Fete Lifestyle Magazine June 2016 - Travel Issue | Page 50

Take a step back.

Don’t allow flashy media headlines to rule you. Generally, major media outlets report to boost ratings. You’ll notice most major media outlets like to play it safe. And that means you get quotes from renowned scientists and stats from accredited governmental organizations.

But these “experts” and organizations don’t always know it all and the media can’t publish full reports with all the details - they pull out the bits and pieces that make the biggest splash. If you dig a little deeper you’ll see for yourself.

Be objective, do some independent research.

For example: trending articles suggest that pregnant women, or women of childbearing age, should avoid countries where Zika is prevalent due to it’s latest connection to a rare, but serious, birth defect known as microcephaly. However, contrary to public perception, the Zika virus is not a new thing, it’s just attracting attention for the first time.

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (probably the loudest voice issuing warnings and discouraging international travel) cannot definitively say there is a direct link between the Zika virus and microcephaly. In fact a connection was only first suggested this past year, although cases of Zika in humans have been reported since the late 1950’s. With the recent increase in detected cases of microcephaly in Brazil and in some of those cases their correlation to mother’s who also tested positive for Zika, the CDC was forced to conclude that existing data meets the burden of proof.

The “burden of proof” is important to note. In legalese, it means the obligation to prove one's assertion. While many news outlets have reported the link has been confirmed, even on the CDC’s own website, if you read the microcephaly page, it says “researchers are studying a link to Zika.” It hasn't been definitively proven, and is not listed as one of the many potential causes of the birth defect.

As for odds of contracting Zika itself, the figures are not even available, simply because it’s such a new issue - not to mention, 80% of the people who carry the virus will never have any symptoms at all and thus will never even know they were infected.