Claim: Brazil's mothers left to raise microcephaly babies alone.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Celina Turchi
text: in pregnant women would have influence on the foetus' lack of cranial development. Celina Turchi Celina Maria Turchi Martelli is a Brazilian epidemiologist, graduated by Federal University of Goiás and researcher at Fundação Oswaldo Cruz in Recife. She first associated the link between zika virus and microcephaly in newborn babies during the 2015 disease outbreak in Brazil; she was listed by "Nature" magazine as one of the 10 most notable people in science in 2016, and by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2017. Turchi was born in the state of Goiás. She did her

title: Zika fever
text: 2016 that the Brazilian Ministry of Health had confirmed 134 cases of microcephaly "believed to be associated with Zika virus infection" with an additional 2,165 cases in 549 counties in 20 states remaining under investigation. An analysis of 574 cases of microcephaly in Brazil during 2015 and the first week of 2016, reported in March 2016, found an association with maternal illness involving rash and fever during the first trimester of pregnancy. During this period, 12 Brazilian states reported increases of at least 3 standard deviations (SDs) in cases of microcephaly compared with 2000–14, with the northeastern states of Bahia,

title: Zika fever
text: more than 27 countries and territories. Following the initial Zika outbreak in Northeastern Brazil in May 2015, physicians observed a very large surge of reports of infants born with microcephaly, with 20 times the number of expected cases. Many of these cases have since been confirmed, leading WHO officials to project that approximately 2,500 infants will be found to have born in Brazil with Zika-related microcephaly. Proving that Zika causes these effects is difficult and complex for several reasons. For example, the effects on an infant might not be seen until months after the mother's initial infection, long after the

title: Celina Turchi
text: in infectology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her doctorate at the University of São Paulo. She became interested in research mosquito-borne diseases in 1990, when dengue fever was spread in Goiânia. She was professor at UFG until her retirement. In 2015 Turchi was called by the Brazilian Ministry of Health to investigate the growth of microcephaly cases in newborn babies at the state of Pernambuco. At Fiocruz's Aggeu Magalhães Institute, in Recife, she directed the Microcephaly Epidemic Research Group (MERG), a task force for defining the malformation causes. Her group found that zika virus incubated

title: Celina Turchi
text: Celina Turchi Celina Maria Turchi Martelli is a Brazilian epidemiologist, graduated by Federal University of Goiás and researcher at Fundação Oswaldo Cruz in Recife. She first associated the link between zika virus and microcephaly in newborn babies during the 2015 disease outbreak in Brazil; she was listed by "Nature" magazine as one of the 10 most notable people in science in 2016, and by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2017. Turchi was born in the state of Goiás. She did her graduation in medicine at the Federal University of Goias and her master's degree

title: Zika fever
text: Paraíba and Pernambuco reporting increases of more than 20 SDs. In January 2016, a baby in Oahu, Hawaii, was born with microcephaly, the first case in the United States of brain damage linked to the virus. The baby and mother tested positive for a past Zika virus infection. The mother, who had probably acquired the virus while traveling in Brazil in May 2015 during the early stages of her pregnancy, had reported her bout of Zika. She recovered before relocating to Hawaii. Her pregnancy had progressed normally, and the baby's condition was not known until birth. In February 2016, ocular

title: 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic
text: 30, Thailand confirmed that two babies has born with microcephaly. Prior to the case, Thailand has allowed abortion for pregnant women that have been affected by birth defects. Malaysia is still undecided on the issue, with doctors there letting the mother make the decision whether or not to abort. Rentokil, a Malaysian pest company, has designed an Integrated Mosquito Management (IMM) program to curb the spread of Aedes mosquito. On October 17, Zika was declared as endemic in Vietnam by the country Health Ministry due to the number of local cases. Vietnam confirmed that one baby has born with microcephaly

title: Pyriproxyfen
text: of pyriproxyfen by the World Health Organization since 2004 and the United States Environmental Protection Agency since 2001. George Dimech, the director of Disease Control and Diseases of the Health Department of Pernambuco in Brazil, gave an interview to the BBC where he pointed out that the city of Recife has the current highest reported amount of cases of microcephaly, yet pyriproxyfen is not used in the region, but another insecticide altogether. He added that "this lack of spatial correlation weakens the idea that the larvicide is the cause of the problem." In addition, the BBC interviewed researchers in Pernambuco,

title: Baby hatch
text: mothers could give up their child anonymously but could also receive advice. The "tours d'abandon" were officially abolished in a law of June 27, 1904. Today in France, women are allowed to give birth anonymously in hospitals ("accouchement sous X") and leave their baby there. In Brazil and Portugal, foundling wheels ("roda dos expostos/enjeitados", literally "wheel for exposed/rejected ones") were also used after Queen Mary I proclaimed on May 24, 1783, that all towns should have a foundling hospital. One example was the wheel installed at the "Santa Casa de Misericordia" hospital in São Paulo on July 2, 1825. This

title: Zika fever
text: disorders in newborns have been linked to Zika virus infection. In one study in Pernambuco state in Brazil, about 40 percent of babies with Zika-related microcephaly also had scarring of the retina with spots, or pigment alteration. On 20 February 2016, Brazilian scientists announced that they had successfully sequenced the Zika virus genome, and expressed hope that this would help in both developing a vaccine and in determining the nature of any link to birth defects. Also in February 2016, rumors that microcephaly is caused by the use of the larvicide pyriproxyfen in drinking water were refuted by scientists. "It's

title: 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic
text: children on social media, this concern was lacking in countries largely impacted by Zika virus, such as Brazil. In Brazil, struggling mothers of infants with microcephaly caused by Zika have used support systems on social media on the cellphone chat app called Whatsapp or on Facebook pages that can help connect mothers in need of supplies and money to donors. The heavy traditional news and social media coverage of the virus spreading did cause concern over lack of reliability. Research has found that between May and June 2016, four out of five social media posts about Zika provided accurate information,

title: Zika fever
text: (of the 2400 or so notified cases in 2015, 2165 were under investigation in December 2015, 134 were confirmed and 102 were ruled out for microcephaly). The Brazilian Health Ministry has reported at least 2,400 suspected cases of microcephaly in the country in 2015 as of 12 December, and 29 fatalities. Before the Zika outbreak, only an average of 150 to 200 cases per year were reported in Brazil. In the state of Pernambuco the reported rates of microcephaly in 2015 are 77 times higher than in the previous 5 years. A model using data from a Zika outbreak in

title: Zika fever
text: disorders is of global concern. The Zika virus was first linked with newborn microcephaly during the Brazil Zika virus outbreak. In 2015, there were 2,782 suspected cases of microcephaly compared with 147 in 2014 and 167 in 2013. Confirmation of many of the recent cases is pending, and it is difficult to estimate how many cases went unreported before the recent awareness of the risk of virus infections. In November 2015, the Zika virus was isolated in a newborn baby from the northeastern state of Ceará, Brazil, with microcephaly and other congenital disorders. "The Lancet" medical journal reported in January

title: Zika fever
text: important to state that some localities that do not use pyriproxyfen also had reported cases of microcephaly", read a Brazilian government statement. The Brazilian government also refuted conspiracy theories that chickenpox and rubella vaccinations or genetically modified mosquitoes were causing increases in microcephaly. Researchers also suspected that Zika virus could be transmitted by a pregnant woman to her babies ("vertical transmission"). This remained unproven until February 2016, when a paper by Calvet et al. was published, showing not only was the Zika virus genome found in the amniotic fluid but also IgM antibodies against the virus. This means that not

title: Mayana Zatz
text: were carriers of neuromuscular diseases, in order to evaluate as well as to inform the risk of having offspring with a similar problem. Twelve years later she contacted these same families again, and found that most of the high risk families had avoided having children. On the other hand, Mayana was shocked to see the way the sick children born during that period had been abandoned. These children, who generally had a normal mental development but whose muscular problems were not treated, neither went to school nor underwent physical therapy. Therefore, in 1981, Mayana and her team founded the Brazilian

title: Microcephaly
text: pregnant women's "in utero" children received a biologically significant radiation dose that was relatively high due to the massive neutron output of the lower explosive-yielding Little Boy. Microcephaly is the only proven malformation, or congenital abnormality, found in the children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Intracranial volume also affects this pathology, as it is related with the size of the brain. Microcephaly generally is due to the diminished size of the largest part of the human brain, the cerebral cortex, and the condition can arise during embryonic and fetal development due to insufficient neural stem cell proliferation, impaired or premature neurogenesis,

title: Zika fever
text: French Polynesia estimated the risk of microcephaly in children born to mothers who acquired Zika virus in the first trimester to be 1%. On 24 January 2016, the WHO warned that the virus is likely to spread to nearly all countries of the Americas, since its vector, the mosquito "Aedes aegypti", is found in all countries in the region, except for Canada and continental Chile. The mosquito and dengue fever have been detected in Chile's Easter Island, some away from its closest point in mainland Chile, since 2002. In February 2016, WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of

title: Microcephaly
text: wherein microcephaly manifests. Microlissencephaly is microcephaly combined with lissencephaly (smooth brain surface due to absent sulci and gyri). Most cases of microlissencephaly are described in consanguineous families, suggesting an autosomal recessive inheritance. After the dropping of atomic bombs "Little Boy" on Hiroshima and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, several women close to ground zero who had been pregnant at the time gave birth to children with microcephaly. Microcephaly prevalence was seven of a group of 11 pregnant women at 11–17 weeks of gestation who survived the blast at less than from ground zero. Due to their proximity to the bomb, the

title: Zilda Arns
text: volunteers and has reduced infant mortality by more than half in over 31,000 urban and rural communities of intense poverty. Arns also coordinated "Pastoral da Pessoa Idosa" (Pastoral Care for Elderly Persons), and social action organisms of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil. Widowed since 1978, a mother of five and grandmother of nine, she was awarded with several honorary citizen titles throughout Brazil. She was also recognized as a "Public Health Heroe" by Pan American Health Organization Holder of a degree in medicine, Arns further studied public health, with the aim of assisting poor children in environments plagued with high

title: Zika virus
text: of microcephaly reported between October 2015 and January 2016. A number of countries issued travel warnings, and the outbreak was expected to significantly impact the tourism industry. Several countries have taken the unusual step of advising their citizens to delay pregnancy until more is known about the virus and its impact on fetal development. With the 2016 Summer Olympic Games hosted in Rio de Janeiro, health officials worldwide voiced concerns over a potential crisis, both in Brazil and when international athletes and tourists returned home and possibly would spread the virus. Some researchers speculated that only one or two tourists