Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you should Know about breaking news Colan Zica. Yes,
Speaker 1: We've had a bunch of people asked us to do
Speaker 1: this and over the summer basically, and uh, I finally
Speaker 1: gave in. I said, all right, now that the epidemic
Speaker 1: is starting to wayne, we'll step in and start talking
Speaker 1: about it. Well. Uh, one of the reasons I'm always
Speaker 1: reticent to do something so on the forefront is like
Speaker 1: this is this will be outdated by the time it's
Speaker 1: released in a couple of weeks. Yeah. I was looking
Speaker 1: at some of the dates on on the material we used,
Speaker 1: and like August was the most recent data I could
Speaker 1: get on some stuff. I'm like that, surely things have
Speaker 1: changed enough. Then I want the newest numbers. Give them
Speaker 1: to me. Who and they're like, let us go, And
Speaker 1: Roger Dalterry said, no, that was a bad joke all over.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, we're gonna give you the overview
Speaker 1: of what we know. But Zeka is a or at least,
Speaker 1: the current outbreak is a pretty new thing and they
Speaker 1: don't know a ton about it. So there there's a
Speaker 1: lot of mystery involved and a lot is changing on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, So just take it with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt. Yes, that's not medical advice though, and some deet. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so you said it's a fairly recent a fairly recent origin, UM,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people say, yeah, weird stuff suddenly
Speaker 1: appearing around the world, like, um, chicken guna which is
Speaker 1: related to zekea and zeka has to have something to
Speaker 1: do with climate change. That's definitely that's going chicken. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, that's a delicious chicken. No, you're
Speaker 1: thinking of chicken tonight. Okay, chicken gun is not delicious.
Speaker 1: It's very painful. Yes, UM, not making light of that,
Speaker 1: I was, but you know what I mean, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: chuck UM. But it's actually it was back in I
Speaker 1: think nineteen forty seven that some researchers UM from Europe
Speaker 1: in the United States working in Uganda, UM discovered this
Speaker 1: in a Reesea's monkey named Reesa's seven six six. It
Speaker 1: was born to be an experimental lab animal because it
Speaker 1: was named that UM and they they were looking for
Speaker 1: yellow fever and they found instead this brand new virus
Speaker 1: that they've never seen before. So Reesa's seven six six
Speaker 1: became the first known carrier of zeka. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: named after that that forest in Uganda where they found
Speaker 1: this monkey and they didn't find it in humans until
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. And um, and if you're thinking and
Speaker 1: at that point it was Uganda, you're not a Tanzania
Speaker 1: where they found it in humans. And if you're thinking
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, guys, this is like breaking news, Well,
Speaker 1: this outbreak is breaking news. Zeka had not been previously
Speaker 1: a very big problem pre two thousand seven. It was
Speaker 1: very localized to tropical Africa. Yeah, and not a lot
Speaker 1: of cases even. Uh. In fact, even in two thousand
Speaker 1: seven there were fourteen cases documented, although they think it
Speaker 1: was probably more undocumented. And uh, it wasn't until later
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven in Micronesia that they had sort
Speaker 1: of the first large outbreak, which was forty nine cases,
Speaker 1: which isn't even that much. And then in two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen in French Polynesia, nineteen thousand suspected cases. And then
Speaker 1: now this one is much much bigger. Yeah, something like UM.
Speaker 1: I again, I was really pressed to find hard figures,
Speaker 1: but it looks like something like a million people have
Speaker 1: been infected with ZEKA worldwide since UM two thousand fifteen
Speaker 1: is when this outbreak officially started. And it's shown up
Speaker 1: in sixty seven countries since two thousand fifteen, since the
Speaker 1: beginning of this outbreak, And yeah, I we need different numbers.
Speaker 1: I was counting too, and I came up with fifty eight.
Speaker 1: But I was like, it's got to be more than that.
Speaker 1: I saw something in the fifties. I saw sixty seven
Speaker 1: I think on the World Health Organization website, which is
Speaker 1: why I was I was like, that's probably right. But
Speaker 1: while we're we're recording this, literally another country could pop up. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: Singapore is in the midst of a new outbreak right now. UM.
Speaker 1: As of September, they have three hundred and eighty three
Speaker 1: reported locally transmitted cases, right which is pretty significant. But
Speaker 1: that's up from fifty four on August twenty nine, So
Speaker 1: less than a month, it's gone from fifty four cases
Speaker 1: to eight three. I read actually a posted an article
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page yesterday about UM. I think it
Speaker 1: may have been from Slate, but the author's uh suggestion
Speaker 1: was that there's a lot of apathy in the United
Speaker 1: States towards Zeka right now. Um, And then there were
Speaker 1: a bunch of read the comments and a lot of
Speaker 1: people a valid points. They are like sort of a
Speaker 1: crying wolf situation, like Ebola didn't turn out to be
Speaker 1: mad Cow, didn't turn out to be you know, none
Speaker 1: of these things turned out to be these devastating pandemics
Speaker 1: here in the US well exactly, so, you know, the
Speaker 1: United States has a tendency to be a little US centric. Sure,
Speaker 1: so I think the comments I got from our listeners
Speaker 1: at least we're like, you know what, we've heard this before,
Speaker 1: and so maybe there is some apathy. There's a huge
Speaker 1: fear that that is going to prevent a vaccine from
Speaker 1: being developed. That's why there's not an ebola vaccine because
Speaker 1: the outbreak was contained, and every one said, wow, we
Speaker 1: don't need to fund we don't need to start funneling
Speaker 1: emergency funds towards vaccination research. It's fine, and it stayed
Speaker 1: basically in Africa, hit a couple of people in America
Speaker 1: and Europe, but for the most part, it's over there,
Speaker 1: so we don't have to worry about it, and they're
Speaker 1: worried that the same thing is going to happen. That
Speaker 1: this the end of October, mosquito season is going to
Speaker 1: decline and the outbreak is going to naturally in in
Speaker 1: step decline as well. Uh And the public will and
Speaker 1: public funding for vaccinations, emergency vaccinations against zica is going
Speaker 1: to dry up. The big problem is we're eventually going
Speaker 1: to those dire public warnings could eventually come to pass.
Speaker 1: It might not have this pastime with the bola, it
Speaker 1: might not this time with zeka, but there's there's a
Speaker 1: definite possibility that it could happen, and we're gonna be like, man,
Speaker 1: I really wish we would have stuck with it ten
Speaker 1: years ago. Oh and we had the chance to develop
Speaker 1: a ZECA vaccine. Yeah, it's um it's a really narrow line.
Speaker 1: I think that with media reporting on stuff like a
Speaker 1: ban flu and mad cow and uh two get people
Speaker 1: fired up and scared and preach fear or to you know,
Speaker 1: for people to know that there is a really good
Speaker 1: chance that this could be bad. Yeah, if it's not,
Speaker 1: then great, But then turn around and say, well, you've
Speaker 1: got scared over nothing. Like people should say, well, that's
Speaker 1: wonderful news that it was smaller than we thought. But yes,
Speaker 1: you can lay a certain amount of the blame for
Speaker 1: this at the at the feet of the media, for
Speaker 1: for drumming up fear for ratings, and we should say
Speaker 1: that's not at all our intention with this. No, we're
Speaker 1: perfectly happy with our ratings normally UM and we I
Speaker 1: think if it goes to say, there's most public health
Speaker 1: officials are not panicking about this thing UM and and
Speaker 1: zekea itself is even like a pretty um, pretty mild disease.
Speaker 1: The problem is, and the reason the World Health Organization
Speaker 1: created a Global Health Emergency UM alert, they put everybody
Speaker 1: on high alert UH and started funneling money and attention
Speaker 1: towards Zeka is because there's a cluster of microcephaly in Brazil,
Speaker 1: which is basically ground zero for this most recent UM outbreak.
Speaker 1: And they're they're saying, now, there's there hasn't been any
Speaker 1: direct evidence, but there's so much correlation between being infected
Speaker 1: with the zeke virus wild pregnant and having a baby
Speaker 1: with microcephaly afterward UM that they're like, yes, Zeca causes microcephaly.
Speaker 1: Basically is the point we're at. Yeah, well let's let's
Speaker 1: jump back a little bit. So if you get ZEKA,
Speaker 1: only of the people infected will show any symptoms at all.
Speaker 1: And these symptoms just so you're looking out for them,
Speaker 1: which is always good to do. Fever, red eyes, joint pain,
Speaker 1: bumpy rash, what else you can have muscle pain and headache.
Speaker 1: Those apparently are less common symptoms. Um, but that's that's
Speaker 1: about it. And and like you said, I think four
Speaker 1: fits of people who have ZEKA are not going to
Speaker 1: show symptoms, and the ones who do have symptoms probably
Speaker 1: they're not going to be bad enough to even go
Speaker 1: to the doctor for. Yeah, they only last a few
Speaker 1: days to a week, and um, it's it's not something
Speaker 1: that will kill you. And I think that's another reason
Speaker 1: that a lot of people have apathy is because it
Speaker 1: has such a narrow, uh focus of harm, which is
Speaker 1: specifically right now at least largely pregnant women's babies. That
Speaker 1: and then there's one other thing that it's been linked to,
Speaker 1: although not quite as conclusively, is U Barre syndrome, which
Speaker 1: is a really bizarre and mysterious disorder that comes out
Speaker 1: of nowhere where your um immune system attacks your the
Speaker 1: nerves in your body and can leave you paralyzed at worse,
Speaker 1: but even milder on the spectrum, UM can leave you
Speaker 1: laid up, bedridden, un a ventilator. Yeah. And the the
Speaker 1: idea that they don't have any idea where it comes
Speaker 1: from is very unsettling. Yeah. And right now they've made
Speaker 1: a much stronger correlation with the microcephaly than I have
Speaker 1: the G B s UM. Because I'm going to try
Speaker 1: and pronounce that again A bar A. Yeah, it sounds easy.
Speaker 1: I know that because there's a there's a stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. Listen to remember the guy who's get well
Speaker 1: card we we filled out UM and I tweeted there's
Speaker 1: like a I think a go fund me to too,
Speaker 1: like get a wheelchair access vane is laid up. His
Speaker 1: name is John Say. He lives here in Atlanta. He's
Speaker 1: a great guy. You can chip in for John if
Speaker 1: you want to UM. You can search John Say s
Speaker 1: A y E on go fund me dot com or
Speaker 1: go to go fund me dot com slash to j
Speaker 1: h X eight y K. But I should say he
Speaker 1: didn't get it from Zeka UM. But he has the
Speaker 1: bar and they have no idea where it came from.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden one day, your immune system
Speaker 1: just turns on your nerves when you're in trouble. Amazing. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's talk a little bit about microcephi um.
Speaker 1: It is a birth defect. H It's the characterization mainly
Speaker 1: is that your baby will have a very small head
Speaker 1: and as a result, in under developed brain or I
Speaker 1: don't know as a result, but those two things happen. Well,
Speaker 1: they think what happens is that the virus attacks stem
Speaker 1: cells in the developing brain and ends up UM preventing
Speaker 1: the brain from developing properly. And they think it's also
Speaker 1: possible it's simultaneously attacks um structural proteins in the brain,
Speaker 1: so the existing tissue that's already been developed can can
Speaker 1: be destabilized, and then the stuff that's developing, uh, doesn't
Speaker 1: have a chance to develop correctly, in which case you
Speaker 1: you have babies born with like a lot of parts
Speaker 1: of their brain missing. Right. Yeah, and um, I read
Speaker 1: this one interview on It was the MPR interview. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was from NPR and their health correspondent Rob stein
Speaker 1: Um was talking about kind of like he went and
Speaker 1: visited Brazil and visited these babies and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: he said it was devastating and that some of the
Speaker 1: new research they published some brain scan images from a
Speaker 1: bunch of these Brazilian babies, and um, some they found
Speaker 1: some really weird things. Uh, entire portions of their nervous
Speaker 1: systems are missing just not there, like parts of the
Speaker 1: brain stem, parts of the spinal cord. And then sometimes
Speaker 1: in some cases, uh, you think the baby is okay,
Speaker 1: and then they're born and then you realize that parts
Speaker 1: of the brain are like full of fluid, so it
Speaker 1: has puffed up the brain so it looks like it's
Speaker 1: a normal size and like a scan or something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's you know, severe brain damage going on. Right,
Speaker 1: and so this leads to things like seizures, developmental delay,
Speaker 1: intellectual disabilities, UM, problems with moving around or balance difficulties, swallowing,
Speaker 1: hearing loss, vision problems, um. And typically this is it's irreversible.
Speaker 1: What that happens. Yeah, and super sad. He uh. He
Speaker 1: talks about the cries of these babies. He said they
Speaker 1: cry more, and not only more, but he said it's
Speaker 1: a really you know, if you have a baby, you
Speaker 1: know they're different. Cries mean different things and one of
Speaker 1: the keys to figure out what's what and um, these cries,
Speaker 1: he said, are just abnormal, and that they sound like
Speaker 1: anguishing pain is going on, and they're much harder to soothe.
Speaker 1: So that's just like heartbreaking stuff, it is. And so
Speaker 1: you can understand why, uh, couples who are planning on
Speaker 1: getting pregnant, women who are pregnant um are just scared
Speaker 1: to death of this, the idea of of contracting ZEKA.
Speaker 1: Sure they found that, Uh, at first they thought that
Speaker 1: the first trimester UM was the most dangerous point, but
Speaker 1: now apparently after further study, they're like, yeah, there's really
Speaker 1: no safe point in a pregnancy UM where you could
Speaker 1: get a ZECA infection and probably be protected. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I think they're airing on the side of caution because
Speaker 1: they're still so early in the game. They don't want
Speaker 1: to say like, nope, just the first trimester, like they're
Speaker 1: kind of saying, we don't know, it could be anytime
Speaker 1: during the pregnancy UM. And he the the NPR correspondent
Speaker 1: was he couched the whole thing and saying like he
Speaker 1: wasn't he wasn't raising public fears. I think he did
Speaker 1: it in the right way. He said, we don't know
Speaker 1: what this one's gonna look like. He said, it could
Speaker 1: just die out again and be a medium sized outbreak
Speaker 1: that goes away, he said, or it could be worse.
Speaker 1: We just gotta like be responsible and see what happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were saying, also, chuck the um. The estimates
Speaker 1: of the incidents of microcephily that come from zekea so
Speaker 1: far is between like one and which is an enormous
Speaker 1: increase in the incidents of microcepily because it's apparently a
Speaker 1: fairly uncommon um disorder and something like UM twelve babies
Speaker 1: per ten two to twelve babies per ten thousand berths
Speaker 1: in the United States, UM are born with microceptile normally
Speaker 1: between two and twelve per ten thousand births. If one percent,
Speaker 1: just one percent of women who contracts ZECA give birth
Speaker 1: to a baby with microceffily, that's like ten times is
Speaker 1: the normal rate. And that's the low end of the estimate.
Speaker 1: So again, like yeah, if you're just some dude, some
Speaker 1: bachelor who's like, you know, hanging around uh, Margarita Ville,
Speaker 1: and you get stung by a mosquito UM and you
Speaker 1: can track ZEKA and you don't even have symptoms. Who cares? Well,
Speaker 1: the idea that you that somebody else could have a
Speaker 1: baby with microceftly, that's who cares. That's just making this
Speaker 1: a public health emergency, you know. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll get back and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how it is spread. All right, Josh,
Speaker 1: you mentioned mosquitoes. We've kind of danced around it, or
Speaker 1: maybe we already said, but we'll go ahead and say
Speaker 1: it now, yellow fever mosquitoes. Uh, the adies and gyp
Speaker 1: tie there you go, that's the little bugger responsible. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're responsible not just for yellow fever and zica but
Speaker 1: also den gae and um, chicken guna too, which is delicious.
Speaker 1: Again you're thinking of chicken tonight and only certain chicken
Speaker 1: tonight's too. Um. Did we talk We did a really
Speaker 1: good podcast. I remember our mosquitoes. It was great. But
Speaker 1: did we talk about I Now we talked a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember we landed on the idea of
Speaker 1: eradicating them outright? And are they one of those that
Speaker 1: we can get rid of? And it doesn't have some
Speaker 1: big ripple effect. We can't say that we could get
Speaker 1: rid of anything any species of anything wholesale and not
Speaker 1: have really detrimental effects. But in the mosquito one of
Speaker 1: those that people like researchers think we might well, yeah,
Speaker 1: get rid of without losing you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: losing the honeybee. There there are some serious proposals to
Speaker 1: get rid of mosquitoes as as part of treating Zeka.
Speaker 1: I just hope that's the case. I hate him. I
Speaker 1: hate him. I hate him. Oh that we get rid
Speaker 1: of them, Yeah, I think it would be great. They
Speaker 1: carry I mean, beyond the stupid nuisance that you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, my privileged self feels at my house.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, you know, in countries where they spread
Speaker 1: serious disease. It's a real, real problem. It is a
Speaker 1: real problem, and so I guess we might as well
Speaker 1: talk about this. There's there's a couple of proposals that
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization UM, who right, are that was
Speaker 1: good though you almost got me. They're they're looking into
Speaker 1: and are planning on deploying and are actually there's some
Speaker 1: pilot projects. One of them we talked about in the
Speaker 1: Mosquito episode, which was UM releasing transgenic mosquitoes into the wild.
Speaker 1: And so these things carry a genetic artificially inserted genetic
Speaker 1: um mutation that prevents their offspring from surviving to maturity
Speaker 1: and therefore they're unable to reproduce. Right, So you release
Speaker 1: these genetically ulter mosquitoes into the wild and after several generations,
Speaker 1: the mosquito population starts to die off. Wonderful, there's one.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a test pilot by this UM, this
Speaker 1: company called ox a Tech working out of UM, England,
Speaker 1: I believe, I'm not quite sure exactly where, but they
Speaker 1: created a genetically modified mosquito back in two two and
Speaker 1: part of the project UM, part of the proving test experiment,
Speaker 1: I think that's what they call it. There's there's ellipses
Speaker 1: and everything to indicate the pauses. But UM they released
Speaker 1: some in Sal Paulo, Brazil as part of a pilot
Speaker 1: project in April last year. In January of this year,
Speaker 1: there had been an eighty two percent reduction in wild
Speaker 1: mosquito larva. Let's do it so it works. The problem
Speaker 1: is is I think that is the pinnacle of human hubris,
Speaker 1: the idea that we can just get rid of an
Speaker 1: entire species and there not be some sort of ripple effect.
Speaker 1: That we couldn't foresee that. We're gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have done that. There's an alternative one. So, yes,
Speaker 1: you're inconvenience right when you're stung by a mosquito and
Speaker 1: it sucks. I see that was an accident. All right,
Speaker 1: there's But the bigger problem is for for people who
Speaker 1: are like suffering and dying from diseases like malaria or
Speaker 1: dana feb or something like that. Well, there's an alternative
Speaker 1: to getting rid of mosquitoes, and it's actually treating mosquitoes
Speaker 1: with something called Walbaccia, which is a bacteria that infects
Speaker 1: the gut of a mosquito and actually prevents the zecra
Speaker 1: virus from um living there. Okay, so you've still got
Speaker 1: the mosquito. Yeah, so you're not completely altering the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: I'm still inconvenience, but lives are being saved. But you're
Speaker 1: getting right, which is what really matters exactly. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that one seems to me like a little smarter, and
Speaker 1: they're they're working on that too. They've released a bunch
Speaker 1: in Brazil and so these um uh artificially infected mosquitoes
Speaker 1: go out and um they infect other mosquitoes out in
Speaker 1: the wild, and pretty soon, all of a sudden, Zeke
Speaker 1: is like, oh man, I remember the good times and
Speaker 1: they're gone. Well, it seems like the mosquito is one
Speaker 1: that they could probably research enough to see if it
Speaker 1: would have an impact if it left us. But off
Speaker 1: the top of my head, I'm thinking, well, bats eat mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you're taking away the food
Speaker 1: source from an animal that we love. Ham that's just
Speaker 1: off the top of your head. But then you think, like,
Speaker 1: but do they need mosquitoes or they just like, well,
Speaker 1: well they're there, I'll eat them, or would they just
Speaker 1: move on something else? But then do they decimate some
Speaker 1: other thing that might be useful? You know, I get
Speaker 1: the ripples they're going after house cats while they already
Speaker 1: do that. Yes, there's a real possibility for a ripple
Speaker 1: effect that that would have catastrophic unforeseen consequences. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I am totally for getting rid of mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: If we know for certain that there wouldn't be that
Speaker 1: ripple effect, I'd be on board. I go out there
Speaker 1: and start squashing them myself. Yeah, but I think what
Speaker 1: you're saying is is that there's no way to know
Speaker 1: for certain, which is you know it's valid. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: one thing about this mosquito, and I know you know
Speaker 1: a bit more than me about how it's transmitted. But
Speaker 1: looking at the this guy, this particular yellow fever mosquito,
Speaker 1: h it has white markings on the leg. And like
Speaker 1: all mosquitoes, uh, they're active in the morning, in the evening,
Speaker 1: tend to die down a bit in the heat of
Speaker 1: the day, and then at night, you know, go off
Speaker 1: and hide. Right, But how does it actually trans met
Speaker 1: beyond just sticking that needle in? So I guess some
Speaker 1: mosquito got ahold of Reese's seven six six one day
Speaker 1: or something some other carrier like that, and the mosquito
Speaker 1: itself becomes infected, although it doesn't have as far as
Speaker 1: we know, any symptoms from ZEKA. Oh. Interesting, So it's
Speaker 1: not just that it's carrying the infected blood. They're act Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and that's a big point because if a mosquito
Speaker 1: comes and sucks your blood, um, it's not transmitting any
Speaker 1: of its own blood in there. So when it sucks
Speaker 1: your blood and you have zeca, right, the mosquito puts
Speaker 1: its what thank you man? That one that in deleterious
Speaker 1: always elude me. When it puts its proboscus in your
Speaker 1: skin to suck out your blood, it also salivates in
Speaker 1: there right, which is like an anesthetizes you. And if
Speaker 1: you have zeka, that zekea goes from your blood into
Speaker 1: the mosquito's gut, where the zeka um begins to colonize
Speaker 1: the mosquito, infect the mosquito, and ultimately it makes it
Speaker 1: into its salivary glance. So when when that mosquito in
Speaker 1: searches proboscis into the next person's arm, it uses the
Speaker 1: saliva rus to say she, because it's always a female
Speaker 1: mosquito that bites you. She um uses salivaty to anesthetize
Speaker 1: your arm, and that's where the zeka gets into you. Okay,
Speaker 1: Because they have found that the virus lives in saliva, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. But they're not you know, they're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out like exactly all the ways
Speaker 1: it could be transmitted. Um. They found it in saliva,
Speaker 1: they know it can be transmitted through um well through
Speaker 1: sexy time. It can live in semen for seemingly longer
Speaker 1: than in blood. Yeah, so when it's in your blood.
Speaker 1: It stays there for like a week and then they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: where's it go. Obviously it stays in the body because
Speaker 1: they did find it and some guys see mean, was
Speaker 1: it like ten weeks after he was infected with zeka
Speaker 1: um And they know that you can get it sexually
Speaker 1: and through mosquitoes, but they've also found it in saliva um,
Speaker 1: vaginal secretions. I think I think you're in in definitely
Speaker 1: breast milk, which is another fear among mothers too, the
Speaker 1: one the sexual transmission. I think the first couple of cases,
Speaker 1: one was in Texas and a man was infected after
Speaker 1: having sex with someone who came back from Venezuela that
Speaker 1: was infected. So you know a little scary right, Uh.
Speaker 1: And here's one of the rubs is in um. As
Speaker 1: far as intercourse, there was a guy named researcher named
Speaker 1: Brian Foy who published a paper this is five years
Speaker 1: ago um in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is
Speaker 1: a great to read at a dinner party. I tell you,
Speaker 1: just pull that out and get the conversation going. But
Speaker 1: he argued that there was evidence that you could transmit
Speaker 1: zeca sexually, uh, through intercourse and he said, we need
Speaker 1: to study this more and basically was denied and they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is too obscure disease to give funding. Um,
Speaker 1: which you know may have been the case, is sort
Speaker 1: of a tough thing. You can't throw money at everything,
Speaker 1: but it is frustrating when this guy was on this
Speaker 1: five years ago, and it could be a lot further
Speaker 1: along as far as learning more about the sexual transmission.
Speaker 1: You know, yep, Zeka just wasn't hot enough back then.
Speaker 1: So Chuck, people are saying, like, how how do we
Speaker 1: stop this? For love of God, think of the children. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the mosquito part is a big part of it, um,
Speaker 1: and we talked a little bit about eradicating mosquitoes, but
Speaker 1: you know, all the normal safe things, safe measures you
Speaker 1: can take with mosquitoes you should obviously do if you're
Speaker 1: in a place where Zeka might be uh more rampant
Speaker 1: um and listen to our mosquito podcast for that. But
Speaker 1: you know, in scropellent long sleeve shirts and pants, try
Speaker 1: to not be outside during those times a day where
Speaker 1: they're around more to all that stuff. But a vaccine
Speaker 1: is what we're really looking for. Yeah, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's apparently a few companies who are really trying
Speaker 1: to race a vaccine to market and get fast tracked.
Speaker 1: I think a company in India is the top contender
Speaker 1: right now. And then you found one that seems pretty
Speaker 1: legit too, So it's best I can figure. The n
Speaker 1: i H has a division called the n I A
Speaker 1: I D. Right, the National Institute for Allergic and Infectious Diseases.
Speaker 1: I think that sounds right. But they are working on
Speaker 1: a vaccine and they're using a similar approach to UM
Speaker 1: what they have been successful with with West Nile, and
Speaker 1: right now it is safe in the phase one of
Speaker 1: the clinical trials, and they're trying to push forward. And
Speaker 1: what they're doing is and UM, I don't fully understand this,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna kind of read this part. But
Speaker 1: they said their vaccine has a small circular piece of
Speaker 1: DNA called the plasmid that they've engineered to contain genes
Speaker 1: that code for the proteins of the virus. Then when
Speaker 1: you inject that, the cells read those genes and make
Speaker 1: those virus proteins, and then they self as symbol into
Speaker 1: the virus like particles. Then that gets that immune system
Speaker 1: kicked into gear. So you're putting in a basically an
Speaker 1: artificial version that's not that's not infectious. Yeah, that's the key,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, like you, you
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly transmit that that artificial zekea virus um to
Speaker 1: anybody else, but it will still mount it will still
Speaker 1: get your body to mountain immune response, and that would
Speaker 1: mean that when you actually do come in contact with
Speaker 1: the actual zecovirus would be toast. Yeah. And this is
Speaker 1: just one of the vaccines that they're continuing in a
Speaker 1: in a trial run. But um, I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are several that they're, like you said, a couple
Speaker 1: in India, they're trying to get through, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of people are hard at work trying to conquer this
Speaker 1: thing via vaccinations. And again there's a real tremendous fear
Speaker 1: that um that the public will and public funding will
Speaker 1: dry up when this makes it out of the news cycle,
Speaker 1: when it's dropped from the news cycle, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And speaking of funding, well, should we take a break.
Speaker 1: That's a good little tease, speaking of funding. The stage
Speaker 1: coach is about to go off the cliff. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back, Okay, we're back in Chuck. We're
Speaker 1: talking about funding, yes, uh, and not only do is
Speaker 1: funding possibly going to be a problem when the zeka
Speaker 1: um outbreak goes away, which inevitably will we hope. Um,
Speaker 1: there's actually a huge problem with funding right now. The
Speaker 1: the CDC head Thomas Frieden that his name, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's it. Um. He took to the airwaves and said, uh, guys,
Speaker 1: we're running out of money and we need Congress to
Speaker 1: come back in session and give us some asap for Zeka. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the timeline on this is last year early last year.
Speaker 1: President Obama said, Congress, can we have one point nine
Speaker 1: billion uh an emergency funds for Zeka to help fight
Speaker 1: Zeka and uh Congress said no. Um. They said wait
Speaker 1: wait Obama, are you asking and said, well, yeah, I'm asking,
Speaker 1: and they said no. Yeah. The controlling Republicans said that.
Speaker 1: They said, we want more accountability for the money where
Speaker 1: it's going, and why don't you take some of the
Speaker 1: money left over from Ebola and other projects and use
Speaker 1: that instead? Or they said, or we could do this,
Speaker 1: We could take money away from Planned Parenthood if you
Speaker 1: want money for Zeka. And then the Democrats were like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not very nice and un it turned political, no surprise,
Speaker 1: but um, they CDC did in fact end up taking
Speaker 1: money from Ebola. I think, Um, how much was it?
Speaker 1: Thirty eight million dollars from Ebola funding and forty four
Speaker 1: million from emergency response funding, which is really scary because
Speaker 1: that means if something really big happened here in the US, uh,
Speaker 1: in terms of Zica, they may not literally may not
Speaker 1: have the money to send teams of people to wherever
Speaker 1: that is. Yeah, so they're nicking money from these other programs.
Speaker 1: They're saying, we really need this to be seriously funded,
Speaker 1: and right now politics is getting in the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is pretty sad because again, think of the children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and hopefully this will change and they'll get the funding
Speaker 1: they need. But right now, I mean Fred and I
Speaker 1: don't know if he's crying wolf too much to try
Speaker 1: and get the public worked up, but he's he seems
Speaker 1: to think that it's pretty dire and that they need
Speaker 1: these resources. So I'm just I'm taking the man at
Speaker 1: his word. At this point, he said that of the
Speaker 1: two and twenty million that they had allocated for ZEKA,
Speaker 1: twenty millions already out the door, and if they've already
Speaker 1: used another, um, you know, forty four million from UH
Speaker 1: emergency response funding, thirty eight million from a bola I
Speaker 1: would I would guess that, yes, there's some problems coming. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: The CDs, speaking of the CDC, they actually um did
Speaker 1: something as a result of the Szeka outbreak that they've
Speaker 1: never done before. They issued a travel warning advisory against
Speaker 1: traveled to a place in America. I've never done that before.
Speaker 1: It's always been somewhere else outside of the country. But um,
Speaker 1: when I think in August, the beginning of August, when
Speaker 1: there was an outbreak of zica, including a local UH transmission,
Speaker 1: which means that it wasn't up to that point, there
Speaker 1: were a couple of thousand cases of zeka in the
Speaker 1: United States, but all of them were people who went
Speaker 1: to the Caribbean, or to Africa, or to the America's
Speaker 1: or to Southeast Asia, got bit by an agudas a
Speaker 1: Gypti mosquito and then came back and they were at
Speaker 1: risk of possibly transmitting it sexually or of a mosquito
Speaker 1: biting them and spreading it. Well, that apparently finally happened
Speaker 1: because someone in Miami was bit by a mosquito and
Speaker 1: contracted ZEKA. So that means that it is it had
Speaker 1: entered the mosquito, the wild mosquito population, And that's what
Speaker 1: really started to get um. The CDC and others worried
Speaker 1: because they said, for it is tough right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's not like rampant or anything, but
Speaker 1: they're the cases are are accumulating to the point where
Speaker 1: people are getting a little worried. Yeah. And and again
Speaker 1: if you go to the Caribbean and come back with Zica,
Speaker 1: they weren't too worried about that. What was worrying them
Speaker 1: is the idea of mosquitoes getting it, because they said
Speaker 1: humans are not the vectors of transmission that we need
Speaker 1: to be worried about. It's the mosquitoes. Well, in Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico is a big problem right now. Um. In fact
Speaker 1: that the name of this article I got was Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico is ground zero. Uh it's not literally ground zero,
Speaker 1: but as far as the US is concerned, it is
Speaker 1: probably you know, they're American citizens. And at this rate,
Speaker 1: two thousand people a week are getting infected in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: And they said, if this holds of their entire population,
Speaker 1: by the end of the year could be infected with zica. Uh,
Speaker 1: more than pregnant women. I'm sorry, did you see? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says a quarter of their three point five million
Speaker 1: uh population could get it by the end of this year.
Speaker 1: And you know we're in almost September. Wow, so uh
Speaker 1: more than women pregnant women have tested positive. And um, man,
Speaker 1: I feel so bad for those women. I'll bet they
Speaker 1: are losing their minds with just fear right now. As
Speaker 1: if you know, pregnancy isn't you know? Yeah? Uh. And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of problems in Puerto Rico, or
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges at least, um it reigns a lot.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of puddles, a lot of mosquitoes. Um,
Speaker 1: one of the big They're in a financial crisis and
Speaker 1: one of their main sources of income is tourism and
Speaker 1: this is not helping their tourism in any way. So
Speaker 1: uh they need funding for re and um they were
Speaker 1: gonna do some mass spraying, but the people said no,
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. There was apparently also mosquitoes have developed a
Speaker 1: lot of tolerance to that over the decades too. They
Speaker 1: found one certain insecticide that they said is working a
Speaker 1: lot better but there's a lot of resistance to it.
Speaker 1: So um, right now, the CDC says, if you're pregnant,
Speaker 1: don't go to Puerto Rico, and uh, wait at least
Speaker 1: two months before trying to get pregnant after you come home,
Speaker 1: if that's in your plans. And uh I've even seen
Speaker 1: some people say, if you go to Puerto Rico, you know,
Speaker 1: don't have sex or make sure you practice safe sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but none of that bodes well for their tourism industry,
Speaker 1: which is where a lot of their dope comes from.
Speaker 1: Come to Puerto Rico and don't have sex afterwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not a good slogan. It's definitely not. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I want to specify, the CDC didn't say that you
Speaker 1: should not go to Florida. They said that you should
Speaker 1: not go to this particular spot in North Miami or
Speaker 1: just north of downtown Miami. There's a neighborhood that was
Speaker 1: kind of ground zero for this outbreak. But Florida and
Speaker 1: in and of itself is suffering as far as tourism
Speaker 1: goes um or on the press pits of really suffering
Speaker 1: depending on how this outbreak goes down there um and
Speaker 1: as a result, like Walt Disney World and Universal Florida
Speaker 1: and SeaWorld all now are just kind of casually giving
Speaker 1: you a uh small aerosol can of complimentary UM mosquito
Speaker 1: spray whenever you come into the park. Yeah, they're not
Speaker 1: um and probably rightfully so they're not putting up signs
Speaker 1: that say ZEKA because that would be a pr disaster.
Speaker 1: But I think it's pretty clear what's going on, is there. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: here's your ticket, and here's your stub, and here's your
Speaker 1: deep deep Mickey Mouse brand deep. You know. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: how do you diagnoses zeka if you are worried about it? Well,
Speaker 1: one of them, like a lot of these uh diseases
Speaker 1: that you might catch abroad. One of the first things
Speaker 1: they do is say where have you been lately? Have
Speaker 1: you traveled? And where? They Yeah, if you say, well,
Speaker 1: I was in Brazil and yeah, that's another thing too.
Speaker 1: Let's have the Olympics so the whole world comes together
Speaker 1: at ground zero for the current ZEKA outbreak. That was
Speaker 1: a big worry, But apparently no one associated with the
Speaker 1: Olympics has tested positive for ZEKA. It's been over for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks now, that's good. Sorry, for interrupting.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was actually I was wondering about
Speaker 1: that because I knew it was a big fear of
Speaker 1: going in. UM. Yeah, so they're gonna say where have
Speaker 1: you been traveling? Ask what kind of symptoms, and we
Speaker 1: already went over those, and then they're gonna just basically
Speaker 1: give you blood and urine tests and that'll let them
Speaker 1: know pretty quick what's going on. Yeah. I think they
Speaker 1: can actually detect the virus itself in your blood, but again,
Speaker 1: it leaves the blood after a week and starts going
Speaker 1: other places. And once that's um the case, I think
Speaker 1: they can do saliva tests and detect antibodies in your
Speaker 1: saliva and urine. They should just do all those tests,
Speaker 1: like don't even ask me where I've been, Just take
Speaker 1: some blood and or maybe ask where I been because
Speaker 1: that doesn't take long. Yeah, but do it as you're
Speaker 1: drawing my blood. Well these days, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter where you've been. Increasingly, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's starting to creep up and chuck. Actually, we have
Speaker 1: to say this is really important before you um take anything.
Speaker 1: If you think you have ZEKA, you have to be
Speaker 1: diagnosed with ZEKA before you can take end sets like
Speaker 1: advil or a leave or a motor in something like that,
Speaker 1: because it's possible you actually have dn gay fever, in
Speaker 1: which case because the symptoms are very similar. And if
Speaker 1: you do have dan gay and you cannot take end
Speaker 1: seats because dan gay um blocks the action of platelets
Speaker 1: which are clot that help with clotting, right, and so
Speaker 1: to do end said, so you put end seats and
Speaker 1: dena together and you can hemorrhage pretty easily. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not good. Now, if you're worried about this, then you're
Speaker 1: in uh, Michigan. You probably don't need to unless you
Speaker 1: get it through sexual transmission or Canada totally out of
Speaker 1: the question again, except through sexual transmission, because this is
Speaker 1: very much out of the range of the Agudas and
Speaker 1: jyptime Mosquito UM. It's just parts of the South, the
Speaker 1: American South, Southeast UM a little bit, it creeps up
Speaker 1: a little bit into the Midwest UM, and then all
Speaker 1: basically of South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, UM. California, Yeah,
Speaker 1: parts of California. There's a really helpful map if you're
Speaker 1: just panicking right now on the World Health Organization website
Speaker 1: that don't panic. Yeah, I don't panic. There's no cause
Speaker 1: to panic now, Uh, please don't panic. No, I think
Speaker 1: the best practice is to educate yourself by listening to
Speaker 1: this and um, then spreading fear to everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: just kidding, great advice. That was a top, top notch
Speaker 1: way to end this way. Yeah, be very uh column
Speaker 1: and everything and just spread fear right play queens, just
Speaker 1: did uh you got anything else? No? Um? How much
Speaker 1: of this is out of date already? Do you think?
Speaker 1: Probably that's not too bad. I can live with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we get wrong anyway. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about Zica, well to surf the web man. There's plenty
Speaker 1: out there. And since I said surf the web, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this Bacon buddy.
Speaker 1: Remember we were talking about bacon buddy. Yeah, the b
Speaker 1: U T T Y, which I didn't know what it
Speaker 1: was us. I didn't either, but now we do because
Speaker 1: they're good friends in the United Kingdom have written us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wish somebody would have brought this up before we went,
Speaker 1: because I would have been on the lookout for them. Bees. Well, well,
Speaker 1: I'll get to it. Hey, guys, can't believe you have
Speaker 1: never heard of the amazing bacon buddy. Just that name
Speaker 1: sounds great, a little bacon buddy, even though it'spelled differently,
Speaker 1: especially if you've recently been to England, home of the buddy.
Speaker 1: The word buddy is a UK British shorthand for buttered
Speaker 1: sandwich or roll like uh like you know, remember when
Speaker 1: I was saying chippy for fish and chips, except cute
Speaker 1: ways of shortening things. So a bacon buddy is essentially
Speaker 1: a bacon sandwich or roll with a on a roll
Speaker 1: with a lovely helping of butter, or if you're mean,
Speaker 1: you love it with HP sauce. Yeah, that could be
Speaker 1: good too. They love their HP sauce HP. Is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying? Another cracking buddy you might have heard
Speaker 1: of in the past are chip buddies, as you call
Speaker 1: French fries. So the next time you're in the UK,
Speaker 1: pop into any fish and chip shop ask for a
Speaker 1: chip buddy. You get a crusty roll loaded with chips,
Speaker 1: covered in vinegar and salt. So bad for you, but
Speaker 1: so tasty. On a slightly separate note, Chuck's hearing Chuck's
Speaker 1: love for mayonnaise makes me so happy because I am
Speaker 1: also slightly addicted to the stuff. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I would eat what I called it cheesy dunkers. I
Speaker 1: love this, dude. This was essentially cheddar cheese cut into long,
Speaker 1: thick strips which I would then dunk into my pot
Speaker 1: of helmets mayonnaise man, cheesy dunk a mall uh. Great
Speaker 1: show as usual, guys, keep doing what you're doing. That
Speaker 1: is from Kyle Chandler from Kent, England, but right now
Speaker 1: in South Korea. And two things I would add, I
Speaker 1: was totally wrong about baoli. It is garlic based by definitions.
Speaker 1: I didn't stand up for myself. You were fine and
Speaker 1: dum too. I've had a bacon, buddy, I didn't know it. No,
Speaker 1: I was in the sky lounge at at Uh. Stop
Speaker 1: probbing that in my face. The sky lounge membership you have,
Speaker 1: it can be yours, but I want it for free.
Speaker 1: Well here's the thing, dude. You eat and drink well
Speaker 1: over four fifty dollars in a year worth of free
Speaker 1: stuff in these sky lounges. Oh yeah I could. I
Speaker 1: could probably do that and then visit I was at
Speaker 1: one the other day. I just went to Cleveland, had
Speaker 1: two bloody Mary's and a buffet meal for free. It's
Speaker 1: like thirty five dollars in an airport. Yeah, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: I'm keeping tally like I'm gonna make my money back
Speaker 1: on you have a little ledger. I do you put
Speaker 1: on your little Bankers visor with the Greenville one bacon
Speaker 1: buddy one whiskey? How was the bacon buddy? Well, it's
Speaker 1: delicious and um someone else rode in. The bacon that
Speaker 1: they have over there is different than what we have
Speaker 1: over here. Yeah, it looked like because I fat back
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, they call it streaky bacon, this big
Speaker 1: wide hammy chunks man, and I got it. Wasn't called
Speaker 1: a bacon buddy on the menu. Was just called bacon
Speaker 1: on a roll because nobody would know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: What they call it bacon buddy. Yeah, and uh so
Speaker 1: I did had a bacon buddy, and I loaded it
Speaker 1: with butter and it was see in America we have
Speaker 1: that with egg and cheese all wrapped up. But just
Speaker 1: the bacon is enough for them. Sure, and it was delicious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we call it the enormous sandwich burger king. I haven't
Speaker 1: had that one, Oh you haven't. It's basically everything you
Speaker 1: could possibly eat for breakfast on like a HOGI roll
Speaker 1: us say yeah yeah uh. If you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with Chuck or me, you can hang out
Speaker 1: with us on Twitter at s Y s K Podcast
Speaker 1: so you can look me up at Josh M. Clark.
Speaker 1: You can hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck
Speaker 1: Bryant on Facebook or our official page is Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash stuff you Should Know send us an email.
Speaker 1: The Stuff Pod guests at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: the slightly cluegy Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com.