It's a puzzlement.
And too late now.
UPDATE:
National Institutes of Health workers in West Africa had an employee who knew about promising research the U.S. government had funded on a serum that had been tested only in monkeys.
Within days, doses of the unproven treatment had made its way in frozen vials across the ocean and was administered to Brantly and Writebol.
President Obama has done something that's never been done.
President Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to bring two Americans suffering from the Ebola virus into America.
We sent a specially-equipped Gulf Stream III.
It's an air ambulance equipped to handle highly contagious patients
and keep them shielded and protected from attending medical staff and the flight crew.
Why are we doing this?
Why didn't we send American medical personnel to where these two Americans are and treat them in a quarantine situation somewhere closer to them?
Yes, the Ebola virus is ALREADY HERE in labs where a small select core of physicians are trying to create a vaccine.
But whole SHIFTS of nurses and TEAMS of doctors will be going in and out of the two infected patients' rooms.
This disease spreads very easily.
Two doctors treating Ebola patients -- decked out in full hazmat gear have died.
Two doctors!
One was 39 years old, wearing full hazmat gear.
I don't know how it got inside a hazmat suit, but it did.
That's THE
point.
It killed a doctor in a full hazmat suit!
And they DON'T KNOW HOW IT GOT THERE.
The doctor had to have made some kind of a mistake,
BUT THAT JUST MEANS MISTAKES CAN BE MADE.
Even with full hazmat gear, you can get this virus.
It's not all that hard to get once you are around somebody who has it.
Especially if you do not know the person has it. The incubation period is three weeks.
So I can't think of a reason why anybody would want to bring people suffering from it into this country.
What eventually happens is, the first couple of weeks with Ebola you think you have the flu -- or if you are in Africa you might think you have malaria.
The point is that it's not immediately detectible,
except if you go to the doctor the first couple of days you think something's wrong.
Now, most people when they get the flu don't go to the doctor. They think it's the flu, and they just take it easy for a while.
After two weeks, other symptoms emerge --
and the other symptoms include organ failure, because the Ebola virus permeates veins and arteries.
All you have to do is come in contact with any bodily fluid. It's not contagious --
Well, I shouldn't say that: Sneezing and so forth.
A study conducted in 2012 showed that Ebola was able to travel between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and were never placed in direct contact.
Though the method of transmission in the study was not officially determined,
one of the scientists involved, Dr. Gary Kobinger, from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada,
told BBC News that he believed that the infection was spread through large droplets that were suspended in the air.
"What we suspect is happening is large droplets; they can stay in the air, but not long; they don't go far," he explained.
"But they can be absorbed in the airway, and this is how the infection starts,
and
this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way."
In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier.
After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised.
One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.
Translation:
Ebola IS an airborne virus.
Think sitting in a crowded movie theater, standing in a LONG Wal-Mart line, or attending a college ball game.
I understand compassion for two caring physicians who contracted an incurable disease courageously treating unfortunates half a world away.
I also have compassion for the millions of Americans in this country when it has been shown that
being in a FULL HAZMAT SUIT CANNOT KEEP YOU SAFE FROM THE INCURABLE DISEASE.
Did President Obama play politics with the lives of millions of Americans in a country as yet uninfected?
Thanks to Mason Canyon, here is how "safely" the CDC works:
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 11, 2014 released a report on its investigation into a June anthrax incident at one of its labs,
a process that led to new revelations that another of its labs unintentionally sent a sample containing highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza to another lab.
In a new development regarding another pathogen incident at a federal lab,
CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, said ongoing tests on six vials labeled "variola" that had been abandoned in a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lab on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus yielded live smallpox virus.
He called the three lab incidents serious and troubling, and said workers at CDC's labs, as well as the American people, depend on the CDC to protect their health. "These events should never have happened," he said.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
DO YOU TRUST THE GOVERNMENT?
DO YOU TRUST THE MEDIA?
A face to put to the headlines:
A face to put to the headlines:
Your government, my government, probably most governments treat us like mushrooms. They keep us in the dark (except when it suits) and feed us generous amounts of crap. Which far to many of us swallow without realising what it is.
ReplyDeleteYes I fully understand compassion for the people who have contracted the ebola virus - but what was he trying to achieve by moving them? And who told him it was a good idea?
Elephant's Child:
ReplyDeleteI fear you are right: we are caught in the Mushroom Trap with everyone official with this Ebola situation.
There is no vaccine Atlanta can give them. The officials there admit that all they can do is provide fluids and attention ... which could have been done just as well by a team of physicians and nurses sent to them.
I fear it was grandstanding on President Obama's part ... for his approval rating not for any good it will do those two brave physicians. :-(
I just don't know what to think about this situation to be honest. It beggars belief.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't see how it would be grandstanding on President Obama's part either, because let's face it, if the Ebola spreads (god forbid) he will be the most hated man in the USA.
Let's just 'hope' it's contained.
With the amount of global travel we've got going on today, Ebola could probably spread to Americans from an African hospital about as easily as from an American hospital. I'd trust an American hospital's quarantine procedures more than an African's--- and I don't normally trust American hospitals.
ReplyDeleteWith the amount of global travel we've got going on today, Ebola could probably spread to Americans from an African hospital about as easily as from an American hospital. I'd trust an American hospital's quarantine procedures more than an African's--- and I don't normally trust American hospitals.
ReplyDeleteWendi:
ReplyDeleteIt does beggar description. Obama is already hugely disliked by great segments of our population. I believe he wanted a grand gesture that would look good in the media to counterbalance Obama Care.
He foolishly believed the usual quarantine procedures would be enough when if he read the news articles he would have realized that they hadn't saved the two doctors who died or the two doctors he is bringing into our country.
Politicians tend to believe that a path that will boost their approval rating will all turn out right in the end.
If this turns into a Nightmare, his approval ratings will be the last thing he will have to worry about. sigh.
Annakindt:
Ebola did indeed travel to Liberia via airlines. I have no doubt that the two doctors will be subject to better quarintine procedures here than in Africa, but Africa already has the disease. We, as yet, do not. Why take the risk and endanger millions of children?
Thanks for visiting! :-)
I have a hard time believing Obama really thought that bringing Ebola to the US would boost his approval rating. If this turns into a modern day Black Plague...as you say his approval rating will become the least concern of everyone.
ReplyDeleteRobin:
ReplyDeleteObama thought of it as a Rescue Mission not bringing Ebola to the U.S. -- especially since he knew strains of Ebola were already being worked on in various CDC labs. But lab work on vaccines is one thing, a hospital environment is quite another.
The more venues there are for mistakes, the more likely they will happen.
Knowing past history, I feel we are not being told everything ... for the public good of course.
Arrggggh. This is so frustrating. I too was boggled when I heard the infected doctors were being shipped back here. Someone's already died from it in London now too. It's spreading. :(
ReplyDeleteCarol:
ReplyDeleteThanks for favoriting this post on Twitter for me! :-)
It is frustrating. I believe politicians have become convinced science can cure any virus that appears so something like the Black Death will never again sweep the globe.
Complacency may well kill needless thousands. Sigh.
I'd like to know what and who else was involved in bringing these doctors back to the US.
ReplyDeleteIf strings were pulled, why?
Perhaps the doctors studying the virus know that eventually someone will bring this disease back to the northern continents, and are attempting to be ready for it. Airline travel is a closed environment which makes it an ideal habitat for air-born diseases.
I feel for those who have the disease and their families. But that said, I don't think they should have been moved. And with the problems the CDC has had lately, I won't trust them to handle anything much less help with the treatment. This is a terrible situation.
ReplyDeleteD.G.:
ReplyDeleteIt's an old adage: When the Company Line doesn't make sense, it's a lie."
As of now, there is no vaccine to test on those two poor doctors. Is it just to watch them die and record the process scientifically?
Why risk all of America to do it?
Mason:
You're right: this is a terrible situation. And, like you, I do not trust the CDC anymore.
I wonder if those two patients were brought to this country not only for humane purposes, but because in that particular area of Africa the quarantine standards are abysmal. I've been in hospitals in Cambodia and Pakistan, and they were shockingly primitive. By having the two patients here, not only might they stand a better chance of survival, but Ebola could be studied in a more controlled environment.
ReplyDeleteDo I trust the government? Not a whole lot, but I trust the private sector and corporations even less. Since my late Dad was a geologist with the government, I saw up close how only government or academic scientists can pursue pure science, whereas in the private sector there is always the profit motive and limitations to what they are allowed to research. Either way, we're all human and capable of making very human mistakes, which is a big reason why I'm against nuclear power, among other things. I've also studied history, and can tell you that pandemics happen and just because we have modern medicine that doesn't mean there won't be a big Next One.
Hi Roland .. it's good to be aware of what's going on ... but even here we have things that are not correct.
ReplyDeleteThe woman Carol mentions as dying in London - was at Gatwick, south of London, and she in fact didn't have Ebola ...
As you can see ... it's a difficult situation .. and hysteria is sweeping all ... I sincerely hope it's not a plague type situation .. but it is serious ... Hilary