Dr. Randy Bock

It must be the cold weather here. It looks like. So the dengue belt is in Amazonian Brazil and Colombia and Venezuela and so forth. And Zika should overlap with that. What they actually found for the case of microcephaly was in the population areas where people had been talking about microcephaly. So it's really kind of an overflow of panic. Now, how did I find out about this?

It must be the cold weather here. It looks like. So the dengue belt is in Amazonian Brazil and Colombia and Venezuela and so forth. And Zika should overlap with that. What they actually found for the case of microcephaly was in the population areas where people had been talking about microcephaly. So it's really kind of an overflow of panic. Now, how did I find out about this?

I looked at an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2016 And they were making this clarion call about Zika microcephaly. And there was a set of doctors, neuropediatricians in Recife, which they call Recife, Northeast Brazil. And they thought there were more cases of microcephaly than had been previously there.

I looked at an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2016 And they were making this clarion call about Zika microcephaly. And there was a set of doctors, neuropediatricians in Recife, which they call Recife, Northeast Brazil. And they thought there were more cases of microcephaly than had been previously there.

In a normal city, like two and a half million people, at any given time, there should be about seven cases in the wards of microcephaly based on the criteria they had at the time, which were wrong, mind you. There were two lacks of criterion. And what they saw was maybe 13 or 15 cases. Earlier that year in 2015, there had been an announcement that some dengue cases were Zika.

In a normal city, like two and a half million people, at any given time, there should be about seven cases in the wards of microcephaly based on the criteria they had at the time, which were wrong, mind you. There were two lacks of criterion. And what they saw was maybe 13 or 15 cases. Earlier that year in 2015, there had been an announcement that some dengue cases were Zika.

There's no real reason to bring this up because Zika itself had never caused any human illness. It's a dengue virus that doesn't affect humans. So it's probably a primate, you know, chimpanzee dengue virus and not a human one.

There's no real reason to bring this up because Zika itself had never caused any human illness. It's a dengue virus that doesn't affect humans. So it's probably a primate, you know, chimpanzee dengue virus and not a human one.

And so what they had was a situation where somebody who had been part of the team that was hunting for a new virus in Brazil, which is a weird thing in and of itself, they formed a group, these doctors in Northeast Brazil, because North of Brazil is kind of like our American South, is poor, darker skinned, hotter, and so forth.

And so what they had was a situation where somebody who had been part of the team that was hunting for a new virus in Brazil, which is a weird thing in and of itself, they formed a group, these doctors in Northeast Brazil, because North of Brazil is kind of like our American South, is poor, darker skinned, hotter, and so forth.

They were hoping for a new virus to show up so they could bring money and attention and bring social equity and funding to the northeast of Brazil. And the way to get attention would be have a brand new virus. So they wanted a virus panic to happen in northeast Brazil, weirdly enough.

They were hoping for a new virus to show up so they could bring money and attention and bring social equity and funding to the northeast of Brazil. And the way to get attention would be have a brand new virus. So they wanted a virus panic to happen in northeast Brazil, weirdly enough.

So they formed this group, CHIC-V, The Mission, named after the 1986 Robert De Niro movie, The Mission, where the good guys, I mean, the basic good guys are the Guarani Indians in Paraguay, and then the Jesuits are sort of the good guys, and the bad people are colonialists. And so this was kind of a retribution kind of thing where they wanted to leverage a new virus

So they formed this group, CHIC-V, The Mission, named after the 1986 Robert De Niro movie, The Mission, where the good guys, I mean, the basic good guys are the Guarani Indians in Paraguay, and then the Jesuits are sort of the good guys, and the bad people are colonialists. And so this was kind of a retribution kind of thing where they wanted to leverage a new virus

to help social equity in those poor, darker-skinned areas of northeast Brazil. And they were hoping chikungunya, which is another African virus, would cooperate. It didn't happen to cooperate. And so instead, there are two doctors in Bahia who came up... Hold on a second, Randy.

to help social equity in those poor, darker-skinned areas of northeast Brazil. And they were hoping chikungunya, which is another African virus, would cooperate. It didn't happen to cooperate. And so instead, there are two doctors in Bahia who came up... Hold on a second, Randy.

Absolutely. It's totally different. But they formed this WhatsApp group of... epidemiologists and doctors and scientists in northeast Brazil. And they formed this group because they were hoping to find a new virus in Brazil that had never been in Brazil. And they wanted it so that they get attention and money. Now, you know, be careful what you wish for because you might get it.

Absolutely. It's totally different. But they formed this WhatsApp group of... epidemiologists and doctors and scientists in northeast Brazil. And they formed this group because they were hoping to find a new virus in Brazil that had never been in Brazil. And they wanted it so that they get attention and money. Now, you know, be careful what you wish for because you might get it.

So they got a new virus. They mislabeled most likely certain dengue cases as Zika. They didn't have any provenance of any, you know, valid dengue. primers with which to test for Zika because Zika never caused a human illness. In the literature to that point, there have been basically a grand total of zero cases and zero reported papers and so forth on Zika. I went to medical school.

So they got a new virus. They mislabeled most likely certain dengue cases as Zika. They didn't have any provenance of any, you know, valid dengue. primers with which to test for Zika because Zika never caused a human illness. In the literature to that point, there have been basically a grand total of zero cases and zero reported papers and so forth on Zika. I went to medical school.