Train Wreck
Honestly, I was trying to envision the absolute state of wreckage (pardon the redundancy) my country now finds itself in as something apart from my daily exile experience… when the whole story turned more personal than I’d have expected: A nice woman I know has found herself pregnant during the panic wave surrounding pregnancies in the mosquito-stricken Brazil of these last few weeks.
We have been discussing this, and Alan advised me, if I ever wanted to write about it, I should do it from a scientific, non-biased point of view, an impossible task.
I’m not a scientist, in the first place. Worse, I’m a faithful practitioner and disseminator of hearsay, which is made even more inconvenient by my habit of exaggeration. At least in …show more content…
Odds are that it is not the disease that has risen, but, in fact, the communication of its occurrence to the authorities. Before its association with Zika, mothers in general did not see themselves as infected, just unlucky. Moreover, the cases of babies born with microcephaly need to be associated with an infection that had taken place in the mother’s womb several months before, 6 months prior to birth. Not to mention that in many cases Zika can pass unnoticed, because of the mildness of its symptoms. Yes, it is confusing. Even more so for ignorant women in poor Northeastern …show more content…
You tell me. The doctor proceeded to tell the story of how, a few years ago, the causal agent of a serious condition, known as goiter, was associated with Chagas disease. The Trypanosoma virus was found in all the people with goiter, more or less as is happening now with Zika, but it was just a coincidence… The same region that was infected by Chagas disease was also afflicted by a serious lack of iodine, the real cause of goiter…
Not to mention, there is an absence of microcephaly cases in other regions in the world highly affected by Zika, such as the Polynesian islands. Shallow research can inform us that, although it is only now being given a lot of attention, the Zika virus was actually discovered in Uganda in 1948, leading us to the conclusion that there must be a third agent in this case, yet unidentified. Or the poor Ugandans would now have countless microcephalic adults among its population. Unless, of course, they are all dead, forever unreported.
Zika is a serious disease, and all attention is demanded, all efforts in the direction of finding a vaccine as soon as possible. Nevertheless, in the current state of decay and debacle Brazil finds itself, this alert and latest news involving Zika and microcephaly should be treated at least with some degree of incredulity. Until further investigation can be done. Before global panic reaches the highest levels, which it already has. Case
Honestly, I was trying to envision the absolute state of wreckage (pardon the redundancy) my country now finds itself in as something apart from my daily exile experience… when the whole story turned more personal than I’d have expected: A nice woman I know has found herself pregnant during the panic wave surrounding pregnancies in the mosquito-stricken Brazil of these last few weeks.
We have been discussing this, and Alan advised me, if I ever wanted to write about it, I should do it from a scientific, non-biased point of view, an impossible task.
I’m not a scientist, in the first place. Worse, I’m a faithful practitioner and disseminator of hearsay, which is made even more inconvenient by my habit of exaggeration. At least in …show more content…
Odds are that it is not the disease that has risen, but, in fact, the communication of its occurrence to the authorities. Before its association with Zika, mothers in general did not see themselves as infected, just unlucky. Moreover, the cases of babies born with microcephaly need to be associated with an infection that had taken place in the mother’s womb several months before, 6 months prior to birth. Not to mention that in many cases Zika can pass unnoticed, because of the mildness of its symptoms. Yes, it is confusing. Even more so for ignorant women in poor Northeastern …show more content…
You tell me. The doctor proceeded to tell the story of how, a few years ago, the causal agent of a serious condition, known as goiter, was associated with Chagas disease. The Trypanosoma virus was found in all the people with goiter, more or less as is happening now with Zika, but it was just a coincidence… The same region that was infected by Chagas disease was also afflicted by a serious lack of iodine, the real cause of goiter…
Not to mention, there is an absence of microcephaly cases in other regions in the world highly affected by Zika, such as the Polynesian islands. Shallow research can inform us that, although it is only now being given a lot of attention, the Zika virus was actually discovered in Uganda in 1948, leading us to the conclusion that there must be a third agent in this case, yet unidentified. Or the poor Ugandans would now have countless microcephalic adults among its population. Unless, of course, they are all dead, forever unreported.
Zika is a serious disease, and all attention is demanded, all efforts in the direction of finding a vaccine as soon as possible. Nevertheless, in the current state of decay and debacle Brazil finds itself, this alert and latest news involving Zika and microcephaly should be treated at least with some degree of incredulity. Until further investigation can be done. Before global panic reaches the highest levels, which it already has. Case