Contagious or Not?

Not enough is being done from what I understand.

Some places in Africa are having severe shortages of body bags, which compound the problem of dealing with the dead that are still highly contagious.

And then we compound the problem of poor equipment with the fact the ebola virus is also spread to mammals in the wild. Hunters (human and animal) kill the affected animals for food. Bats, pigs, antelope, porcupine, cats, dogs, and some suspect birds but the bird to human transmission has yet to be proven. There are numerous pathways of contamination and little in the way of containment. Animals do not respect political boundaries. Add in a dose of human corruption and I fear Lyn may be proven right with time. Oh well, fish taste great and my freezer is full.

This is one area where western economics has bitten the rest of the world due to their dependence on the west for supplies. Hypodermic syringes used to be made of glass and could be cleaned and sterilized for re-use. In western countries it became cheaper and safer to use disposable plastic hypos that are packaged as sterile and disposed of after one use so glass syringes disappeared from the market. Maybe WHO, the UN and others should restart the manufacture and distribution of sterilizable reusable glass syringes.

A year from now we might see a supply of glass syringes that could help. Too late as near as I can see.

How about we just follow the lead of a local company impacted by the disease?

Firestone Did What Governments Have Not: Stopped Ebola ...

And look at what those procedures are:

1. Quarantine the infected.
2. Provide protection for the healthcare providers.
3. Quarantine the potentially infected away from the infected.

Or to put it in simpler terms:

1. Isolate the pathogen from the uninfected.
2. Isolate the pathogen from the uninfected.
3. Isolate the pathogen from the uninfected.

Reusable syringes, or reusing disposable syringes provides a potential for the pathogen to break isolation through improper/incomplete sterilization systems. Reusable sterilizable equipment requires infrastructure for the sterilization. Power for the autoclaves, clean sterilized water for the steam baths, training and discipline in the staff to do the WHOLE procedure every time, and to re-do the procedure if it appears that something didn't happen as expected. Out in the 'undeveloped' countries, these things may be severely lacking.

So maybe we just need to let Nature thin the herd as humans have bred themselves into an unsustainable unmanageable mass.

Well, since there is no 'cure' or 'vaccine' for Ebola, the only solution AT THIS TIME, is to 'let the wildfire burn itself out in a contained area to save the rest of the forest.'

As far as the unsustainable, unmanageable mess part goes, I'll be one of the first to suggest that the gene pool is is desperate need of some chlorine. We just have to look at the US Congress to see that we've got way too many idiots per capita, if the majority of our lawmakers are in that group.

I won't mention geographic regions here, that'll just lead to flame-bait, and I make a rule about not feeding the trolls, unless I'm feeding them to OTHER trolls.

(It's a guilty pleasure of mine, watching trolls try to out-troll each other, besides, if they're busy flaming each other, they're too busy to pick on the normal people.)

There is a good reason why glass syringes are no longer in use, even in third world countries. When you factor in the costs of replacing broken syringes, the costs of medical technician time operating the sterilisers and the costs of transmitting further disease through inadequate sterilisation the overall cost of glass syringes is much greater than the cost of disposables.

Yeah, I have a problem with people criticizing the medical personnel who are putting their lives on the line dealing with a disease that is 60 percent fatal.

A class A hazmat suit requires SCBA, or attachment to supplied air for breathing. Are you sure the workers are using class A suits, or are they wearing a class B suit with a full face cartridge respirator?

At any rate, your assessment seems sounds enough, that improper procedure is to blame, most likely due to fatigue, although poor decontamination procedure upon exiting the hazardous zone might also be a source of caution.

I didn't say that they were exclusively wearing Class A suits. Obviously, there is a broad spectrum of protective gear employed by personnel involved in the front line fighting.

However, what I did elude to is that even Class A suits are worthless if a mistake is made de-suiting; and long hours and harsh environmental conditions will just make the opportunity for errors all the more likely.

So far over 230 doctors and nurses have become infected and died from ebola just this year.

This simply punctuates the difficulties of working suited in these conditions with a contagion like ebola.

Information?

Reliable or anecdotal?

Real or hysterical?

Fact is, hard facts are almost nonexistent.

My wife says this could be bigger than we think. She's in the health care industry.

I'd say in 6 months we'll know more. Unless it's much worse than we think.

I am sure the media will make it worse than it really is.

My favorite media line for the end of the world is, "Earth to be destroyed by asteroid! Poor and the homeless to be impacted the most."

I'm not too worried about it. According to the mass media all the chemicals I am being exposed to while fraccing will easily kill off the heartiest of Ebola virus!

Wear a mask, goggles, and gloves.....and you'll be safe....

...of course you could go for the whole fluid-resistant protective suit....


http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resources/pdfs/ebola-factsheet.pdf

I don't know, we will have to wait and see like lyn said, we will obviously find out soon enough. I tend to think it will be worse here in the US because we are so mobile, flying all over the place and can drive a car 1200 miles in a couple days.

And we have the political correctness to deal with.

It would seem if the Dallas patient 0 went to the hospital exhibiting symptoms, and was examined by ER personnel then whoever examined him is probably infected also.

And maybe the people they examined after him.

Time will tell. I hope I am wrong but I think it will be hardest on our healthcare workers. One of my daughters is an RN.

The worry is that as long as this virus inhabits a human host. It might mutate to a virus that is airborne. At that point it would get out of control.

They believe they know the source(fruit bat). That as long as transmission stays as it is it can be contained.

The problem is the peoples inhabiting area of the source. There are too many problems there. Health care for one. Living habits another. Food sources there is no inspection. Bush meat can be contaminated with the virus. Handling can transmit the disease if the animal was infected.

I set a "as it happens" Google alert for "ebola" this morning and I may have to shut it off as my inbox is filling up fast with alerts.

Sorry to spoil the party but the advice from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agency is:
A person infected with Ebola is not contagious until symptoms appear.
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/ebola-factsheet.pdf

The article says that a person can remain contagious for up to three weeks after symtoms appear. Would that be until death? From what I unnderstand, even then, a body is still contagious. Factual errors in an article render it useless in its entirety.

You have just defined the entire "news" industry. "useless in its entirety"

"News" has become a commercial/political endeavor, it is no longer a public service.

What are the initial symptoms that demonstrates a person is now contagious? Feeling a bit off for a couple days? A mild fever that may go unnoticed? Or is it the bleeding out of your eye sockets?

That is a disturbing question.

Who is looking ill here? Are you really trying to get authoritative medical questions from a group of engineers and engineering admirers? Do you wish to have contact with someone that might be afflicted? Do you want us to provide a guarantee on how a layman can detect this virus?

Go to the emergency room now and ask for a full physical if you feel ill. Don't expect remote strangers to diagnose the difference between the flu, a hangnail, or ebola.

I think it was rhetorical, fred. I'm here to see what people think.

What people think is nothing but gossip and hearsay. CR4 is supposed to be an engineering forum not a gossip column. Engineers work with facts.

"What people think is nothing but gossip and hearsay"? Does that include you, fred?

Why else would you play in an internet forum but to find out what people think, and to use that bit of information to inform your skilled analysis of your interests? As you know, some of it is complete hogwash, some of it is enlightening. Engineers who work only with facts (especially 'facts' they read on an internet forum) would not be very useful, in my humble opinion.

Yes, my thoughts here should be considered by others to be gossip and hearsay. Gossip and hearsay has its place in this world. That place does not include medical treatment, procedures or contagion control.

Call me stupid if you like, when I see a comment by redfred, it is impacted by the many well crafted, thoughtful, factually sound posts I have read of yours in the past few years. It has weight, like a good stoudt. When joe anonymous poster replies, he is gossiping. You are not. Just my opinion. Maybe you are a computer or a 10 year old. I don't care.

I still piss out the stoudt after I drink it.

"CR4 - The Engineer's Place for News and Discussion^®" leaves the field fairly open as to subject matter.

I think there aren't many here who are qualified to talk about medical issues, except in the sense of how to logically go about defining and solving the problem to hand.

I know I'm not.

That's why I put myself in the hands of competent medical professionals.

Heck half the people I work with fit all those descriptions/symptoms and more every day they are at work.

It's amazing what three packs of cigarettes three cans a chew and a bottle or more of alcohol every 24 - 48 hours does to people.

I am not trying to inflame or upset anyone. But this is obviously much more contagious than AIDS. And we get varying information from the "experts". And it is important to know the truth about this...if anyone knows the truth...like was said earlier, time will tell.

This is my take on it:

30 years ago the big deal was AIDS. That had to be commuted by blood to blood contact.

Ebola can be transmitted by saliva to saliva. It may not be an airborne virus, but it can be transmitted by someone sneezing in your immediate vicinity and you breathing the mist. The guy in Texas came in contact by just helping to move an Ebola patient. So somehow, he might have just touched the person and later put his hands to his mouth.

Liberia is taking matters seriously, our Government is not. It is being left up to Liberia to control who gets on the planes that come here, our Government has already stated that they are not going to restrict incoming flights from Liberia.

The last I heard they were observing about 80 people that, the guy in Texas that died, came in contact with. That they know about. There is no telling how many could have been in contact.

People like Rachel Maddow, saying Ebola is no bid deal, are dangerous.

It looks like AIDS has been out of the spotlight for so long, that people have forgotten.

I'll say one thing -- the web site (NaturlNews.com) has prolific entries. One article relates to contagion of the Ebola virus.

Under point 5 is the interesting tidbit that the U.S. apparently has a patent on, at least, a form of the virus.

Clicking on the author's name brings up a condensed bio.

This unrelated article caught my eye. Somehow seems pertinent to point 5.

pb

Thank you for that link.

unrelated article

You'd have to already be crazy to believe that.

Two articles from a the same site, one promoting an 'all natural cure' to this 'pandemic' (Which at the time I write this has yet to claim a second life. In the past 72 hours, more people have died from traffic accidents in the US than from Ebola.):

"If we really want to stop the spread of this viral pandemic right now, both government and the media should be urging citizens to boost their immune defenses by consuming more nutritious foods, herbal spices, superfoods and anti-viral plants (which include peppermint, basil, rosemary, cinnamon and oregano, just to name a few)."

And a second article claiming that conspiracy theorists may be 'saner' than 'normal' people (and therefore right?) to back up the point about a government conspiracy.

NaturalNews itself has been described as 'a wretched hive of scum and quackery,' it's reputation is on par with the Scandal tabloid sheets you find in the supermarket checkout lines, except this one seems to try and push a lot of people to GNC stores (if GNC knows about it, they should try and distance themselves from NaturalNews, lest their own reputation become tarnished by contact).

My primary point of reference for naturalNews was Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaturalNews however, I did check the references Wikipedia was citing, and found the information they had to be accurate.

If you're going to try satire, make it clear at the end of your post that you're not taking yourself seriously on the topic, and let us know who you are so we can better applaud you for your rapier wit.

If you're just trolling for a reaction, you'll get a more energetic response by going to 4chan, visiting the /b/ imageboard there, and Screaming out 'Pinkie Pie is Best Ponie!'

This has gone too far! Or has it?

I did initial/sign it. Most probably figured it out.

The "saner" article ref. was tongue-in-cheek, which I assumed, the wink would help solidify..

Isaac Newton dabbled in some very odd things, yet that doesn't discredit all his ideas/discoveries. That's an unfortunate thing about dabbling. As an oblique reference, the story of journalist Gary Webb, is instructive for putting too much faith in the judgment of one's peers. (There is a movie coming out today called, "Kill the Messenger," about his reporting on the CIA's involvement in crack cocaine sales.)

Admittedly, there are marginal ideas at NaturalNews.com as well as a lot of web sites. It doesn't mean there are NO truths at these sites.

I clicked on the patent link and it certainly seems to be a legitimate patent filing -- it's via Google. Patents are usually filed with intent to utilize an idea in some way. Patenting a virus is bizarre in itself, to me, at least.

You mention the site has been called, 'a wretched hive of scum and quackery,' Just curious... by whom? I like to check out the pot as well as the kettle.

The OP was asking about contagion. The article, whether all true or not, was relevant in as far as it was addressing that question. It is up to readers to react according to their own knowledge and experience.

I think it is more prudent to over-plan than under-plan. Being as healthy as possible wouldn't be a bad side effect -- or start.

David Gorski of ScienceBlogs called the site "one of the most wretched hives of scum and quackery on the Internet," and the most "blatant purveyor of the worst kind of quackery and paranoid anti-physician and anti-medicine conspiracy theories anywhere on the Internet".

-Information taken from the Wikipedia article, the links to the original sources are over there.

Thanks for the links. Quackery no doubt exists, but too often, the " promising" gets lumped with "outlandish" and both get tossed aside when the promising shouldn't

There is an interesting chapter in the book, "Honest Medicine," about using IV (intravenous) alpha lipoic acid in treating liver disease. (The remarkable results reported can be questioned, by contacting the author.) If the story is accurate, it shows the narrow-mindedness of most physicians (with a fairly reasonable explanation; tragic though, IMO). So just because David Gorski is well credentialed, so are many doctors who utilize protocols probably labeled as "quackery" by David Gorski. Most do so because of the results they get. Only a foolish patient would keep adhering to treatments that don't result in good outcomes. (Desperation is an exception.) Many patients who turn to alternative therapies weren't getting the results they wanted from orthodox treatment and say the alternative outcome was much better. Isn't the patient the whole reason for medical the medical profession?

(Many proponents of alternative therapies are sincere and well-meaning. To use the term "scum" to characterize anyone who is a proponent of alternative treatments, is an overreaction, to me. That means he's calling these other "well-credentialed doctors" who advocate alternative therapies scum, too. A little too arrogant for my taste -- but to each his own.)

A book which counters the "evidenced based medicine" paradigm is, "Tarnished Gold: The Sickness of Evidenced-based Medicine." The basic criticism outlined, is that biochemical individuality is not a minor factor in treating patients; that practicing medicine is an art that improves with experience. Evidenced-based decisions can contradict the doctor's experience.

In the end, patients will gravitate to whichever paradigm attracts them, also, based on their experience. All the arguing back and forth between the EBM and Integrative camps isn't even seen by most consumers.

There is a history of self-experimentation in medicine. Most often, physicians who criticize unorthodox therapies have never tried them on themselves or their patients. (Of course without well-funded trials why should they? I would argue science loses out when curiosity wanes.) And well-designed double-blind studies of these types of treatments will never be done due to a negative cost vs. return likelihood. So, consumers trying things for themselves is the best "proof" they will likely have. And it is unfortunate that most physicians are not interested in taking patients under those conditions. There are some, but relatively few and far between.

Anecdotal is most often taken as demeaning, statistically, because it is a data point of only 1. But if "demeaning" of 1 is "you" and the outcome is good, it will be very meaningful.

Why is it that non-medical persons have a better overview of the way medicine should be practised than the medical professionals themselves? Let me tell you of a true happening. I was treating a patient with severe septic shock. I prescribed Centoxin, and he got better remarkably quickly. So my experience was of a 100% success rate using Centoxin to treat septic shock. Yet very shortly after that Centoxin was withdrawn from the market. It appeared form the wider studies that there were forms of septic shock where the administration of Centoxin, instead of being curative, actually hastened the demise. So who would suggest that my personal experience was all-important and I should disregard the evidence base?
As a footnote, that patient was already the victim of another doctor's personal experience. He had developed an infection as the result of a knife wound to his abdomen. The evidence base from military surgery is that the cut bowel ends should be brought to to the surface until the infection subsides, yet the surgeon performed a primary bowel closure in an infected abdomen, presumably on account of his personal experience.
I suggest to you that you leave the medical professionals to carry on basing their practice on the best available evidence from the best possible controlled trials.

Nothing is impossible for people that don't do the work.

nothing is possible unless people do the work.

Great, so get off of that computer and start working on an anti-viral treatment for ebola. I expect some positive results by next Friday.

Just maybe the vaccine is close at hand. it looks like December before we get an answer on human trials. Very promising. We can all hope.

Sorry for a delayed response. I took a long weekend.

Yes, cases can be found that substantiate both sides. The "story" of Dr. Berkman (as told in the book, Honest Medicine, is a medical professional who would disagree that only controlled trials should determine the course of treatment of a patient. Had you known about the adverse effects of Centoxin, EBM would deem you not to prescribe it, and you likely wouldn't have. Your patient was fortunate as it turned out -- for more reasons than one. I wouldn't suggest that your experience is all-important. It does show there are exceptions and helps prove the point of biochemical individuality.

I don't post, "prescribing" treatments to readers. I see it as passing along information to help people be better informed as to their healthcare choices. And I don't try to tell physicians how to practice. The fact that man-made pharmaceuticals are responsible for more deaths each year than any naturally occurring substances, should sober both doctors and patients. I only advocate that the people should do their best to learn all they can about health and make their healthcare decisions as partners with their physicians.

The following JAMA article discusses the the incidence of serious and fatal adverse drug reactions (ADR) in hospital patients.

Article link: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=187436

Here are the conclusions of the article.

CONCLUSIONS

Perhaps, our most surprising result was the large number of fatal ADRs. We estimated that in 1994 in the United States 106000 (95% CI, 76000-137000) hospital patients died from an ADR. Thus, we deduced that ADRs may rank from the fourth to sixth leading cause of death. Even if the lower confidence limit of 76000 fatalities was used to be conservative, we estimated that ADRs could still constitute the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease (743460), cancer (529904), stroke (150108), pulmonary disease (101077), and accidents (90523); this would rank ADRs ahead of pneumonia (75719) and diabetes (53894).¹⁸ Moreover, when we used the mean value of 106000 fatalities, we estimated that ADRs could rank fourth, after heart disease, cancer, and stroke as a leading cause of death. While our results must be viewed with some circumspection because of the heterogeneity among the studies and small biases in the sample, these data suggest that ADRs represent an important clinical issue.

18. Morgan K, Morgan S, Quitno N. Health Care State Rankings 1996. 4th ed. Lawrence, Kan: Morgan Quitno Press; 1996.

(I searched for more recent statistics but didn't see them. If someone knows of more recent stats. please post.)

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are not just a few M.D.'s who advocate prevention over curing, and when curing is necessary, preferring natural pharmaceuticals/substances over man-made. Many of them practice Integrative Medicine, utilizing the best of both pharmaceuticals and nutritional/natural substances, which are less likely to cause adverse reactions, as, for instance, Centoxin, and a host of others can and do.

I go home for lunch every day and often turn on the TV while eating my lunch. I watch local channels and one can hardly watch for more than a few minutes before one sees a legal advertisement asking "if you or a loved one has taken XXXX drug and suffered XXX reactions or death, please contact us, as you may be entitled to a settlement."

I'm not against pharmaceuticals across the board. They definitely have a place. But the trust that has been given to pharmaceutical companies and their products by both physicians and their patients has been and continues to be proven to be misplaced in too many cases (and products) -- thus the many lawsuits that have resulted in "settlements." They got approval from "trials." Whose? Most likely their (pharmaceutical companies) own. (A good case in point is anti-depressants.)

Each person, is ultimately, responsible for their health -- by agreeing to the treatments offered to whichever doctor they submit to, whether it be EBM, Integrative, N.D., or whatever. Most patients do not know as much as a trained health care professional. They don't know enough to question or even ask questions.

Also, as I mentioned, many proponents have waited decades or more for controlled trials, that met the criteria and dosages of substances they say they have gotten results with. So more and more patients are willing to base their trust in trying these alternatives to man-made pharmaceuticals on anecdotal reports, or in some cases, they can be classified as a physician's "case reports." The trials will never come in many peoples lives... if ever.

I am one of those who have chosen to take primary responsibility for my health based on my own reading and research, and, now, experience. I am anecdotal, but things I have tried and experimented with, were anecdotal reports, too, reported by both physicians and patients. No trials.

One instance of a doctor whose anecdotal history was finally vindicated through trials is the case of Dr. Thomas Brown. It is reminiscent of the Low-Dose Naltrexone as written about by Julia Schopick in the aforementioned book, Honest Medicine. In both instances, had the doctors in question waited for trials, many, many of their patients would have been deprived of the benefit they received. I would also point out, though, that Dr. Brown's use of low-dose antibiotic for RA, Lupus and Scleroderma, might be frowned upon in hindsight. Who knows what dormant pathogens in those many patients he treated, unknowingly, developed a resistance to the antibiotic? Or even the active pathogens?

I've read this reply twice now. You really sound like Alan Krumwiede.

Twice?

Slow night??

Haven't seen it. Guess I'll have to someday to understand your reference.

I believe the author's choice of words was paraphrasing the like from Star Wars, Episode IV, where Ben Ken-obi described the port town of Mos Eisley as '..a retched hive of scum and villainy.' Granted, within that hive they found their transport off planet, with a smuggler who engages in 'pre-emptive self defense,'(1) but they find the noble heart buried deep inside(2) and bring out the hero he was meant to be.

In a similar vein, in a proponent of 'alternate medicine' discovers a treatment or drug that really works, he may be brushed off at first, but the treatment/drug will be tested, and as its effectiveness is proven again and again, it will be 'welcomed into the fold' and become part of 'mainstream medicine.' The reason that many 'alternate medicine' practitioners are looked down on is because of their belief that ALL 'mainstream medicine' is bad. They're fighting against 'The Man,' but if they win, then they BECOME part of 'The Man.' They don't WANT to win, they just want to fight.

Perhaps an example of an alternate medicine victory would clarify. Back in the Olden Days, leaches were prescribed for bloodletting, a practice intended to balance the humours. As medical science progressed the Four Humours theory was proven false by 'mainstream medicine' and anyone still using leaches was considered a Quack. Fast forward a century or so, and the 'quacks' who have still been using leaches intrigue some researchers, who decide to study leeches and leeching further. They discover that leeches have a natural anticoagulant in their saliva, and that this could be very useful. Now 'mainstream medicine' includes 'medical leeches' (laboratory raised in clean, sterile environment, so they do not pick up any germs or other pathogens to pass on to patients) which are used in cases where there is internal bleeding under the skin, the leeches are able to painlessly drain away the buildup of excess fluid without resorting to invasive surgery. So the leech proponents are now part of 'mainstream medicine,' not 'alternative medicine.' The quacks who still hold onto the Four Humours theory are now calling the leech proponents who have joined 'mainstream medicine' sellouts.

What many people in the 'alternative medicine' fields, in fact what many people in society in large, fail to realize is that there is NO idea, NO theory, NO person in the scientific fields who is 'sacred and beyond reproach.' We followed Newton bot because he was Newton, but because his ideas made sense, and when tested, showed themselves to be 'correct,' we could not drop an apple and have it fall UP in violation of Newton's Theory of Attraction. Then Einstein came along and showed us that Newton was wrong, that his models were not detailed enough to show the 'true nature' of motion, time, and gravity. Newton was correct for a limited sample, but Einstein showed us how things outside that limited sample work. Newton wasn't completely discredited, in fact, the easy math of his limited sample (the sample being 'things that move at slower than relativistic speeds within a gravity well of approximately 1G) work well enough for us living and moving at slower than relativistic speeds within a 1G gravity well that we still use his equations, and teach them in school. We know they're not 100% right, but they're 'right enough' for anyone doing their work entirely on Earth and not venturing up 'above the sky.'

Hypothesis, Theory, Fact, Law, all these words mean the EXACT SAME THING in science, our 'best guess' at the answer to a question. Ideas 'graduate' to the 'stronger' terms mainly to indicate our confidence that it's 'right enough' for everyday use. We talk of the Law of Gravity, but only because we have been trying to disprove it for so long, and the basic rule of 'things fall to the ground due to mutual attraction,' simply WILL NOT let itself be dis-proven. We'll keep refining our terms, change dome of the details as we learn more about the universe, but the basic premise looks like it will hold, there's no sign that it will be replaced with 'things fall to the ground because the Flying Spaghetti Monster pushes them down with His Noodly Appendage.'

The 'promising' ideas will be looked at, there's too many researchers out there for ideas to be completely ignored, and the ones that prove to be true will be accepted into 'mainstream medicine,' at which point all the 'quacks' will abandon it because they want nothing to do with the 'mainstream.' I think I already mentioned that they'd rather keep fighting than win.

Notes:

1) Han shot first! He murders Guido to save himself from being hauled in front of Jabba. They both had their guns out under the table, but neither could SEE the other's gun, it was only their own distrust of the other to make them assume (correctly) that the other was drawing down on him. Both Han and Guido were perfectly willing to shoot an unarmed man 'in the back' rather than confirm a potential threat.

2) Supposedly, REALLY DEEP, which meant their efforts were like mining with 'planet buster' bombs considering the speed at which he turned around.

I had a nice, detailed post with analogies to explain my point, but CR4 is acting up again, and ate my post.

Long answer short: If the treatment is actually 'promising,' it will be looked at and tested, even the ones that look like complete quackery are tested to confirm that they are no better than a placebo.

The ideas that work are added to 'mainstream medicine,' but the 'alternative medicine' practitioners don't want acceptance, they want to fight 'The man.' being accepted, while considered a 'win' by people wanting to share ideas, is instead a 'loss' to the alternative practitioner: They can't fight 'The man' if they're part of 'The Man.'

Alternative practitioners don't want to 'win,' they just want to fight.

I respectfully disagree with such a broad generalization. It may be true for some, but not all. MANY alternative practitioners are just fighting for the idea/treatment to be given a fair shot. And any number of "promising" treatments never get looked at or tested.

What was once old is new again.I have to ask, are you deaf?

No, why do you ask?

Perhaps I was overbroad.I may have overlookdes a statistical fluke that skewed my perceptions:

The AM practiconers that are 'just fighting for their idea/treatment to be given a fair shot' are not as 'vocal/flamboyant/confrontational' as the 'obvious quacks' who just want attention, and don't care if it's good or bad. The Snake-Oil-Salesmen are crowding the stage, forcing the 'Truth-Seekers' out of the spotlight, as it were.

It's a problem with almost any group, the 'vocal minority,' by virtue of being the loudest and most-heard faction, are taken to be the majority or speaking for the majority, since the 'quiet majority' are not standing up and shouting for the Vocal Minority to shut up and sit down. I could name many examples of a majority appearing to provide concent and support to a minority by their silence, but every example I can think of that would be readilly understood would offend someone's political or religious beliefs, so I CHOOSE to remain silent on the details rather than spark a 'flame war,' to use the interweb lingo.

So statistically I have a ~40% chance of surviving Ebola?

I can live with those odds!

I have survived West niles and marriage so statistically Ebola isn't likely to take me down either.

Then again, have you truly 'survived' marriage?

Statistics show that about 50% of all marriages end in divorce, and the other 50% end in the death of one or both spouses. Divorce or death? neither looks like a good outcome.

However, I try to not take life too seriously, I know I'll never get out of it alive.

I agree with redfred that Engineers deal with facts. Sure this discussion may not be factual engineering in nature but, engineers like facts. And the fact is: a Dallas nurse has ebola this morning....I presume she got it from patient 0.

And the "experts" this morning are talking about. "if someone thinks they have ebola, maybe we should keep them away from the hospital"...how is that going to work out?

I believe that it is more likely that this transmission came about due to the initial release of Mr. Duncan than a protocol failure after his return to the hospital.

As for that comment by an "expert" I hope that this "off the cuff" comment by a layman is an incomplete thought that should never have been aired. Maybe they were thinking that a house call to a reported possible ebola patient to assess before transporting to the hospital where the best chance for patient survival and disease containment will be found. The problem I see with this idea is who goes to possible sufferer and how do they ascertain the disease? The EMT of an ambulance are trained to stabilize a patient. They certainly understand containment protocols. They are not qualified to make an ebola diagnosis. Without lab equipment and communication with the CDC, I suspect most physicians would not make an ebola diagnosis. We do not have medical tricorders that can make a diagnosis.

I am thinking that is not the case. It appears she was responsible for caring for him on his second visit. From a CNN news article, "The nurse was involved in Duncan's second visit to the hospital, when he was admitted for treatment, and was wearing protective gear as prescribed by the CDC: gown, gloves, mask and shield, Varga said."

More likely this is a protocol infraction on behalf of the nurse. All it takes is desuiting improperly or brushing your fingers on a contaminated surface and then touching your nose, eyes, or mouth to provide a vector. That's very easy to do subconsciously.

I don't know what level of training the nurse had with working with highly contagious diseases and the protective gear. It could also be an error with someone associated with decontamination of her gear.

The situation is compounded by fatigue and the harsh environmental conditions inside these suits and the small margin of error with regard to these pathogens.

I suspect that communities across the country are reviewing their procedures and CDC published protocols carefully, which should go a long way to limit the possibility of a domestic pandemic.

One or two more instances such as this one may send the news media into a feeding frenzy. If that hasn't already happened. I've not watched any "news" this morning.

The news has been having a frenzy over this well before the body count hit 1,000.

It's now over four times that and there is no signs of any let up (from the media).

While I admire what some of the ground reporters try to do, someone might do well to commission the pharmaceutical industry to develop a media vaccination shot for the general public.

I did not read the article. It might not have been the now afflicted nurse that broke protocol, too. Her colleague could have transferred contamination to a presumed clean surface where she picked up the contaminant.

I had a contamination training class scheduled to take a full day. For once, work provided us lunch that day. There were six of us in the class and three trainers. The suiting demonstration took about 15 minutes. An instructor dusted Lycopodium powder as a safe contaminant on an object to be worked on. A black light then briefly showed us the small area contaminated. All six of us, one at a time tightened and then loosened a bolt that was our task in a contaminated area. All during this exercise session the trainers were constantly chatting with the one outside of the exercise about their families. After all six completed the task the black light was turned back on the there was powder on two students. I was one of them and was the last to go. The other was the third to go through the task. One contamination footprint was partly outside of the sticky pad on the "clean" side.

We then scrubbed down the area to repeat the exercise a second time and using the black light to verify a proper cleaning. This time I was clean but another was found contaminated from their own failure to disrobe properly. While we were cleaning up for the second time the free pizza arrived. We finished cleaning but did not verify with the black light that everything was clean before eating. With two slices left of the first pie an instructor switched to black light. There was powder covering the pizza box, on the two "untouched" slices and on the partially eaten slices we had in our hands. The instructor then asked, "Does your family like pizza?"

To this day I do not know if the pie was dusted by an incomplete cleaning or an instructor making a point. It certainly made the point. Our third exercise was flawless but took the entire afternoon for six guys to loosen and tighten six bolts.

Interesting exercise and shows how difficult it is to assure containment. I hope it is one that gets repeated by many health care workers who may be required to work on highly infectious patients.

I like what you had to say redfred about the pizza issue. That is nature, it is not someone's opinion.

I had a little Nuclear, Biological & Chemical [NBC] warfare training in the USMC. Not only in basic training but also later in Iwakuni, Japan; three years into my tour of duty. It was standard practice to stay practiced.

I agree those hazmat suits are not comfortable, I do not know what they are currently using but what we used were heavy and charcoal lined and of course, an off color of green.

We were taught the time you are most likely to get infected is when you take off your suit.

When you put it on you are clean: no problem, when you are wearing it: you are safe, no problem. When your shift is over and you take it off and touch it: that's a problem.

It takes at least two people to get undressed safely, that is kind of funny now that I type it....

"It takes at least two people to get undressed safely, that is kind of funny now that I type it...."

Well, that extends to the concept of 'battle buddy,' at least in the Army. Yes there were all the homophobic jokes about it back then, but that was before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Bottom line, you can't keep yourself safe out in the Wide Wide World of Warfare, you need someone to watch your mack, and you need to watch theirs in return. You're going to get close to your Battle Buddy, closer than you will with any other person except maybe your spouse (would you trust your Better Half with an assault rifle, shooting mere inches over your head as you low-crawl to the next piece of cover?). The Doctors Without Borders teams and similar groups out in the field have managed to minimize the risk of healthcare provider infection with their procedures, practice, training, practice, repetition, and more practice. Their suit-up/suit-down routines look like military drills. The one provider who got infected in the US is still a bit of an unknown: they're not releasing the details about what the suit-up/suit-down procedures were, or if she suited up/down alone or with help. I can say with 90% certainty that she has not had intense training in NBC gear wearing, nor the years of practicing, practicing, practicing that the DWB crews have.

Your question is interesting as for when an ebola infected person is contagious. Detection may be difficult if the infected person is asymptomatic. If a person has symptoms they can isolated the antibodies and do repeat tests to see if the antibody is increasing of stable. It will be stable in people with prior exposure. It also seems that ebola is very good at changing from person to person, even if they had been exposed in the same area or room. This from CBS news:

A New York Times opinion piece from early September by Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, suggested that it would not surprise many virologists if Ebola were eventually to mutate and become airborne -- an alarming possibility that would put millions of lives at risk.

"Viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next," Osterholm wrote. "The current Ebola virus's hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice."

So another question to ask is, "how long should we isolate exposed people before we can say they are safe?" Should all exposed people be isolated for 21 days?

Yes, it is an academically interesting question. I want it to stay an academic question.

AFAIK there has not been a documented case of an asymptomatic person spreading ebola to another person. It makes sense for the genome sequence between outbreaks to change. I would love to see some actual medical/scientific citations of previous genome transformations instead of sensational journalism reports or layman wild speculations about what seems plausible. Cold fusion seems plausible to many laymen, too.

Did you read the New York Times [not CBS] opinion piece, I don't think you did. If you had you should have noticed that this immunologist worked very hard to not scream FIRE in a burning theater while still calmly speculating about the variety ways that things could go very wrong with this disease. I'm glad to hear qualified medical professionals extrapolating about how this disease and outbreak might impact health care. It gives me the feeling that people with the authority to do something are already making realistic plans if things go plausibly worse. I am repulsed to hear intelligent laymen extrapolating what could go wrong. IMHO this is shouting FIRE.

Please stop fanning the flames. The embers can land anywhere.

I hope no one gets burned and it was never my intention to burn anyone or fan the flames of panic. I was responding to the question "Contagious or not?" put forth by OP. It is wrong to speculate about that which we know little. But I will say most threads on CR4 are often based in speculation and innuendo and many of us post on things we know only cursory. Perhaps I should not have pointed interest into an article the Times took and ran with to sell news. If you knew me, you would know that I am very critical of the media and news reporting. After working in the environmental field for 42 years, I do have an understanding of media intentions. In fact I was obliged to take courses in how to talk to the media. You do know they try to peg the interviewee into saying something inflammatory that they can quote. Mea Culpa and I do deserve a rap on the wrist. I did read the Times article by the way.

You might appreciate this study of the family contacts and spread of ebola during the 1995 epidemic in DRC. Highlights: those who had no physical contact did not get the disease. Of those with physical contact, one in six, roughly, were infected. This is in a family setting, without protective gear.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9988169/

OK, I know I am going to catch flack for this because I am no way medically qualified to speak to this disease or cure ... but I am an innovative problem solver who often thinks out of the box...

What do you think would happen if people exposed to infection had a chemical or medically induced fever put in them/on them.

My understanding of the purpose of a fever is to help kill off infections in the body. So the thought is to fever-ise the body artificially to kill off the infection of virus during its young incubation phase.

Like kill it with a fever before it grows within the body enough to cause a fever.

I admit I do not even know if a fever in the body can kill this virus.

I think I know that fever is hard on the organs and body and it may do more harm than good to stay in fevered state for an extended period of time.

Heat will help "denature" a virus.

You can do a similar thing by soaking in a bathtub filled with as hot water as you can stand.

However, ebola is a very aggressive virus and soaking or fever is not likely to be enough to turn the tide because by the time you become symptomatic the virus has already gained a solid purchase.

The heat required to denature a virus will also be successful in denaturing the human.