I've sometimes been called a conspiracy theorist. It's intended as an insult. I wear it as a badge of honor - it means I pay attention.

As with most scare propaganda, the mainstream media was "reporting" all sorts of connections between Zika and microcephaly early in the game. However, even the scare mongers at the New York Times admit that, of the 2,200+ reported microcephaly cases, only 404 infants have been confirmed as having microcephaly, and only 17 tested positive for Zika:

But how many of the babies actually have microcephaly — and whether the condition was caused by the Zika virus — is still far from clear.

Of the cases examined so far, 404 have been confirmed as having microcephaly.

Only 17 of them tested positive for the Zika virus. But the government and many researchers say that number may be largely irrelevant, because their tests would find the presence of the virus in only a tiny percentage of cases.

An additional 709 babies have been ruled out as having microcephaly, according to the government, underscoring the risks of false positives making the epidemic appear larger than it actually is.

The remaining 1,113 cases are still being investigated.

Statistically and from a purely scientific perspective, doesn't sound like much of a connection as the mass media made it to be. Not that science stops the scare mongers at the WHO from declaring a global health emergency on the lack of evidence:

At a news conference in Geneva, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O, acknowledged that the understanding of the connection between the Zika virus and microcephaly was hazy and said that the uncertainty placed "a heavy burden" on pregnant women and their families throughout the Americas. She said the emergency designation would allow the health agency to coordinate the many efforts to get desperately needed answers. Officials said research on the effects of Zika in pregnant women was underway in at least three countries: Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador.

"The evidence is growing and it's getting strong," Dr. Chan said. "So I accepted, even on microcephaly alone, that it is sufficient to call an emergency. We need a coordinated international response."

But the agency stopped short of advising pregnant women not to travel to the affected region, a precaution that American health officials began recommending last month. Some global health experts contended the W.H.O.'s decision was more about politics than medicine. Brazil is preparing to host the Olympics this summer, and any ban on travel, even just for pregnant women, would deliver a serious blow to the Brazilian government.

The government contradicting itself and changing stories are common political practices when you are playing upon people's fear (e.g., see the recent reporting of the Ebola outbreak). Considering what a mess Brazil is right now (and Latin American countries in general), it seems far more likely that poverty, pollution, and vitamin deficiencies are affecting microcephaly rates in Brazil:

According to ATCC,⁶ a "global biological materials resource...organization whose mission focuses on the acquisition, authentication, production, preservation, development, and distribution of standard reference microorganisms," the Zika virus⁷ — which they sell for about $500 — causes paralysis and death.

In humans, Zika infection typically causes only mild flu-like symptoms, if any, and there does not appear to be any prior evidence suggesting it might cause birth defects.

That certainly doesn't exclude the possibility, of course, but there are many other factors and co-factors that offer a far more likely and rational explanation for the rise in microcephaly in this area of Brazil, besides Zika-carrying mosquitoes.

For starters, the "outbreak" is occurring in a largely poverty-stricken agricultural area of Brazil that uses large amounts of banned pesticides.^8,9,10

Between these factors and the lack of sanitation and widespread vitamin A and zinc deficiency, you already have the basic framework for an increase in poor health outcomes among newborn infants in that area.¹¹

Environmental pollution^12,13 and toxic pesticide exposure have been positively linked to a wide array of adverse health effects, including birth defects. When you add all these co-factors together, an increase in microcephaly doesn't seem like such a far-fetched outcome.

For an "emergency" like Zika to come out of the blue after 50+ years of stagnation, I'm much more likely to believe a genetic engineering experiment went bad (like the coincidence that "Oxitec first unveiled its large-scale, genetically-modified mosquito farm in Brazil in July 2012") or an accidental release of germs from a biowarfare research lab than I am to believe anything that comes from the mainstream media or WHO. (After all, what were US biological warfare researchers doing in the Ebola zone? See also: the US Army inadvertently shipped live anthrax to Australia that was only disclosed many years later.)

So, should we care? Yes - but caring means caring about the truth and science, paying attention to evidence instead of fear and politics.