Transmission electron micrograph of Wolachia within an insect cell
Credit: Public Library of Science/Scott O’Neill
The latest in the effort for world domination over bugs and the diseases they carry is Wolbachia, a Gram-negative bacterium of the family Rickettsiales first found in 1924 and in 60% of all the insects, including some mosquitoes, crustaceans, and nematodes (worms). For those that like numbers, that’s over 1 million species of insects and other invertebrates. It is one of the most infectious bacterial genera on earth and was largely unknown until the 90’s due to its evasion tactics. It’s favorite hosts are filarial nematodes and arthropods.
Wolachia obtains nutrients through symbiotic relationships with its host. In arthropods it affects reproductive abilities by male killing, parthenogenesis, cytoplasmic incompatibility and feminization. However, if Wolbachia is removed from nematodes, the worms become infertile or die. These abilities are what make it so appealing for insect control – cytoplasmic incompatibility, which essentially means it results in sperm and eggs being unable to form viable offering.
http://www.slideserve.com/babu/wolbachia (Nifty slide show here)
It also makes it appealing for use in human diseases such as elephantiasis and River Blindness caused by filarial nematodes, which are treated with antibiotics (doxycycline) targeting Wolbachia which in turn negatively impacts the worms. Traditional treatment for lymphatic Filariasis is Ivermectin but they also use chemotherapy to disrupt the interactions between Wolbachia and nematodes. This anti-Wolbachia strategy is a game-changer for treating onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170316120451.htm
Lyme/MSIDS patients often have nematode involvement.
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Wolbachia, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emerging-diseases/200902/tick-menagerie-lyme-isnt-the-only-disease-you-can-get-tick Both Willy Burgdorfer, the discoverer of the Lyme bacterium, as well as Richard Ostfeld, an animal ecologist found nematode worms in ticks. Since then, some provocative research involving nematodes, Lyme/MSIDS, dementia, and Alzheimer’s has been done.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/06/03/borrelia-hiding-in-worms-causing-chronic-brain-diseases/, https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/08/09/dr-paul-duray-research-fellowship-foundation-some-great-research-being-done-on-lyme-disease/, https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/07/10/greg-lee-excellent-article-on-strategies-for-neurological-lyme/, https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/10/18/psychiatric-lymemsids/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-tiny-bacterium-called-wolbachia-could-defeat-dengue/ Yet, according to many, Wolbachia is the next eradicator of Dengue Fever and possibly Malaria, chikungunya, and yellow fever because it stops the virus from replicating inside mosquitoes that transmit the diseases. The approach is also believed to have potential for other vector-borne diseases like sleeping sickness transmitted by the tsetse fly. Evidently, Wolbachia does not infect the Aedes aegypti mosquito naturally, so researchers have been infecting mosquitoes in the lab and releasing them into the wild since 2011. The article states it hopes that the method works and expects infection rates in people to drop and hopes that the mosquitoes will pass the bacterium to their offspring, despite it disappearing after a generation or two of breeding and needing to “condition” the microbes to get them used to living in mosquitoes before injecting them. They also state Wolbachia is
“largely benign for mosquitoes and the environment,” and “To humans, Wolbachia poses no apparent threat.”
Their work has shown that the bacterium resides only within the cells of insects and other arthropods. They also state that tests on spiders and geckos that have eaten Wolbachia mosquitoes are just fine and show no symptoms. An independent risk assessment by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organizatioin (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, concluded that,
“Release of Wolbachia mosquitoes would have negligible risk to people and the environment.”
Interestingly, trials are underway in Vietnam, Indonesia, and now Brazil.
They state that scaling up operations to rear enough Wolbachia mosquitoes is too labor-intensive and in Cairns they are going to put Wolbachia mosquito eggs right into the environment. Evidently, other researchers are wanting to release genetically modified (GMO) mosquitoes that carry a lethal gene, and they’ve done it, and it’s causing an uproar: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/9/genetically-modifiedmosquitoessetoffuproarinfloridakeys.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-07-25-googles-sister-company-releasing-20-million-mosquitoes-infected-with-fertility-destroying-bacteria-depopulation-experiment.html As of July 14, 2017, Google’s bio-lab, Verily Life Sciences, started releasing Wolbachia laced mosquitoes in California as part of project, Debug Fresno to reduce the mosquito population.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/research-exposes-new-health-risks-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-and-salmon Numerous studies show unexpected insertions and deletions which can translate into possible toxins, allergens, carcinogens, and other changes. Science can not predict the real-life consequences on global pattens of gene function.
Even the European count decides CRISPR plants are GMOS and should be subjected to the same controls: https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/611716/in-blow-to-new-tech-europe-court-decides-crispr-plants-are-gmos/
“It means for all the new inventions … you would need to go through the lengthy approval process of the European Union,” Kai Purnhagen, an expert at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, told Nature.
So, why question the use of Wolbachia as a bio-control?
For Lyme/MSIDS & chronically ill patients, 3 words: worms and inflammation.
Dogs treated for heart worm (D. immitis) have trouble due to the heart worm medication causing Wolbachia to be released into the blood and tissues causing severe Inflammation in pulmonary artery endothelium which may form thrombi and interstitial inflammation. Wolbachia also activates pro inflammatory cytokines. Pets treated with tetracycline a month prior to heart worm treatment will kill some D. immitis as well as suppress worm production. When given after heart worm medication, it may decrease the inflammation from Wolbachia kill off.
http://www.critterology.com/articles/wolbachia-and-their-role-heartworm-disease-and-treatment
The words worms and inflammation should cause every Lyme/MSIDS patient to pause. Many of us are put on expensive anthelmintics like albendazole, ivermectin, Pin X, and praziquantel to get rid of worms and are told to avoid anything causing inflammation due to the fact we have enough of it already. We go on special anti-inflammatory diets and take systemic enzymes and herbs to try and lower inflammation. https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/04/22/systemic-enzymes/
Seems to me, many MSIDS/LYME patients when treated with anthelmintics, will have Wolbachia released into their blood and tissues causing wide spread inflammation, similarly to dogs.
And that’s not all.
According to a study by Penn State, mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia are more likely to become infected with West Nile – which will then be transmitted to humans.
“This is the first study to demonstrate that Wolbachia can enhance a human pathogen in a mosquito,“ one researcher said.
“The results suggest that caution should be used when releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into nature to control vector-borne diseases of humans.” “Multiple studies suggest that Wolbachia may enhance some Plasmodium parasites in mosquitoes, thus increasing the frequency of malaria transmission to rodents and birds,” he said.
The study states that caution should be used when releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into nature. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140710141628.htm
So besides very probable wide spread inflammation, and that other diseases may become more prevalent due to Wolbachia laced mosquitoes, studies show Wolbachia enhances Malaria in mosquitos. Lyme/MSIDS patients are often co-infected with Babesia, a malarial-like parasite that requires similar treatment and has been found to make Lyme (borrelia) much worse. It is my contention that the reason many are not getting well is they are not being treated for the numerous co-infections. Some Lyme/MSIDS patients have Malaria and/or Babesia as well as Lyme.
Regardless of what the CDC states, all the doxycycline in the world is not going to cure this complicated and complex illness.
Lastly, with Brazil’s recent explosion of microcephaly, the introduction of yet another man-made intervention (Wolbachia laced mosquitos) should be considered in evaluating potential causes and cofactors. And while the CDC is bound and determined to blame the benign virus, Zika, there are numerous other factors that few are considering – as well as the synergistic effect of all the variables combined. Microcephaly could very well be a perfect storm of events.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/21/how-zika-got-the-blame/, https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/03/04/health-policy-recap/, https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/03/08/fixation-on-zikapolio/
I hate bugs as much as the next person, but careful long-term studies of Wolbachia are required here.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20394659 “Despite the intimate association of B. burgdorferi and I. scapularis, the population structure, evolutionary history, and historical biogeography of the pathogen are all contrary to its arthropod vector.”
In short, borrelia (as well as numerous pathogens associated with Lyme/MSIDS), is a smart survivor.
While borrelia have been around forever with 300 strains and counting worldwide, epidemics, such as what happened with Lyme Disease in Connecticut are not caused by genetics but by environmental toxins – in this case, bacteria, viruses, funguses, and stuff not even named yet.
Circling back to Wolbachia.
Hopefully it is evident that many man-made interventions have been introduced into the environment causing important health ramifications: Wolbachia laced mosquitoes and eggs, GMO mosquitoes including CRISPR, and in the case of Zika in Brazil, whole-cell pertussis vaccinations (DTap) for pregnant women up to 20 days prior to expected date of birth, a pyriproxyfen based pesticide applied by the State in Brazil on drinking water, as well as aerial sprays of the insect growth regulators Altosid and VectoBac (Aquabac, Teknar, and LarvX, along with 25 other Bti products registered for use in the U.S.) in New York (Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and The Bronx) to combat Zika. “We feel it’s critical that the scientific community consider the potential hazards of all off-target mutations caused by CRISPR, including single nucleotide mutations and mutations in non-coding regions of the genome … Researchers who aren’t using whole genome sequencing to find off-target effects may be missing potentially important mutations. Even a single nucleotide change can have a huge impact.” http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/06/13/crispr-gene-editing-dangers.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art3&utm_campaign=20170613Z1_UCM&et_cid=DM147520&et_rid=2042753642
All of this is big, BIG business.
Is the introduction of Wolbachia another puzzle piece in the perfect storm of events causing or exacerbating human health issues?
BTW: Since 2017, ZAP Males® which are live male mosquitoes infected with the ZAP strain, a particular strain of the Wolbachia bacterium have a time-limited registration allowing them to be sold for five years in the District of Columbia and the following 20 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.
Infected males mate with females, which then produce offspring that do not survive. (Male mosquitoes do not bite people.) https://www.ncipmc.org/connection/?p=4065
The jury’s still out, but it’s not looking good – particularly for the chronically ill.
