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E is for Ebola (Dallas TX)

WFFaithful said:
from Drudge

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Milhouse said:
lol awesome
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I remember when I was younger and used to get upset about shit like this from the right.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I have a hard time understanding how anyone with even a small measure of scientific knowledge is worried this will become a big issue here in the US.
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Do you have a hard time understanding these guys? They're experts. They've worked with Ebola and are worried about the potential outcomes because of all the unknowns. That's my concern as well. It's all hunky dory to get dogmatic about the risk as long as the virus stays like it did..and paint worries as right wing conspiracies and turning it into a "hate the immigrants" issue...but we really don't know what will happen. What I don't understand is why we can't take it a little more seriously given all the unknowns. That's just common sense.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#page=1

Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

"We just don't have the data to exclude it," said Peters, who continues to research viral diseases at the University of Texas in Galveston.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government's massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. "Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here."

If Ebola were to mutate on its path from human to human, said Russell and other scientists, its virulence might wane — or it might spread in ways not observed during past outbreaks, which were stopped after transmission among just two to three people, before the virus had a greater chance to evolve. The present outbreak in West Africa has killed approximately 3,400 people, and there is no medical cure for Ebola.

"I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Russell said. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man.... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't."
 
You are doing the same thing you do with climate change and applying it to Ebola, you take the differing opinion supported by a few individuals and run with it making your differing opinion just as dogmatic but with a lot less evidence or common sense.
 
I've already said it once and I will say it again: more people will die in this country from Influenza this winter than will die from Ebola.
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
You are doing the same thing you do with climate change and applying it to Ebola, you take the differing opinion supported by a few individuals and run with it making your differing opinion just as dogmatic but with a lot less evidence or common sense.
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LOL....dude, I cite the IPCC data/report with climate change. That's the people YOU believe. They are the ones that got the "consensus" you guys always talk about. I'm not taking "differing opinion supported by a few individuals" and running with it, I've been citing conclusions from the recent consensus report and pointing out their back pedaling....being done for the exact reasons I've pointed out for 10+ years.

Here I'm citing Ebola experts/scientists and sharing their concerns of risk and mutation, some of the few that have actually worked with real outbreaks. I have the same concerns for the same reasons. I would wager most scientists involved with this have the same concerns. It sounds like from these quotes that the field is more worried about scaring people than actually protecting them from the real risks. They want to be reactionary to the problem.

I came through Atlanta from Mexico on Saturday. I did not see a single sign about health warnings for people entering from African countries with Ebola. Lots of signs about MERs concerns from the Middle East. Does that make sense? Having some common sense about the real risks isn't dogmatic.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I've already said it once and I will say it again: more people will die in this country from Influenza this winter than will die from Ebola.
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As long as it doesn't mutate into something worse, sure. That doesn't mean something worse isn't a significant risk and that doesn't mean worrying about said risk is dumb or hard to understand.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I've already said it once and I will say it again: more people will die in this country from Influenza this winter than will die from Ebola.
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talk about a punt. if he's right, he's right. if he's wrong, we're all dead and can't call him on it.

well played, sir
 
obviously they weren't screening for pretentious idiots, either. c'mon CDC/thanks obama
 
Its like the only absolute is that nothing is known and everything is possible so we must prepare for all possible unknowns instead of dealing with the here and now. If we don't start funding the alien invasion defense I am going to be so pissed when they get here.
 
pourdeac said:
As long as it doesn't mutate into something worse, sure. That doesn't mean something worse isn't a significant risk and that doesn't mean worrying about said risk is dumb or hard to understand.
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Do you sit around worrying that HIV will mutate into an airborne virus? Like Ebola, it's transmitted via close contact with blood and bodily fluids, and is also an RNA virus yet hasn't evolved into an airborne pathogen via any sort of genetic mutation.

I agree that any virus can mutate into something worse. We witness it literally every single year as influenza has mutated into different strains. I also happen to believe that a virus with a 40+ year history of not evolving to be transmissible through the air from human to human is one that the CDC has a pretty good handle on.

Will a few people be infected here in the US? Yes.

Will they possibly spread the infection to other people? Yes.

Will that number be statistically significant? No.

Will it become an outbreak in the US? No.

The simple fact is that it's very hard for Ebola to be transmitted (in spite of any hypotheticals about it being airborne, the decades of research on the virus do not remotely support that possibility at this time), and given the relatively low r0 value, a country with a good public health system will be able to contain the virus fairly easily.

I think some of the people out there misinterpret a single, or even a dozen cases, as being a threat to the general population but it's simply not true here in the US.

I was someone who's immediate reaction to this a month ago was "holy shit, we're all gonna die", but then my wife, who has her PhD in molecular genetics and 3 years of postdoc research in genetic epidemiology basically slapped me upside the head and explained how this shit works. I'm far from an expert, but I've read enough and talked to enough people who work in epidemiology for a living to feel comfortable that this isn't something worth worrying over here in the US.
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
Its like the only absolute is that nothing is known and everything is possible so we must prepare for all possible unknowns instead of dealing with the here and now. If we don't start funding the alien invasion defense I am going to be so pissed when they get here.
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obama fails again
 
Liquid Karma said:
Do you sit around worrying that HIV will mutate into an airborne virus? Like Ebola, it's transmitted via close contact with blood and bodily fluids, and is also an RNA virus yet hasn't evolved into an airborne pathogen via any sort of genetic mutation.

I agree that any virus can mutate into something worse. We witness it literally every single year as influenza has mutated into different strains. I also happen to believe that a virus with a 40+ year history of not evolving to be transmissible through the air from human to human is one that the CDC has a pretty good handle on.

Will a few people be infected here in the US? Yes.

Will they possibly spread the infection to other people? Yes.

Will that number be statistically significant? No.

Will it become an outbreak in the US? No.

The simple fact is that it's very hard for Ebola to be transmitted (in spite of any hypotheticals about it being airborne, the decades of research on the virus do not remotely support that possibility at this time), and given the relatively low r0 value, a country with a good public health system will be able to contain the virus fairly easily.

I think some of the people out there misinterpret a single, or even a dozen cases, as being a threat to the general population but it's simply not true here in the US.

I was someone who's immediate reaction to this a month ago was "holy shit, we're all gonna die", but then my wife, who has her PhD in molecular genetics and 3 years of postdoc research in genetic epidemiology basically slapped me upside the head and explained how this shit works. I'm far from an expert, but I've read enough and talked to enough people who work in epidemiology for a living to feel comfortable that this isn't something worth worrying over here in the US.
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Very well stated. Poordeac please respond.
 
"Do you sit around worrying that HIV will mutate into an airborne virus? Like Ebola, it's transmitted via close contact with blood and bodily fluids, and is also an RNA virus yet hasn't evolved into an airborne pathogen via any sort of genetic mutation."

Bad example LK, it's very likely that PourDeac does sit around wondering if HIV will mutate into an airborne virus. It will be transmitted via the gays forcing their marriage on everyone.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
"Do you sit around worrying that HIV will mutate into an airborne virus? Like Ebola, it's transmitted via close contact with blood and bodily fluids, and is also an RNA virus yet hasn't evolved into an airborne pathogen via any sort of genetic mutation."

Bad example LK, it's very likely that PourDeac does sit around wondering if HIV will mutate into an airborne virus. It will be transmitted via the gays forcing their marriage on everyone.
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I pretty much could have stopped after that first sentence. That comparison is all that is needed to explain why the hysterical response to Ebola is looney tunes.
 
there anything new on the growth in Africa compared to expectations a few weeks ago? Unable to find anything current.
 
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