European Updates: Good to be single, hey!!!!!!
I've always thought that the demise of mankind would come from a least likely source......it's the ole Mosquitoe:
I own stock in a company called Intrexon....very innovative in the world of energy, oncology, GMO (genetically modified organisms)foods, and now the first in the world with a GMO mosquitoe.
There are currently two virus's these mosquitoes are spreading: 1)Zika virus and 2)Dengue virus....
Not deadly, but they have found out the Zika virus can be transmitted sexually and causes pregnancies that are bearing brain deformed children. Currently in Brazil the infected are over 1.5 million people. The Dengue virus is affecting in the millions of people.
Intrexon's subsidiary Oxitec (a British company) has developed a GMO mosquitoe that is effective up to 99%. The female mosquitoe is the one who bites (hmmm!) so they inject the male mosquitoe eggs with two genes and when mated with the female the offspring die.
This blog is really just for information purposes. Here is the website for Oxitec.......science is incredible day by day. Intrexon just received FDA approval for GMO salmon.....the salmon grows twice as fast....world population growing fast, we need science to help the growth.....
this blog is not supporting the purchase of Intrexon stock in any way...
Comments (32)
Lots of dengue and malaria cases in Malaysia.
The technology is in the hands of a few huge multinationals and their only purpose is to make money for their shareholders. Not for the oodles of mankind.
What is wrong with a salmon growing the size that nature intended, at the rate that nature intended?
We should stop fighting nature or trying to outdo it. It won't do us any good in the long run.
There is plenty of food for all the people earth.
But so-called 'developed' countries buy more food than they need, at the expense of farmers (especially in poor countries), and then throw the excess food in landfill.
We need to change our way of living,rather than changing nature.
I agree with you...going green and choosing a simpler way of living...
Lou, Canada just approved the GMO salmon too. Actually, the eggs are grown in Canada and shipped to Panama where they're breeding the actual fish....
Hi Georgie, hmm! not familiar with that virus.....have to research..thanks
I don't know the answer to that.....
India takes young girls from neighbouring Nepal.
China lured females from rural Vietnam.
Watched a documentary about it...sad indeed...
Given the fact That it has an incubation time of 4 to 14 days and So many people travelling around the globe it amazes me it's not yet a worldwide thread.
Last month the FDA rejected a “citizen petition,” filed by activist groups, demanding mandatory GMO labels. The FDA response noted that the petition presented no evidence that “such foods present any different or greater safety concerns than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.”
But if you need an anecdote for how the year unfolded for the anti-GMO movement, look no further than Chipotle. Last spring the fast food company announced with great fanfare that it would take GMO ingredients off its menu. It was all downhill after that. As was quickly pointed out, Chipotle wasn’t being fully truthful, since its soft drinks and cheese contain genetically modified ingredients, and its meat comes from animals fed genetically modified grains. A lawsuit filed in California, which is pending, accused Chipotle of false advertising and deceptive marketing.
Then cases of food-borne illnesses hit Chipotle locations across the country. Supporters of traditional agriculture, who have felt maligned by the burrito company, started keeping a tally of the number of people sickened by Chipotle’s food (ongoing, but more than 300) versus the number sickened by GMOs (zero). As the year winds to a close, the company that once wore the restaurant industry’s health halo is apologizing, preparing for lawsuits, recentralizing its vegetable preparation and cutting locally sourced ingredients.
GMOs never looked so harmless. As science advances and consumers become more informed about genetic engineering’s benefits for human health, animal welfare and food safety, the anti-GMO movement will look ever more like an outdated ideological crusade. Denouncing those three little letters doesn’t make your food safer or healthier—as Chipotle, and Americans, are now learning.
"For these guys, more so than ever, we really need the public's help in eliminating the standing water sources to make sure they don't become more of a problem," Conlan said.
First found in California in 2013, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus have roughly tripled in number around the state during the last several seasons. They have been found in 82 cities and communities, including Escondido, Los Angeles, Fresno and parts of the Bay Area.
But beyond being a growing public nuisance, it's unclear how much of a threat these mosquitoes present. East Coast and Midwest cities have long tolerated the pests without serious incident.
Although Mexico and the Caribbean have suffered the effects of dengue and chikungunya for some time, less than a dozen people in the contiguous United States, all in Florida, have ever become sick from being bitten by a mosquito carrying either disease.
See the most-read stories this hour >>
Yellow fever has been largely confined to tropical areas of South America and Africa. A vaccine for travelers has significantly limited transmission of the disease into Western countries.
Meanwhile, a virus linked to the mosquitoes known as Zika has spread throughout Brazil, causing thousands of cases of brain damage in babies born with abnormally small heads. But the United State has never had a recorded case of Zika.
Still, public health officials warn that it's better to be vigilant about prevention.
"The concern is that if and when these mosquitoes become well-established in the state and abundant in our neighborhoods, then the risk of transmission increases," Metzger said.
The first case of brain damage linked to the Zika virus within the United States was reported on Friday in Hawaii.
The Hawaii State Department of Health said that a baby born in an Oahu hospital withmicrocephaly — an unusually small head and brain — had been infected with the Zika virus, which is believed to have caused the same damage in thousands of babies in Brazil in recent months. The presence of the virus was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The child’s mother had lived in Brazil in May last year and probably was infected by a mosquito then, early in her pregnancy, the health department said. The virus presumably reached the embryo and damaged its developing brain.
“We are saddened by the events that have affected this mother and her newborn,” Dr. Sarah Park, Hawaii’s state epidemiologist, said in a statement. “This case further emphasizes the importance of the C.D.C. travel recommendations released today.”
The first case of brain damage linked to the Zika virus within the United States was reported on Friday in Hawaii.
The Hawaii State Department of Health said that a baby born in an Oahu hospital withmicrocephaly — an unusually small head and brain — had been infected with the Zika virus, which is believed to have caused the same damage in thousands of babies in Brazil in recent months. The presence of the virus was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The child’s mother had lived in Brazil in May last year and probably was infected by a mosquito then, early in her pregnancy, the health department said. The virus presumably reached the embryo and damaged its developing brain.
“We are saddened by the events that have affected this mother and her newborn,” Dr. Sarah Park, Hawaii’s state epidemiologist, said in a statement. “This case further emphasizes the importance of the C.D.C. travel recommendations released today.”
Fears over the Zika virus have intensified after El Salvador warned women not to get pregnant for the next two years, as the mosquito-borne virus could cause birth defects among newborns.
The virus is thought to cause severe brain damage in new-born babies and may also be behind rising instances of a separate potentially fatal illness that can leave patients paralysed, doctors say.
It is already suspected of being responsible for a dramatic increase in cases of microcephaly, where babies are born with abnormally small heads, in Latin America.
Nearly 4,000 cases have been recorded in Brazil since October, a trend specialists are attributing to Zika, although they concede the link is not 100 per cent certain.
Now doctors in the country believe the virus - which was previously virtually unknown on the American continent - may also be causing a sudden surge in a potentially fatal condition known as Guillain-Barre.
North-eastern Brazil, the area hardest hit by the Zika virus, recorded 554 cases of Guillain-Barre last year, leading doctors to suspect a link, although that too is still unproven.
Guillain-Barre syndrome, also known as Landry's Paralysis, is defined as a rapid onset of muscle weakness caused by damage to the peripheral nervous system.
It can be life-threatening in its acute phase and leaves sufferers unable to move and dependent on life support.
The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is helping authrorities in Brazil to conduct studies aimed at establishing if Guillain-Barre is connected to Zika, the New York Times reported.
The CDC last week advised pregnant women against travelling to 13 Latin American countries, as well as Puerto Rico, where Zika has become prevalent.
More than half-a-dozen Zika cases have been reported in the US, most recently a woman in Texas who had returned from a trip to El Salvador
America's first case of a baby born with an unusually small head and brain was recorded last week in Hawaii. The mother had visited Brazil while pregnant. Although the CDC says the link between Zika and microcephaly is not definite, no other explanation has been offered.
First discovered in Uganda's Zika forest in 1947, the virus is said to be related to dengue, yellow fever and the West Nile virus. While common in Africa and Asia, it only started spreading in the Western hemisphere last May following an outbreak in Brazil.
Increased foreign travel and rising temperatures caused by global warming are two common theories given to explain its sudden spread.
There is no separate test for the infection and symptoms can be relatively mild, with only 20 per cent of sufferers reporting signs such as rashes, fever, joint pain and red eyes.
It is thought to be most commonly spread by mosquitoes, which breed in or near stagnant water pools.
65 pregnant w/ Zika symptoms
65 cases total
5 cases Guillan Barre w/ zika
1 Death
First death due to Zika reported.......70 yr old man....
You were close
But not mosquitoes but bats