The Zika-microcephaly connection is scientific nonsense. Let me run it down for you.
My analysis is beyond, "But Expert A says..." I am not dealing in
appeals to authority, but instead the standards of evidence anyone can
see if he opens his eyes.
First of all, the latest figures out of Brazil, the so-called epicenter
of the microcephaly tragedy, reveal the following: 854 confirmed cases
of microcephaly; and of those, 97 cases show the presence of the Zika
virus.
Inference? Zika is not the cause of microcephaly. If it were,
researchers would be able to detect it in all, or the overwhelming
percentage of, microcephaly cases.
I'm not making this up. There are standards of proof and evidence.
They dictate which inferences are possible, and which are not. 97 out
854 is a dud. Back to the drawing board. 757 microcephaly cases show
no trace of Zika.
"But Expert A says..." Who cares what he says? He's either right or
wrong, independent of his presumed status as an expert. And here he
would be wrong.
"But the Washington Post and the NY Times and the CDC and the World Health Organization say..." Doesn't matter.
Two recent studies, if you want to call them that, have tried to make
the case that Zika is the cause of microcephaly. Well, they were
published because media outlets could then run headlines announcing:
ZIKA SHOWN TO BE THE CAUSE; DOUBTS ABOUT ZIKA ERASED. That's all these
studies were good for.
The first study examined several different groups of babies, and in each
group they found a very weak correlation between microcephaly and the
presence of Zika---but they tried to pull a fast one and say that the
(very weak) correlation in several groups somehow added up to a much
stronger correlation overall. Absolute gibberish. Weak plus weak plus
weak equals weak.
The second study tried to establish a correlation between Zika injected
into mice and resultant mouse babies with microcephaly. But as every
honest researcher knows, mice are a very poor analogue for humans.
There is more.
In neither of these two studies, and in none of the press reports about
microcephaly, is there any suggestion that researchers have discovered,
or looked into, HOW MUCH ZIKA WAS PRESENT IN THE SMALL PERCENTAGE OF
CASES WHERE MICROCEPHALY WAS ALSO PRESENT.
Why is this important? Because small traces of a virus aren't going to
cause any human disease. You need huge amounts to even begin to think
you've found a cause of disease---and as I say, there is no indication
that babies with microcephaly have huge amounts of Zika in their bodies.
Apparently, some of the research on babies with microcephaly has
involved the use of the PCR test. That's a dead giveaway. You see, the
PCR works with a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of human material that is
suspected of being a fragment of a virus; and then the test amplifies
(blows up) that fragment so it can be observed. But here's the thing.
Why would researchers need to use the PCR?
Because they can't otherwise find enough Zika in a baby's body to even see it or ID it with certainty.
As I just mentioned, you need to find huge amounts of Zika (or any
other virus) to begin to say it's causing a disease. Get it? If they
had to use the PCR test, there wasn't enough Zika in the first place (if
there was any at all) to think it was causing a disease condition.
Zika science isn't science. It's fraud.
In this article, I'm walking ground I've already covered in other Zika
pieces, because, from reports I've received, there are people out there
who believe, with religious fervor, that statements from so-called
medical experts and accompanying news stories must be true---and anyone
who concludes otherwise is presenting a conspiracy theory.
I'm here to inform you that such notions are as weak as the correlation between microcephaly and Zika.
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