“Scientists are bewildered by Zika’s path across Latin America” — except the “scientists” didn’t do the right science before jumping to conclusions.
From today’s WaPo:
Below are the cases:
Back in March, I wrote that we need to wait until the data from Colombia are in. Well they are. Clearly there is some other cause of the reported fetal deformities. I don’t expect the “experts” to figure it out. Meanwhile, how many babies were needlessly aborted?
Another case of a failure to properly apply scientific rigour to the analysis. Instead of looking for evidence that disproved the zika-microcephaly link (for example, zika incidence in mothers of healthy babies) the scientists leaped straight into confirming their theory by stretching every definition of zika exposure to cases of microcephaly, thus finding a “link” in all of them.
The first thing that should have raised flags was the very low recorded incidence of microcephaly in Brazil compared to the US and other countries with more developed health care services. Suddenly seeing increases in cases when attention is drawn to a disease is such a common occurrence that this really should have been investigated further before declaring zika to be the “smoking gun”.
Twisting evidence to “prove” a theory is the biggest problem we have in science and epidemiology seems particularly rife.
But to the great bewilderment of climate scientists, the climate models have totally failed to predict climate, which is what they were designed (fudged) to do, and climate sceptics have pointed out that the widely feared catastrophic global warming is never likely to occur.
The Key is toxo plasmosis. It is being spread from one poor victim to another By the Mosquito, which also happens to carry the Zika virus. There was no ig problem since it was identified in the 40’s. Only wiht the upcoming Olympics and the dislodging of feral cats and millions of the poor to make room for the structures, did it become a problem.
Could also be another contaminant more common to Brazil.
“Science is built with facts as a house is with stones, but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” Jules Henri Poincare
Your comment hit my heart and reminded me of the dioxin accident in Sevesco, Italy in 1976. Countless Seveso women had abortions because they were afraid that their children would be born with defects — but not one of the aborted fetuses had birth defects. The population has been since followed for decades and there have been no increases in birth defects, cancers or any other serious health problems. Scaremongering hurts more than it helps.
Are the Brazilians fixing the numbers then. Their numbers are out of line with the others.
Well, it looks like Obama got it right after all. He knew that Zika was not an emergency.
Remember, he took the funds that could have been used to fight Zika and gave them to the UN instead.