stopped the gypsy moth from decimating the trees – and was the ONLY place and ONLY time in which polio outbreaks occurred – the later outbreaks ALWAYS were associated with the timing and location of DDT spraying…
Any attempt to remediate microcephaly in babies via the use of a chemical neurotoxin such as DDT is foolhardy.
Just as there are many causes for the symptoms that have come to be associated with polio, there are also many causes of microcephaly, yet for some strange reason, tptb have become strangely fixated on the Zika virus.
Microcephaly can be caused by a number of factors, including:
Certain infections during pregnancy, such toxoplasmosis, or cytomegalovirus.
Severe malnutrition, meaning a lack of nutrients or not getting enough food.
Exposure to harmful substances, such as alcohol, certain drugs, or toxic chemicals.
Interruption of the blood supply to the baby’s brain during development.
When considering a cause however for these birth malformations in Brazil there are two and likely other possibilities:
(1) The Aedes aegypti mosquito responsible for carrying and transmitting the Zika virus was genetically modified and released in Brazil in 2012 in an attempt to control dengue and malaria.
http://theantimedia.org/zika-outbreak-epicenter-in-same-area-where-gm-mosquitoes-were-released-in-2015/
(2) The Brazilian Ministry of Health’s Epidemiological Surveillance Centers’ inclusion of the Tdap vaccine in Brazil’s National Vaccination Schedule for pregnant women in late 2014.
If we continue to manipulate this planets many complex life forms to the extent with which we do via chemicals, drugs and gmo’s etc. then the chances of establishing cause and effect with respect to conditions such as Zika, Ebola, AIDS and the likes will become increasingly difficult, if it is not already impossible. In other words we have created an inversely proportional convoluted scenario that has disabled our ability to acquire a coherent understanding of this planets’ many ecosystems. Indeed, due to our arrogant obsession with controlling everything and everyone, we have undoubtedly nurtured for ourselves a catch-22 scenario.
Brad: Thank you. I smelled scam with the very first press release, when I read that Zika was first identified by the Rockefeller Institute. They have more than a century of history of nefarious deeds, particularly involving vaccine development. A recent Harvard School of Public Health press release linked a rise in Guillain Barre Syndrome and acute disseminated encephomyelitis (ADEM) in Brazil to Zika. These are vaccine injuries! VAERS lists 180 reports of ADEM since 1990. Since VAERS is a passive system, unknown to many, including doctors, it only captures 1-10% of actual vaccine injuries. So during this 26-year period there were between 1,800 and 18,000 actual cases of vaccine-induced ADEM. Currently the majority of cases compensated in vaccine court are for mostly adults with Guillain Barre, primarily from the flu shot, but also from DTaP. In 2014 Brazil mandated DTaP for pregnant women. Has any vaccine ever been safety-tested in pregnant women? No. That would be considered unethical. But it is considered ethical to inject them, and thus the developing fetus, with this heavily-contaminated toxic soup. The larvacide spraying, and malnutrition, are likely cofactors in these injuries, but DTaP is undoubtedly the primary driver. Even without Zika, the U.S. has a rate of microcephaly six times that of Brazil, according to the CDC. The Zika scam is merely the latest example of government/pharma overreach in service to striking fear in the public in order to better control them.
Most of modern “science” is really nothing more than what I call “flat earth thinking.” True science has never been about consensus or group think. It is often some poor individual who has discovered something truthful and then is persecuted for going against “settled science.” Think of those who questioned that the earth was flat and said it was actually not? Think of what poor Dr. Semmelweiss endured when he dared to question the wisdom of doctors going from working on dead bodies to delivering babies without first washing their hands? All of these individuals endured unbelievable persecution until eventually their findings were not only validated, but are used today like they have always existed.
Most modern “science’ today exists and is used to try to discredit and marginalize people who are finding truths that go against the things that make a lot of people a lot of money. While “the science is settled” goes against everything true science stands for, it is now used to shut the mouths of scientists who want to keep their jobs, funding and tenure and in order to do so, they have to bury their consciences (which the brave ones cannot do) and go along with the status quo. This Zika virus nonsense is just one more vehicle for the pharmaceutical companies to use their own in-house “research” (using skewed numbers, cherry-picked data and outright fraud) to make more vaccines that make them billions of dollars and they use panic and fear to sell their legalized snake oil. Anyone who goes against them will be targeted, marginalized and if need be, destroyed. But their challenge is that more and more people are waking up and actually using critical thinking and that is causing a lot of real problems for them and their brand of quackery. So, the stories and fear-mongering become more and more serious and more and more outrageous in order to try to get the sheeple to comply. I am heartened to see that it really isn’t working anymore. Yes, the sheeple are still the majority, but the minority is growing. I think the saying goes something along the lines of you know you are over the target if you are taking flack and I would say there are more and more people over the targets, because the flack is everywhere.
Two good critiques of science: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21695378-big-name-scientists-may-end-up-stifling-progress-their-fields-death-there
Science can become a “religion” among some scientists, based solely on faith and anger/fear and punishing/shunning the sinners whom you disagree with. Neoroscientist Michael Merzenich back in the 1960s discovered evidence of what’s called “neuroplasticity” in the brain — the fact that the adult brain can change (and can be changed, hence helping people with disabilities). This was heresy in his field and he was vilified. In his words, “Let me tell you what happened when I began to declare that the brain was plastic. I received hostile treatment … I got people saying things in reviews such as, ‘This would be really interesting if it could possibly be true, but it could not be.’ It was as if I just made it up.” Papers he wrote was published with the word “plasticity” removed, and one was returned to him with a big “X” scrawled across it.
See “Are great scientists always heretics?” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/22078983
I think the FDA/CDC staff have slid into having this same religious belief in the “raw milk is inherently dangerous” gospel.
Agreed! Thank you so much for the info, as well.
“New York Aerial Sprays Altosid and VectoBac Pesticides to Combat Zika”
According to the article above a report published in February 2016, by Médicos de Pueblos Fumigados states,
“[I]n the area [of Brazil] where most sick persons live, a chemical larvicide producing malformations in mosquitoes has been applied for 18 months, and that […] poison (Pyriproxyfen) is applied by the State on drinking water used by the affected population.
Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water is not a coincidence”
“This plausible theory that human exposures to toxic pesticides can damage fetal brains should be sufficient reason to give every New Yorker pause. It should be a reason to give those operating the New York City Health Department pause. Only time will tell if, in fact, the current anti-Zika pesticide spraying campaign will produce the outbreak of microcephaly cases it is aimed at preventing.”
http://www.thevaccinereaction.org/2016/05/new-york-aerial-sprays-altosid-and-vectobac-pesticides-to-combat-zika/