Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Are you ready for Ebola?
It must have something to do with gay marriage. I'm not a medical authority but I do support a travel ban until it's contained. CDC Director Frieden is way over his head since the most serious thing he had to do as NYC Health Commissioner under Bloomberg was to try to ban big sugary drinks. The Drudge Report lately could be more accurately titled the Ebola Report and on the flipside the other school of thought that's been developing is that the media is talking about this way too much, a journalistic preoccupation or obsession or overkill. Then again I can understand it too since we have a decent chance at a real medieval plague here especially since nobody's on the same page. I myself get instinctively cranky whenever a subject is ground into a fine dust. As Saty once said everyone knows about the tits and I feel the same way about Ebola at least for now or I was but the CDC doesn't inspire me with confidence so I'm beginning to worry. FDNY now can't say "Ebola" over the dispatch for fear some nerd might be listening in on some scanner. OK so BB, Saty and maybe Dave can respond:)
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Me, I'm still shaking over Mad Cow Disease.
ReplyDelete"House" never had any Ebola episodes?
ReplyDeleteProbably the mysterious case in room 12-B. House was chasing Dr. Cuddy
Deletethrough the parking lot and misdiagnosed it as Croatian Tick Fever?
Listen nobody wanted to watch the old curmudgeon have sex. It wasn't that type of show. Jumped the shark imo.
DeleteI was telling the Mrs. about some medical research in England. They used stem cells from the olfactory bulb (nose) and were able to get a guy with a severed spine actually walking again. Mrs. is a sucker for one-liners, so I told her he lost his sense of smell (true) but that the remaining olfactory stem cells reproduced and he regained that sense (true).....but that his back sneezes once in awhile (pants on fire).
ReplyDeleteThese are not good days for the euthanasia crowd.
DeleteIMO, the problem with Ebola is the lethality percentage, sort of like the old Black Plague. I agree, if there is no vaccine and current antibiotic/palliative care lacks
ReplyDeletesuccess, then quarantine seems the logical step. I had Scarlet Fever in 2nd grade;
they put a yellow quarantine sign on the door and I missed two weeks of school, even though I felt fine. One of my better two weeks, in fact. As for CDC/NIH, they
have been dealing with the African outbreaks since at least 1976 and know as much
about the disease as Ted Cruz or Drudge. The key with viruses is the molecular biology of how they find, penetrate and reproduce in the host cell. Our best luck in
that area involves vaccinations, which alert the immune system to produce antibodies which attack the virus before it starts its nefarious process. But some viruses, like HIV, have proven difficult to treat that way and they end up with very
expensive 'cocktails' which help some. I'm thinking the standard colonoscopy pales in comparison, Z-man.
Funny about colonoscopies but even during my days of extreme dieting even THAT would have failed to meet the bar of a proper prep day just to put it in perspective.
DeleteIn case you don't have the app, the 687 diseases covered in the Dr. Gregory House
ReplyDeleteepisodes can be found here . I miss old House;
I can see him standing at his big diagnostic sheet saying something like, "Maybe, just maybe, the patient from Yonkers suffers from Shy Colon."
The medical establishment's ossified position on colonoscopies, usually ossified positions are no good (Christian fundies, anti-vacciners) but in this case it's all good ($$$$$$). My colon simply wants all options discussed which isn't being done but speaking of "House" and other shows with longevity I was thinking is there any valid reason why "The Simpsons" is still on the air? throw in SNL.
DeleteOK so as I understand it going forward any passengers from West Africa are to be landed at one of five designated airports in the US for Ebola screening. While this is better than nothing, I'll take it at the moment isn't an overall travel ban more sensible at this point?
ReplyDeleteSome of the African countries have travel bans and quite a few are doing the
Deletedesignated screening thing. An overall travel ban sounds OK, but people could cross borders, fly out of different countries to others etc. Would we ban our own citizens, a number of whom are working medicos in the affected countries? The solution is to eradicate the disease, sort of like it
has been on several occasions over the years. It seems to come from eating the raw meat of the fruit bat. I more of a burger guy..maybe McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's should open up more places there
in the rain forest?
Before you can eradicate it you have to contain it and a good way to do that is through a travel ban. A raw meat from the fruit bat ban is also a tempting idea.
DeletePros & Cons- the cost/benefit study of issues. Why are some folks in favor of torturing terrorists, but denying the law from investigating their plans and conversations on the free media? Why do some folks play at war in the woods with their armories, but hate the military? Others disparage education and teachers-why
ReplyDeletedo some of them insist on carrying guns on campus? (as if it says that in the 2nd amendment). People are consistently inconsistent. That is why I try to avoid snap
judgements. So, a guy died from Ebola in this country. That has potential serious
consequences. Potential. How many kids die from gunshot wounds, every day, year in and year out? Who cares? I may conclude an international quarantine is
needed, but keep in mind how we reacted to 9-11 and the unforeseen fallout which remains ongoing. Consider bird flu, nile virus, HIV and all the other contagions which are vectored at us by our modern transportation system. Consider our porous borders (as well as legitimate Mexican and Canadian visitors). How isolated should we be?. How long? BTW, I heard the Russians have a vaccine. But they haven't tested it yet. Did you know fruit bats are mammals?
Jihadist guy in Canada/8 million airbags in US cars- always something in the 24/7 news cycle. The airbag thing is related to thermal & humidity cycling, like that case
ReplyDeleteof the gun turret explosion that the USN first blamed on the gunners. As explosives
go through hot & cold, and dry and damp, there is some degradation and the formation of cracks and fissures. These can cause detonation rather than the expected extremely fast burn. Most older airbags used sodium azide, a chemical that is not only very toxic, but finicky. Most airbag makers suffer occasional explosions in their operations, even with the pure stuff. Another problem with sodium azide is that it can slowly react with containers and fittings, forming other less stable
azides like those of lead and copper. (BB worked with copper azide, stuff that can
be detonated by a feather) In the last few years, it has been replaced with the more
reliable guanidine nitrate, a rocket fuel additive. The deal with the accidental detonations is that the apparatus becomes part of the explosion, spewing lethal
shrapnel into the passengers face. Like Ebola, the fix is not instantaneous: they
are removing the explosives and putting a sign in the car that says 'do not sit in this seat'. Counterproductive, but where are they going to get 8 million new airbags?
Interesting with the Canadian terrorist; he was taken out by the Parliament Sergeant at arms, an old retired RCMP fellow. The suspect was all over facebook and twitter,
they knew about him, but had to wait until he did something, which is sort of counterproductive in my book. Especially if you are a victim, ya know?
Call me old-fashioned but I was never a fan of the airbag. We worry about IS and yet we have airbags with the potential of exploding shrapnel in people's faces. Peter Principle again?
DeleteWhen stuff like this happens everyone's the Surgeon General. No one actually listens to the actual people who actually deal with these actual diseases in real time, like the WHO and the Red Cross and so forth who clearly explain all the reasons why travel bans are irrational and could cause further problems. No, all of a sudden Alan Grayson is some kind of medical expert. And I usually like him, but people need to stick to their sphere of expertise. I've been a nurse 19 years but if a pregnant woman so much as twitches around me I'm calling 911, because that ain't my specialty.
ReplyDeleteBut everyone's all hysterical over Ebola,,,, and still no one gives a rat's ass about the humanitarian water crisis in Detroit (that is so bad the UNITED NATIONS are involved) and the enterovirus that's killing kids.
Because that's just not as juicy as haemorraghic fever.
A travel ban just makes sense imo until you can contain it. I wish though that those in health care who may have helped an Ebola patient or even worked in the same hospital would have enough sense not to board a cruise ship or a commercial flight. Personal responsibility ya know?
DeleteLooks like potential trouble right there in your area. 103 temperature? Seems high.
DeleteMe, I run about 95 (except for the Salmonella follies a few years back)
Yeah I just heard it on my local 5 o'clock newscast.
DeleteWhy in hell was this guy going bowling? Chris Christie has a big mouth, why doesn't he say something?
DeleteWhat's next, Ebolaboma Care?
ReplyDeleteI don't get Andrew Cuomo. Astorino doesn't have a mouse's chance in a house of ten cats of winning the NY Governorship yet Cuomo is running ads here like it's a horserace. Astorino corrupt, Astorino anti-abortion...it's. perplexing.
ReplyDeleteZ... okay, so let's accept your premise on the travel ban... how do you enforce it? How does the world community seal the borders of infected countries to keep everyone in?
ReplyDeleteAre we going to make these places isolated islands of death like England did with Australia or what we saw in the movie "Escape from New York"?
Then we should ask, at what level of infection should we enforce a travel ban on a country? When there are any infections? 10? 20? 30? or is a moving target that will always be one above the number of the US of A, so we are never inconvenienced?
Next up is who is going to enforce this? Us? or will we trust someone else to do it? Then, how do we pay for it?
Few if any public officials and politicians are considering these types of questions.
Saty makes a good point regarding Detroit... but let's take it a little further... given that annually over 50k people in the US die from the flu and pneumonia, why isn't that reality given the all day, all the time news coverage that Ebola is getting?
On the flipside Dave what's the alternative to never have a travel ban even down the road? at some point wouldn't a travel ban make some sense even for you? A travel ban re infectious diseases is I'm sure not a new idea. It's been batted around a few times and as such I'm sure there's some logistics already worked out. Folks break laws all the time but that doesn't mean we don't have laws. Saty actually made this point once in regard to traffic lights. The real reason though why we don't have an Ebola travel ban in effect yet is simply because of PC, it's seen as racially motivated and liberals don't want to go down that road.
DeleteOK so this Dr. Craig Spencer who is the first NYC Ebola victim: before exhibiting full-blown symptoms he went on some subway lines, a 3 mile jog and even went bowling the night before. Didn't apparently feel a 21-day self-quarantine was warranted and most medical experts are saying he didn't put the public at high risk. OK so let's posit that but the medical establishment needs to stop minimizing such bad behavior. It's easy enough to cut yourself in the City and if I were his fiancee I'd definitely be worried. Is it too much to ask that going forward if the odds are fairly good you have Ebola or might have Ebola exercise an abundance of caution and don't go out in public.
ReplyDeleteIf a trained physician can't be cautious, we can hardly expect the average citizen to be. NYC is high risk; I see some guy attacked policemen with a
Deletetomahawk this morning.
& the NYC Police have officially termed it an act of terror. De Blasio at a press conference said Ebola is extremely hard to get but folks seem to be getting it.
DeleteZ-man... even if I agree with you, and that's the way I lean, looking at my questions, how do we enforce it?
ReplyDeleteWell I would think you tell Liberian Airlines (dunno what the official names are) you're not landing at JFK and La Guardia and take it from there.
DeleteSo this doctor before he developed symptoms he went here he went there then he went all the way to Brooklyn just to go bowling in some hole-in-the-wall place. Even for a healthy person that's a hell of alot of activity. I think he was so overly relieved he didn't have Ebola (so he thought) he wasn't behaving rationally.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly, the virus is only transmitted by bodily fluids. That sounds a lot like HIV, and those folks go bowling. I think.
DeleteI'm not disputing that but that being the case why is it out of control in parts of West Africa? Normally you avoid bodily fluids.
DeleteSierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have pretty primitive medical facilities.
DeleteThey are very poor by western standards, lack supplies of even fresh water and soap. If Doctors Without Borders, etc were not there, IMO the
epidemic there would be much worse. Some of the indigenous people
are suspicious of foreigners, especially wearing space suits; they have even been attacked. Local tradition involves caring for the body of the deceased, sitting around the corpse, touching it etc.
You're missing something very key though and I'll get to that in a minute. I knew your response ahead of time because it's generally correct. Everybody knows Africa is a Third World country etc. but Mayor DeBlasio said the other day at his press conference that the Ebola virus is "extremely difficult" to catch (his words). Now I'd venture that poor country or rich country humans generally avoid contact with others' diarrhea and vomit and urine too if they can and incidentally do you think Americans' sanitary habits are so much better? If you do visit some day the Men's Restroom at the train station by the White Plains bus depot...
DeleteOK so practically every medical expert says the Ebola virus can be transmitted through sweat sweat being a bodily fluid. Now everybody sweats at times, in Africa it's hot and in NY it's hot during the summer months. Um, should I fill out and flesh out the rest of my theory?
DeleteI generally sweat more in basketball than bowling, though.
DeleteSome FOX News gal said what if the bowling doctor sweated on to a ball and someone with a cut picked it up. That's FOX always stretching. I wasn't making that point if you thought so. Besides bowling alleys are a nice cool temperature anyway.
DeleteI can't imagine quarantining the greater NYC metro area.
ReplyDeleteOf course since I have no medical background I'd be perfect as Obama's Ebola czar.
ReplyDeleteOK by me.
DeleteI think this thread is all Ebola'ed out:)
ReplyDeleteDepends: Will it get better or worse? I see Daryl Issa (Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi) is holding a hearing. Now we have hearings on germs? Knowing ex-con
ReplyDeleteIssa, he will accuse Doctors Without Borders of being in it for the money. Everything is political these days...Giants lose and it's Obama's fault. Kinda surprised that France hasn't had any cases, given that they have a lot of folks in the west Africa
region. "Out of Africa"- onchocerciasis, Dengue Fever, Chikungunya, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness...what a microogranismic incubator. Five million people a year die from TB, Malaria and AIDS. Ain't about
politics-it's about germs vs humans..been going on for millennia.
& we're so glad Kim Jong-un is better aren't we? So when is ISIS going to have their first Ebola case? Do they have doctors or do they just fight and behead people?
ReplyDeleteThere is an old ISIS Halloween tale. 'The Headless Doctor'.
DeleteThe weird thought of Ebola-stricken suicide bombers occured to me.
DeleteInteresting: it is sort of the medical community vs the media vs the politicians. The
ReplyDeleteAfrican nations are begging for help (and it makes a great deal of sense to eradicate
the source), but some of the medical missionaries are reluctant to be quarantined
either there or here. What would Ayn Rand say? Being big on selfishness and the virtue of selfishness, my guess is "it is a person's right, no responsibility, to themselves to walk around spreading whatever germs they want" ?! .and John Galt would have a secret cure, but withhold it because gov't won't let him charge $1200 a
shot. dunno, Z-Man
Yeah I don't get their reaction on the quarantining thing. So you watch Judge Judy for 21 days.
DeleteFolks walking around, going to shopping centers, bowling, etc. Now I see the NYC Dr. is in serious condition and some 5 year old is being tested.
DeleteEither the virus is mutating, or its transmissibility is still not clearly understood. Getting kind of interesting, no?
Viruses typically mutate so I'm a little concerned over Obama and the CDC making state quarantine measures into some type of political civil rights issue. I'd rather have Cuomo and Christie's overcaution because once Ebola gets a foothold there's no going back.
DeleteOf course Saty thinks otherwise.
Delete' So you watch Judge Judy for 21 days.' Holy Crap! That would cure even the most diehard ISIS warrior.
ReplyDeleteWhen I go over someone's house they typically have it on and I'm there with my sandwich. Normally she "solves" a case within two minutes and yells alot. Should be used in law class as an example of what not to do.
ReplyDeleteIMO, she should be jailed for contempt of court.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking they say (them being the medical establishment I guess) that it's ok for returning Ebola workers to go shopping, go to the movies, get on a ferris wheel etc. So what happens when you're in line at a crowded shopping mall and you're beginning to feel symptomatic? Do you cut to the front of the line, drop your packages where you are, what? You're aways from home and also have to take a mean piss. Wouldn't it have been better to stay home?
ReplyDeleteAll good points. It seems the virus lies hidden away in the body system for quite awhile, then suddenly bursts into full virulence. I suspect they are looking for some sort of blood/serum test which would be a better indicator than having to wait 21 days, which is hard on everybody. Another ebola thing: Those that have been cured. Really? I guess the rationale is that
Deletethey have the correct antibodies, and any stray ebola viruses are quickly and routinely snuffed out. We note that the cured people can be and are,
a source of life-saving plasma. Question of the day-where is the Ebola Czar?
MIA - Since we have a thing called Chronic Lyme let's hope we don't have Chronic Ebola.
DeleteIn Nazi Germany, they would have to wear a large 'E' on their clothes, and probably sit out their quarantine at Dachau.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings to mind those who believe Ebola may have had its genesis as part of secret bio-warfare research.
DeleteShhh! US Army biological weapons center went through all this20 years ago .
DeleteProbabaly why they are working with CDC/NIH.
As I recall the Russians dropped the program, concluded Ebola wasn't fitted for biological weaponry. Yet we get on Assad's case.
DeleteI'm not getting how Obama is politicizing this.
ReplyDeleteWhat's this Jody Arias thing? Back again? Are they getting Judge Judy to sit for the
ReplyDeletecase?. Cable TV gets waterier and more boring by the day. Been watching Carl Sagan and brass quintets on Youtube and using the TV for mood lighting.
It's the death penalty phase. In my book she's not a candidate, wasn't cooking gizzards of humans or anything.
DeleteI stopped by for a visit. I was surprised to not find a post about the synod. I thought you'd have weighed in on that or Pope Francis' declaration that evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God isn't 'a magician with a magic wand'.
ReplyDeleteThe Pope watches the Big Bang Theory?
DeleteI'm getting my thoughts in order and may do something after lunch. With Obama politicizing Ebola it took up alot of my time.
DeleteHere's what I love about the whole ebola thing...
ReplyDeleteI don's see how we can reasonably enforce a travel ban, and no one has stepped forward to explain it, but let's think about this for a minute...
Our politicians have been all over the map, depending on the tea leaves of their personal political constituencies...
Mitch McConnell at first took the "I am not a scientist" route when he said no travel ban. Now apparently, he is a scientist because he supports a ban.
Christie claimed he had to quarantine a nurse to protect the people, and then reversed himself, in what amazingly is not a reversal.
Ted Cruz' staff leader literally has blamed Obamacare for the ebola mess, choosing not to deal with the ineptitude of the Dallas hospital...
To say Obama has politicized ebola, without also citing others just seems a little one sided...
Here's what I mean though. Obama acts like the purpose of a quarantine is to punish and criminalize a returning health-care worker when he knows better. I'm not saying he has to agree with state quarantine measures just acknowledge the purpose of a quarantine is public safety. It's just shoddy rheoric in my book.
DeleteNow this Hickox nurse is threatening to sue the State of Maine over her continuing quarantine there. Sounds like she has to be somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI caught a piece on FoxNews today arguing that the Army is much more stringent on
ReplyDeleteEbola quarantine than the CDC or administration. As they proclaimed with their usual puerile smirks, I thought. you a*holes ever been in an Army barracks? Meningitis can spread through those like a forest fire, given the bunks five feet apart and hundreds of soldiers on a floor. Yes, the Army has tighter quarantines...for good
reason.
Thank God I never got the FOX app.
ReplyDeleteBB have they ruled out an olfactory route of transmission of the disease? I don't mean respiratory of course but the narrower case of smelling the bodily fluids of the infected person. I notice all those people who interact with the Ebola-infected even if they're not in full Hazmat mode their mouth and nose are always covered (of course this could be for ordinary germs too).
ReplyDeleteSo far they have, but IMO, the question remains valid considering bodily fluids, nasal mucus, sneezing, aerosolization etc. It requires, and we await the results of further study .
DeleteIn this country abundant caution is for some reason deemed controversial. In western Africa there is a great fear of and respect for the disease, over here we're defiant and rather flippant (e.g. returning health-care workers can right away hit the malls). It may come back to bite us.
ReplyDeleteIt seems many of the liberal blogs stick up for the in-your-face nurse. Even Ayn Rand in her defense of ultra individual rights drew the line at harm to others. I guess
ReplyDeletethe crux of the matter is in this case potential harm, medical knowledge (or lack)
and the role of the various levels of government. Black, white, gray-there must be
a right answer there someplace.
It's like you can't even debate Saty on the issue which is probably why she's not here. The Left has politicized Ebola.
ReplyDeleteI had thought the honor system of self-quarantining was one of the protocols. These health-care workers seem a rebellious bunch. IMO 21 days isn't that long and I'm assuming they might even allow you to read a book in your backyard.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired explosives chemist, my bias is to err on the side of caution. So reading a book in the backyard would be my choice. The nurse case can turn out one of two ways: she remains non infectious and goes on with her career, or she infects half
ReplyDeletethe press corps and the town in Maine and the media gets thinned by ebola and it
spreads through New England. The risk percentage is very low, but the potential consequences are starkly high. Just sayin.
Agreed. To me that NEJM editorial is overly strident. One would think this is an issue where both sides can have a reasonable POV. I'm actually surprised by the Left's passion over the issue. It's not like we're talking about abortion or gay marriage but it's like they're using the same lens or prism.
ReplyDeleteThe infectious disease experts have been running their data through a computer model, predicting its effect in the US. Sort of an Ebola App ?
ReplyDeleteSiri would probably tell the nurse to stay home. Watson too.
ReplyDelete