Make no mistake about it, the Zika virus is extremely dangerous, and the arrival of summer in the Northern Hemisphere promises to usher in a wave of microcephaly which could very well discourage most women in the Southern United States from conceiving.
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| Aedes aegypti: better at Googling than a corporate reporter |
In the middle of this crisis, the mainstream media is saying that conspiracy theories linking the Zika virus to the British biotechnology company Oxitec are "harmful," and "dangerous."
The corporate media attributes this conspiracy theory to a Reddit post
from the 25th of January, 2016. It is this oversight that has led to 35% of
Americans believing that Oxitec's transgenic mosquitoes are responsible for the spread of Zika.
The Guardian called the Zika-Oxitec conspiracy theory a "viral new outbreak." A highly respected writer for the New Yorker wrote: "The logic of the genetically-modified-mosquitoes conspiracy theory is
hard to grasp: it has been four years since they were first released in
Brazil."
In all of these articles, the media has continued repeating one easily-debunkable statement: Zika conspiracy theories did not originate on Reddit on the 25th of January, 2016.
- In early 2014, Abreu Report predicted that transgenic mosquitoes would spread a deadly new virus.
- In December of 2015, the Brazilian media reported that there were conspiracy theories linking Oxitec's transgenic mosquitoes to the spread of Zika.
- On the 23rd of January, Abreu Report had a top article on Reddit wondering if Zika was linked to Oxitec's transgenic mosquitoes.
Although it was indeed a Reddit post from the 25th of January, 2016, copying our article from the 23rd almost verbatim, that took the Zika-Oxitec conspiracy viral in the United States, the media's failure to properly research the origins of this theory will make it extremely difficult for any future publication to refute the allegations originally printed on Abreu Report.
The writer for the New Yorker may be very well-respected, and he may indeed have more scientific knowledge than any of our editors, but he does not speak Portuguese. Also, the writer for the New Yorker cannot perform a cursory search on Google to verify if the origins of a theory really lie where previous Anglo-American corporate writers had reported.
In their hubris, corporate writers who've never lived in Brazil thought they could easily bring down a theory created by someone who is familiar not only with the country, culture, and language for which the conspiracy was developed, but that also can perform a simple Google search.
Can you trust someone who can't perform a simple Google search confirming the real origins of the theory they are refuting?
By Jose M. Abreu
Jose M. Abreu is the editor-in-chief of Abreu Report. He is the man who spread -- in the English language -- the "conspiracy theory" about Oxitec's transgenic mosquitoes. He is also responsible for spreading countless other "dangerous" theories which will be not be successfully refuted by Anglo-Corporate writers.
