Re: US Presidential Election 2016
Reply #106 –
Seems you've been learning from the NRA. Any time there's a mass shooting, you can rely on the NRA to protest that "this isn't the time to make political comments regarding gun control". WTF? It's EXACTLY the time to make those points, as Obama has stated every time he has called for action in the wake of recent shootings.
Concerning Zika, it is EXACTLY the time to be calling for a reconsideration of reproductive rights. These are countries in which even contraception is discouraged or banned. The pro-lifers would prefer to rail against abortions performed merely to save 'promiscuous women' from taking reponsibility for their sexual activities. But what about married women who have been faithful to their husbands and who face devastation merely because they were bitten by a mosquito? The Catholic Church and the mostly male politicians are happy to force women, often poor women, to run the risk of giving birth to babies with severe birth defects. You can bet your bottom dollar they'll do bugger all to help them financially if that fate befalls them.
I'm not religious but I doubt you can claim that the various Churches do bugger all financially to help people in those countries. The stance you take is certainly an NRA style claim like, "The police don't help so you'd better get a gun!"
The belief that Zika might cause microcephaly is largely based on a recent spike in reported numbers of cases in Brazil. The virus has been detected in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women with microcephalic babies. There is also an apparent increase in the severity of microcephaly (smaller head sizes) in Brazil.
However, estimates of microcephaly cases in Brazil are in the process of being revised down. This suggests there may have been a transition from under-counting to over-counting of cases.
Disclosures;
Euzebiusz Jamrozik receives funding from an Australian Postgraduate Award (PhD Scholarship).
Michael Selgelid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above
The expert advice is that other than extreme and severe cases of microcephaly it's almost impossible to accurately diagnose in utero, it is also reported that the majority of Zika detections in placental fluid have lead to no observable effects in the child. Only a very small percentage have any effects that appear on a wide scale of symptoms many of which cannot be differentiated from other causes like alcohol consumption, rubella and herpes;
Other possible causes of increased microcephaly – infections such as rubella and cytomegalovirus (a member of the herpes family), as well as malnutrition and heavy alcohol consumption – should also be considered.
The World Health Organisation admits it has not yet been scientifically proven that Zika causes microcephaly.
You haven't read The Conversation links, you wouldn't be making spurious claims about the epidemiology of Zika if you had. I won't be so bold as to claim my opinions, or those dredged from the Huffington Post, are more insightful or valuable than the doctors and biologists who study the disease and have been looking for cures for many years.
Even if Zika sometimes causes pregnant mothers to have babies with microcephaly, this does not necessarily mean every infected mother would have an affected baby.
Assessing the risks of Zika thus requires knowing the percentage of infected pregnant women who give birth to babies with microcephaly. If this percentage is higher than the percentage of uninfected women (which has not, to date, been shown), it might be safe to conclude that Zika increases the relative risk of microcephaly.
Even then, the absolute risk that an infected pregnant woman will give birth to an affected infant might still be quite low.
Michael Selgelid
Director, Centre for Human Bioethics; Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Bioethics, Monash University
Euzebiusz Jamrozik
PhD Candidate, Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University