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Military discloses at least 11 troops infected with Zika virus this year

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Gregg Zoroya and Liz Szabo, USA TODAY

At least 11 U.S. troops have been infected with the Zika virus since January, nearly all of whom traveled to countries where the mosquito-born illness is prevalent, a Pentagon health report published Friday disclosed.

In addition, four dependents of servicemembers — which can include spouses and children — and two military retirees contracted the illness, according to the report. It underscored the risks to military personnel of child-bearing age exposed to the virus during deployments.

A fetus infected with the Zika virus during the first three months of pregnancy has about a 1% to 13% chance of developing microcephaly, an abnormally small head usually caused by incomplete brain development, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/06/03/military-discloses-least-11-troops-infected-zika-virus-year/85343632/

7 thoughts on “Military discloses at least 11 troops infected with Zika virus this year

  1. So? Anything to keep the Zika fear mongering going…

    The Zika Virus Scare: An Anatomy Of How Diseases Are Manufactured For Political Objectives

    Abstract

    – In 2014, under a non-reporting requirement regime, Brazilian physicians reported a fraction of microcephaly cases for that year; 147 cases to be exact. Under the new reporting regime that took over for 2015, the number of cases naturally increased massively, the numbers representing what would be expected under a reporting regime. Then using the artificially low 2014 numbers as the baseline, Brazil and the global political/medical community (though not all within the medical community) declared an epidemic of microcephaly in Brazil based on the higher, though expected, numbers under the new reporting requirement regime. –

    “In 2014, only about 150 cases [of microcephaly] were reported in Brazil* in a year — a surprisingly small amount for a large country with nearly 3 million births a year. The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist.”

    https://web.archive.org/…/Brazil-270-of-4-120-suspected…

    The small number of microcephaly cases reported in Brazil before 2015 is being used to set the stage for a blatantly orchestrated ‘epidemic’ not only in Brazil but around the globe. Pre-2015, cases of microcephaly in Brazil were massively undercounted, as inadvertently confirmed by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) statistics…

    “Microcephaly is a rare condition. One baby in several thousand is born with microcephaly.”

    https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/microcephaly/en/

    Using the one baby in several thousand criteria WHO provides for the occurrence of microcephaly every year, then Brazil should have been reporting at least 1,000 cases per year (3 million/3000 = 1,000), not 150 cases. This explains why under closer examination the numbers in Brazil are declining from the truly high count of 4,180 cases of microcephaly initially reported,** where of the more than 700 cases under review only 270 cases confirm microcephaly, ruling out the 462 other cases.

    If one uses the United States’ statistics of one baby in 1,600 born with microcephaly per year (4 million/2,500), Brazil should be reporting approximately 1,875 cases (3 million/1600) of microcephaly every year, a number that is showing up with the new Brazil count, where 0.3857% of the 700 cases under examination were shown to have microcephaly. So let’s do the math:

    0.3857 x 4,180 = 1,612

    1,612 is only 263 less than the 1,875 cases of microcephaly one would expect to see every year in Brazil if the American incidence of the disease (1 in 1600) were also true in Brazil. This undercounting in Brazil has been observed by experts in the medical community, and termed a scandal, “It’s a global scandal. Brazil has created a worldwide panic,” said Alexandre Dias Porto Chiavegatto Filho, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Sao Paulo, one of the most-respected universities in Latin America. “I’m not saying that Zika is not causing microcephaly, but I am saying that the ministry has yet to present any scientifically credible evidence to support that conclusion.” Ganeshwaran H. Mochida, a pediatric neurologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, also sounds the alarm, “It is possible that the baseline number in Brazil includes a lot of underreporting.”

    https://www.foxnews.com/…/some-experts-contend-brazil-is…

    Firstly, it’s the global community, not just Brazil, that’s playing fast and loose with the fake Zika virus epidemic, and secondly, there never was a reason to believe that Brazil was suffering an epidemic of microcephaly in the first place, since it was well known that pre-2015 Brazilian doctors only reported a small fraction of such cases to the central government; pre-2015 there existed no reporting requirement for microcephaly in Brazil.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/brazil-may-have-fewer…/

    The sudden emergence in 2015 of an ‘epidemic’ of microcephaly in Brazil actually represents numbers that would be expected given a comprehensive reporting requirement.

    So why the scare, you ask? To create public pressure to scale back restrictive abortion…

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/b4f3a718-cc6b-11e5…

    … laws in central and south America…

    https://www.healthaim.com/zika-linked-microcephaly…/41956

    …and undo state restrictions on abortion in the United States…

    https://www.motherjones.com/…/zika-fetal-anomaly…

    …as inadvertently admitted to by Georgetown University professors and Planned Parenthood…

    https://www.breitbart.com/…/jesuit-georgetown-joins…/

    …and Newsweek…

    https://www.newsweek.com/…/zika-could-change-abortion…

    This news item illustrates the extent of the lies the Marxist co-opted media regurgitates each and every week, if not every day. How numerous are fraudulent news items when compared against truthful news items? My blog has proven that until one has verified the news for oneself, one must assume all news to be lies. Of course most persons have actual lives to live, where the demands of family and employment preclude close examination of the news. For those too pressed for independent research, my blog…

    https://sites.google.com/site/deanjackson60/home

    …fills the gap…

    Notice too the ‘alternative’ media’s spin on the news item. Every imaginable conspiracy theory is offered, leaving unmentioned the easily discernible conspiracy facts. This false opposition tactic is what Marxists call the ‘Scissors Strategy’…

    https://www.attacreport.com/ar_archives/art_na_china.htm

    …in which the blades represent the two falsely opposed sides that converge on the confused victims, neutralizing true opposition to socialism, thereby allowing the advancement of socialism to the bewilderment of the true opposition.

    The Abortion Agenda’s Purpose

    Thanks to the blatant lies the CDC has advanced regarding the Zika virus and microcephaly, we now have further empirical proof for the Marxist co-option of the West (globe actually, the West leaving behind Marxist regimes in their former colonies), where abortion is used to destroy the Christian underpinnings of Western Civilization. As Marx said in the ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’*** (1843)…

    “The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.”

    https://www.marxists.org/…/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

    The West cannot remain Christian for long when abortion is tolerated, since Christian dogma teaches us that human life is but a continuation of a previous non-corporeal existence…

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

    https://biblehub.com/jeremiah/1-5.htm

    To destroy what’s in the womb is a must for Marxists, since with abortion on demand no one can long continue to believe in a God who knew us before we were born into the physical realm.

    —————————————————–

    * To be precise, Brazilian doctors reported 147 cases of microcephaly in 2014.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/brazil-may-have-fewer…/

    ** Current figures from Brazil place total potential cases of microcephaly in 2015 at 6,480, where it’s expected that 39% of those cases will be confirmed microcephaly, or approximately 2,500 cases.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/zika-in-brazil-more…/

    *** https://www.marxists.org/…/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/

    The ‘War on Religion’ as set out in Karl Marx’s ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’

    “The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.”

    …and…

    “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.”

    …and…

    “It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world.”

    https://www.marxists.org/…/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

  2. pretty scary stuff, all over the news scaring people

  3. Thank you for all this.

  4. Jesuit Georgetown Joins Planned Parenthood in Promoting Abortion as Zika Remedy
    by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.
    6 Feb 2016
    Two law professors from the nominally Catholic Georgetown University have published an article on a university website this week calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend birth control and abortion in response to the Zika virus outbreak in South America in order to “truly respect the dignity and health of women of childbearing age.”
    The authors state that it is “critical” that countries be required “to respect, protect, and fulfil women’s health-related human rights, including reproductive rights,” which include “accessible, affordable, acceptable, and quality abortions.”

    The article, titled “The WHO Must Include Access to Birth Control and Abortion in its Temporary Recommendations for Zika-Associated Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” was posted on Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law blog website.

    Lawrence O. Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute and university professor at Georgetown, and Alexandra Phelan, an adjunct professor in global health law and doctoral researcher with the O’Neill Institute, coauthored the piece.

    “The Director-General’s Temporary Recommendations should include a directive to countries to ensure that women at risk of Zika virus infection have access to birth control and safe abortion,” the article states.

    Pro-abortion groups are already seizing on the Georgetown publication as a further justification for their crusade to have abortion-on-demand legalized throughout Latin America.

    In its advocacy of abortion as a solution to the Zika health crisis, Georgetown joins the international abortion giant Planned Parenthood, which is exploiting fears surrounding the Brazilian Zika crisis to push for the relaxation of abortion laws in Brazil and elsewhere.

    Though Georgetown boasts of being “the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States,” it has repeatedly come under fire for having sacrificed its integrity and Catholic identity on the altars of the secular academy.

    William Peter Blatty, author of “The Exorcist” and a graduate of Georgetown University, submitted a petition to the Vatican in 2013 asking church officials to strip his alma mater of the labels Catholic and Jesuit because it had abandoned its Catholic identity.

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in fact, declares abortion to be “gravely contrary to the moral law” and is one of the very few offenses that incurs automatic excommunication.

    Earlier this week the Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops said that there is “no justification whatsoever to promote abortion” as part of the response to the Zika virus, and made clear that the promotion of abortion “in the cases of microcephaly, as, unfortunately, some groups are proposing to the Supreme Federal Court” shows a “total lack of respect for the gift of life.”

    “Nothing justifies an abortion,” said the Rev. Luciano Brito, spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in Brazil. “Just because a fetus has microcephaly won’t make us favorable.”

  5. A Feminist Approach in Responding to the Zika Virus
    Posted on February 5, 2016
    In light of the recent outbreak of the Zika virus in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) and the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network (LACWHN) join the voices of our feminist and women’s rights partners[1] in admonishing regional governments’ limited public health advisories for women. In particular we denounce the calls of countries such as Colombia, Jamaica, Ecuador, and El Salvador, advising women to delay pregnancy until the virus is eradicated, and particularly the call of El Salvador for women to avoid becoming pregnant for a full two years.[2]

    Governments must recognize that when combatting the Zika virus, any public health strategy that does not have human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) at its core, will be limited in its impact and sustainability, while also creating massive grounds for human rights violations.

    As a region, Latin America and the Caribbean is characterized by: high rates of unplanned pregnancy, where upwards of 56% of pregnancies are unintended;[3] high levels of sexual violence; limited access to contraceptives and sexual and reproductive health services; and restrictive laws on abortion, where in some cases such as El Salvador, abortion is prohibited under any circumstances and women are routinely persecuted and even criminalized on suspicion of having abortion.[4] Moreover, women who are young, from remote or low-income communities, and/or living in other vulnerable situations, disproportionately face multiple barriers when it comes to exercising meaningful decision-making power and control over their sexual and reproductive lives. In such a context, calls for women to simply delay or avoid pregnancy are not only unrealistic but irresponsible and negligent.

    The rapid spread of the Zika virus and its strong association with marked increases in microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities is in many ways new terrain, with new elements continually coming to light, demonstrating a clear need for more research. This uncertainty makes it all the more imperative for governments to undertake from the beginning a holistic, sustainable, and rights-based approach to eradicating the virus and mitigating its effects. Anything less is careless and counter to governments’ human rights commitments under regional and international human rights law.

    We thus urge the governments of affected countries both in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as other regions worldwide to undertake a rights-based, reproductive justice, and sustainable development approach towards the Zika virus and any other emerging health issue. Such an approach must be holistic, while recognizing gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment as a cross-cutting priority, in keeping with governments’ agreements and commitments under the 2030 Agenda.[5]

    In practice, this approach to combatting the Zika virus must include:

    Ensuring universal access to a full range of high-quality, voluntary, and user-friendly contraceptive methods, including barrier methods such as female and male condoms, and emergency contraception, as well as comprehensive SRH information and services, including antenatal services to enable early detection of microcephaly.
    Targeting both men and women in public health awareness campaigns, especially in light of recent evidence that Zika may be sexually transmitted,[6] recognizing that the responsibility for safer sex methods falls on both men and women and cannot be shouldered by women alone.
    Decriminalizing abortion, and removing all legal and implementation barriers to expand and ensure access to safe, comprehensive, free and high-quality procedures for pregnancy termination, free of requirements for marital or parental consent. As has been flagged by partners,[7] in the context of the many uncertainties and increasing public fears surrounding the Zika virus, calling on women to simply not become pregnant when access to safe abortion is limited or even completely criminalized will inevitably risk driving up rates of unsafe abortion, and ensuing maternal mortality and morbidity. Moreover, restrictive and punitive abortion laws that force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy violate women’s right to be free from inhuman and cruel treatment, as noted by Human Rights Bodies.[8]
    Supporting pregnant women in Zika-affected countries who decide to remain pregnant to be able to carry the pregnancy safely to term, including access to comprehensive pregnancy, safe delivery, pre- and post-partum care and neo-natal care services; as well as the provision of special needs therapy, health and educational services as needed for children with microcephaly.
    Systemic policy and programme changes that account for the intersections between climate change and SRHR.[9]
    Immediate implementation of related recommendations under the Montevideo Consensus as well as targets under the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, particularly those related to health and gender equality, in order undertake effective and holistic protection measures and help curb the spread of the virus.

    [1] See The Guardian (2016), Rights Groups Denounce Zika Advice to Avoid Pregnancy in Latin America; O’Neill Institute (2016), The WHO Must Include Access to Birth Control and Abortion in its Temporary Recommendations for Zika-Associated Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

    [2] Liss-Schultz (2016), Pregnant, Sick with Zika – and Prohibited From Getting an Abortion, Huffington Post; Reuters (2016), El Salvador Urges Against Pregnancies Until 2018 as Zika Virus Spreads; Huffington Post (2016), Jamaica Advises Women to Delay Pregnancy Due to Zika Virus.

    [3] Guttmacher Institute (2014), New Study Finds That 40% of Pregnancies Worldwide are Unintended.

    [4] Center for Reproductive Rights (2014), Marginalized, Persecuted, and Imprisoned: The Effects of El Salvador’s Total Criminalization of Abortion.

    [5] A/RES/70/1 (2016), Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    [6] LaMotte, Sandee (2016), Zika has Been Sexually Transmitted in Texas, CDC Confirms.

    [7] The Guardian (2016), Zika Outbreak Raises Fear of Rise in Deaths from Unsafe Abortions; Varagur, Krithika (2016), Zika Virus Prompts Activists to Push for Legal Abortions in Brazil, The Huffington Post.

    [8] CAT/C/PER/CO/4, para. 23; CAT/C/NIC/CO/1, para. 16; and CAT/C/CR/32/5, para. 7.

    [9] ARROW (2016), Zika: A Perfect Storm of Climate Change, Disease, and SRHR.

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