Tea at Trianon: The Mysterious Case of Zika-Microcephaly’s Disappearance

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, December 10, 2022

The Mysterious Case of Zika-Microcephaly’s Disappearance

From Brownstone Institute:

In 2015, a viral pandemic from Northeast Brazil exploded into the news, supported by breathless public health alarms that Zika — a flavivirus acknowledged for decades as harmless — was now suddenly responsible for congenital microcephaly (babies with small heads; diminished intellect). WHO-aligned experts within Latin America recommended that women forgo childbirth indefinitely — possibly until a Zika vaccine’s fabrication (still unrealized). Massive panic predictably ensued.
Not a single case of human medical illness had previously been attributed to Zika — a near twin of the dengue virus (which itself brings a million South American “bone-break fever” cases, yearly) – – and never with any associated congenital microcephaly. Brazil’s medical research establishment treated the Zika- (and later microcephaly-) claims with initial skepticism — but were twice overwhelmed by vested parties’ self-serving media leaks – the latter of which spiraled into full-fledged national panic.

The upheavals from Zika-microcephaly included outsized public health overreactions: travel advisories; Brazilian soldiers on the streets; indelible fear; emergency injunctions proposed for abortion; the eternal absence of more than 100,000 “ghosted” Brazilian children (babies not conceived during the panic).

“Oh, it’s bordering on the panic state for pregnant women. Wealthier women moved further south. Here, women:
are worried whether they can get pregnant;
use additional (layers of clothing), hoping not to be affected;
(slather insect repellent) which … may generate another problem.”

–Dr. Sandra da Silva Mattos

Fortunately, the Zika pandemic has fizzled out inconspicuously and unceremoniously; never fulfilling the analysts’ predictions of an additional million microcephalic births yearly,worldwide. Nonetheless, its complete disappearance hasn’t resulted in a single scientist questioning the credibility of the underlying (likely false) premise: that receiving a Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito-bite early in pregnancy may irrevocably damage the cherished life within.

Zika, discovered in Uganda in 1947, had warranted literally only a baker’s dozen of scholarly articles in 60 years, none of which verified any human danger. In 2007, there was a bit of a “buzz” as certain dengue cases in the Pacific were relabeled by the CDC (after-the-fact and without clinical correlation) as Zika. (Read more.)