Ebola--Authoritative Information

Posted by hrymzk 9 years, 6 months ago to Science
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there's a lot of nonsense floating around this website about Ebola. One other post has it that the CDC is preventing the diagnosis with a PCR setup. False. My URL from CDC shows a good PCR setup. To get real CDC/MD info visit this website

Harry M
SOURCE URL: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/public-health/ebola-resource-center.page


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  • Posted by fivedollargold 9 years, 6 months ago
    "Ebola poses no significant risk to the United States." Curious statement and unbelievably arrogant comment posted by the AMA, given the number of people being quarantined due to minimal contact with infected people. Common sense dictates that an illness that has claimed thousands of lives in another part of the world must be taken seriously. $5Au recalls when AIDS first spread to the United States and look what happened after that. One must take anything coming out of the AMA with a grain of salt. It is, after all, a leftist, largely political organization.
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago
      "Common sense dictates that an illness that has claimed thousands of lives in another part of the world must be taken seriously."
      Their statement of "no significant risk" is vague. Even a rare disease is significant to to the people directly affected. You said if claims thousands of lives it's a significant risk. Influenza would qualify. Malaria would qualify but might be excluded b/c I don't think it spreads well in our climate. Alcoholism would certainly qualify, although you might exclude that b/c it can be prevented just by never trying alcohol. I wonder if rabies should be included b/c it has such a high mortality rate.

      I think what they're saying is they're so no evidence yet it's an historic pandemic like AIDS or bubonic plague. As you said, you recall AIDS and know pandemics will happen again. I agree. We just don't know what they'll be.
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 6 months ago
    I just reviewed some of the info on this web site and there is enough that doesn't make sense in the provided info for me not to believe a single thing stated on it.

    1st it states that Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluid and not through the air. That simply does not make sense. When a person sneezes saliva can travel some distance through the air. This can then be inhaled which is direct contact with a bodily fluid. The fluid from the sneeze can also be deposited on door handles, food in the grocery store or a hundred other things that people touch or eat which gives direct contact with bodily fluid.

    2nd is the idea that washing you hands with any product will stop a person from getting the virus. If that is the case why are people that deal with Ebola sick patients in full body protection? And then why do they need to go though such a vigerious decontamination process using a very strong solution of chlorine? Why are these people not simply washing up with antibacterial soap?

    These are just a couple of the things that do not make sense and are sending a message to me that someone is not telling the whole story. I don't buy this.
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago
      " it states that Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluid and not through the air. That simply does not make sense."
      I am not at all knowledgeable about this, but I have always heard some diseases are transmitted only by direct contact with body fluids and others are transmitted by casual contact. I have no knowledge about whether this is true, but I've heard this model applied to many diseases.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      You wrote "ebola transmits through bodily fluid contact, and that doesn't make sense."
      Think harder. We've had the HIV/AIDS epidemic >30 years. There's no transmission through air. Alternatively, the flu virus is transmitted through the air .
      Cleaning. The above are viruses. Not bacteria. Antibacterials won't work against viruses. Bleach works against viruses. They use full body protection to prevent body fluid contact and because ebola is so bad with such contact.

      Harry M
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      • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 6 months ago
        Harry, I asked you what your qualifications were due to your statement “there's a lot of nonsense floating around this website about Ebola”. I would agree that there is a lot of information on this subject that most of us no little about, including me. I want to learn as much as I can but I don’t want to learn from someone who does not have the facts. By your statement, I thought I found someone who has done some research but in your reply that did not seem to be true. I then decided to review the link you included and drew my own conclusions which lead to my comments regarding bodily fluids & full body protection.
        In your reply to me you told me to “think harder” and I am sorry to have given you the impression that I did not think hard about this. It appears that you are much smarter than I but if that is the case why is it that I can find the info to substantiate my position, that what we are being told does not make sense. I am not claiming to be an expert because the fact is I do not know the answer. That is why I asked what your qualifications were. I want to learn, the truth.
        You will notice that both of the links below come from government web sites. I think the information speaks for itself but if you need clarification on why the info you provided does not make sense to me simply ask.

        Ebola
        blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola

        http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmissio...

        How Do You Get HIV?
        Certain body fluids from an HIV-infected person can transmit HIV.
        These body fluids are:
        • Blood
        • Semen (cum)
        • Pre-seminal fluid (pre-cum)
        • Rectal fluids
        • Vaginal fluids
        • Breast milk

        http://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-...
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 6 months ago
    What are your qualifications to make this statement Harry M?
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      The "Authoritativeness" comes from the source of info. That's the CDC and the AMA. A prior post said the CDC was holding up a PCR test.
      The AMA is the basic professional organization of Physicians in the US. Our care is their responsibility. I'm not interested in comments off the top of people's heads
      Besides, I have three Life Science college degrees plus. One of them is BS, Clinical Lab Science.

      Harry M

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      • Posted by $ Mimi 9 years, 6 months ago
        It happens. We post stuff all the time without really considering the content. We should strive to try harder to vet our sources. The article seemed sketchy to me to begin with because it stated the device was made for military use. I was thinking: so why did it just happen to be laying around at this Dallas hospital where it wasn’t to be touched? Does that make sense to you? Me neither.
        Still, I used my own reasoning skills to reject the article, and I will use the same skills for anything posted on the CDC or AMA website. I might believe them more readily, being they are normally reliable sources, but I question everything,
        And you certainly can’t fault anyone in our current political climate of being overly suspicious of any intention of a government agencies. (IRS, ATF, DOJ for example) A lot of horribly inappropriate things have been happening over the last few years. Many government agencies have given the word “authoritative” a bad name. Most of us are waiting for the CDC to start talking about gun control as if it is a disease, since the current government has been wasting a great deal of money trying to research that angle. You see my point?

        Anyway, you got words off the top of my head whether you liked it or not. I hope you don’t mind.;)
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        • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
          Mimi
          you can't smear the whole government with the brush that they engage in questionable activities.
          I'll let the gun control argument rest. The one I don't like is "obesity is an epidemic" Obesity is a lack of control and failure of individual responsibility as Randian concepts indicate.

          Harry M
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      • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 6 months ago
        actually our care is not their responsibility, that is for individual practitioners.

        Their care is the practitioners, not the patients. Think union, they are a lobbying group. Not a scientific research organization.

        Believe them if you like, but their authoritativeness is no more than a collection of white coats that may or may not be competent on the subject being addressed. Like any other professional association.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago
        "The "Authoritativeness" comes from the source of info. That's the CDC and the AMA. A prior post said the CDC was holding up a PCR test.
        The AMA is the basic professional organization of Physicians in the US. Our care is their responsibility."

        Knowledge by authority is tricky. We can't blindly accept all esteemed authorities. We can't nihilistically doubt all authorities and refuse to accept things like authoritative tables of materials properties.

        If we really want to dig into it, we have to follow footnotes, read at the abstracts of the citations, and possibly ask questions of someone in the field who knows the jargon.

        In the end, our care is our own responsibility.

        I agree with you, though, that we don't need to dig in on this. My non-bioligist understanding is that life is a balance, with things like mold and bacteria competing for existence. When we discovered using mold's weapon against bacteria, the bacteria mutated to resist it. So humans have to come up with something new. I imagine something similar might happen with anti-viral agents. We should be aware of this but not wring our hands waiting for history's next cataclysm. There's a whole industry looking at every little development in technology, biology, politics, economics, etc, just licking its chops apparently hoping they're looking at the next human catastrophe.
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