Argentine doctors: it's the insecticide

Now a new report has been published by the Argentine doctors' organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), [1] which not only challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in microcephaly among newborns, but proposes an alternative explanation.

According to PCST, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014.

This pesticide, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a state-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitos. The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese 'strategic partner' of Monsanto. - a company they have learned to distrust due to the vast volume of the company's pesticides sprayed onto Argentina's cropland.

Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development.

The chemical has a relatively low risk profile as shown by its WHO listing, with low acute toxicity. Tests carried out in a variety of animals by Sumitomo found that it was not a teratogen (did not cause birth defects) in the mammals it was tested on. However this cannot be taken as a completely reliable indicator of its effects in humans - especially in the face of opposing evidence.The PCST commented: "Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage."They also noted that Zika has traditionally been held to be a relatively benign disease that has never before been associated with birth defects, even in areas where it infects 75% of the population.

Brazilian doctors also suspect pyriproxyfen