Page 62 - summer2016

When a group ing the WHO conception of Zika as “guilty until hand, negatively affects brain growth (both in
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of Brazilian proven innocent.” On the other hand, some utero and during infancy) and can have poten-
reporters also grudgingly admit (buried outside tially irreversible implications for intellectual
investigators of the limelight) that the case against Zika is not development. Animal sources of vitamin A
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used an “airtight” and remains “inconclusive.” play a particularly crucial role in fetal develop-
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The scientific journal Nature reported in ment. Vitamin A deficiencies result in improper
existing late March that the true magnitude of birth de- craniofacial development and numerous other
database to fects in Brazil is “elusive” because the country’s abnormalities.
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examine muddy microcephaly figures represent a moving Brazil’s impoverished northeast—where
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microcephaly target and lack a meaningful baseline. Even Zika has drawn the most attention—represents
more confusingly, when a group of Brazilian the largest pocket of rural poverty in Latin
patterns in investigators used an existing database to exam- America, a situation that is likely aggravated
sixteen ine microcephaly patterns in sixteen thousand by the country’s current economic collapse.
thousand babies over a four-year period (2012–2015), they Although some reports suggest that nutrition
found more microcephaly than expected in all trends in the northeast have been improving,
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babies over four years, with a peak in 2014—before the and others are documenting the rise in obesity in
a four-year charted arrival of the Zika virus in Brazil. 16 the middle class, chronic malnutrition remains
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At first glance, an article in the April 13, endemic and has advanced from the northeast’s
period 2016 issue of the influential New England Jour- poorest rural areas to the urban peripheries.
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(2012–2015), nal of Medicine would seem to definitively lay to The standard food intake pattern in Brazil is
they found rest any doubts about whether Zika is the guilty based on rice or manioc, beans, coffee, bread,
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more party. After reviewing “available evidence,” beef and, increasingly, sugar in the form of soft
drinks and fruit juices, none of which (except
the study’s authors conclude that a causal re-
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microcephaly lationship exists between prenatal Zika virus for beef liver) are noteworthy for their vitamin
than expected infection and serious brain anomalies. Inter- A content.
in all four estingly, one of the factors that the authors cite A study in which rats were fed a “regional
to shore up their conclusions is the lack of “an basic diet” (RBD) comparable to the imbalanced
years, with alternative explanation…that could explain the and nutrient-poor diet commonly consumed by

a peak in increase in cases of microcephaly.” As a means poor children in northeastern Brazil found that
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2014—before of “manufacturing consent,” it is certainly ef- brain weights in the experimental rats were
fective to communicate—in a highly regarded about 20 percent lower than those of controls,
the charted peer-reviewed publication that instantly gener- and the mortality rate among RBD rat pups
arrival of the ates press releases worldwide—the conclusion was 24 percent. The researchers concluded
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Zika virus that there are no other possible explanations for that the inadequate regional diet produces
the observed outcomes. As a statement of fact, nutritional dwarfism and severe malnutrition.
in Brazil. however, the assertion ignores at least two broad Blaming chronic starvation, a pediatrician has
risk factors for microcephaly long recognized by characterized the region as “the Pygmy north-
mainstream experts, factors that are prevalent east,” stating that two generations of mothers
in northeastern Brazil: severe malnutrition and would need to be adequately fed to reverse the
toxic exposures during pregnancy. 19,20 dwarfism trend and to “normalize the race.”
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Other nutrition studies in under-five children
MICROCEPHALY AND MALNUTRITION in the northeast have documented stunting in
In normal pregnancies, a baby’s head grows about 10 percent of children and high levels
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“because the baby’s brain grows.” As the of childhood anemia. 29
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photos in the Wise Traditions “Healthy Baby
Gallery” routinely illustrate, pregnant women TOXINS DURING PREGNANCY
who consume a nutrient-dense whole foods diet In response to an upward trend in pertussis
produce robust children with beautifully formed infections in Brazil, the country’s Ministry of
and appropriately sized heads and alert and Health issued a policy in late 2014 mandating
happy temperaments. Malnutrition, on the other that all pregnant women receive the Tdap vac-
62 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2016 Wise Traditions