Ebola is the new AIDS.

[Joanne]

Yes, people are going to die.

 

But so are friendships, neighborhoods, and communities.

 

There is so much lack of knowledge, so much judgment, so much fear-mongering, misinformation.

 

And not enough love, care, and concern.

 

It reminds me of the 1980's, and the disgusting travesty of Ryan White.

[SemiSweet]

I can't believe how crazy people are going about this. It's really mind blowing to me. There was a politician that recommended euthanizing everyone who tested positive for it. What is that about? :(

[Slache]

I can't believe how crazy people are going about this. It's really mind blowing to me. There was a politician that recommended euthanizing everyone who tested positive for it. What is that about? :(

 

Who was this? Please be wrong.

[Slartibartfast]

Who was this? Please be wrong.

 

It was just some crazy guy, not anyone with in any office.

[SemiSweet]

Todd Kincannon.

 

He was director or something of the Republican Party of South Carolina for a bit. He's also known for some other gems about Africans being savages and trans people should be locked up in camps. Obviously he's a super pleasant person. :/

[Slartibartfast]

Todd Kincannon.

 

He was director or something of the Republican Party of South Carolina for a bit. He's also known for some other gems about Africans being savages and trans people should be locked up in camps. Obviously he's a super pleasant person. :/

 

That was in 2010. I really think he is trying to be like Ann Coulter and is just wanting attention and trolling. He is someone people ought to ignore.

 

Here is an article regarding SC Republicans (where TK is from) distancing themselves from him.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/28/south-carolina-republicans-distance-themselves-from-todd-kincannon.html

[SemiSweet]

I think you're probably right. It's scary that he has people that listen to him. I wish our media/society/social media didn't give people such easy platforms to spout their crazy.

[albeto.]

I can't believe how crazy people are going about this. It's really mind blowing to me.

 

Not to me.

 

There was a politician that recommended euthanizing everyone who tested positive for it.

 

Well there's yer problem. ;)

 

 

 

 

(ETA: not that specifically, but the general panicked reaction)

[Slartibartfast]

I think you're probably right. It's scary that he has people that listen to him. I wish our media/society/social media didn't give people such easy platforms to spout their crazy.

 

 

Agreed. 

 

I am not a Republican but I actually like hearing what moderate Republicans have to say, it seems like no one is printing it because it isn't crazy enough. Good ideas are being drowned out in stupid.

[SemiSweet]

I haven't followed it very closely at all, I've been on vacation. Id definitely love to see some common sense ideas on it though. It has the potential to be a huge problem, but the fact that we are constantly trying to cut budgets makes it hard to control things like this. I think the NIH director said recently that the vaccine had to be put on the back burner because of the budget cuts. That really says a lot to me.

[Random]

Yes, people are going to die.

 

But so are friendships, neighborhoods, and communities.

 

There is so much lack of knowledge, so much judgment, so much fear-mongering, misinformation.

 

And not enough love, care, and concern.

 

It reminds me of the 1980's, and the disgusting travesty of Ryan White.

 

I don't think so.  Just remember that the media makes its living mostly by sensationalism rather than journalism. 

[CAmomof4]

Agreed.  All politicians are MIA on this one.  Completely absent.  I think the outrage is mostly over the govt response and not the disease itself.  At least for me personally.

 

I mean, having one person get on commercial flights, and another onto a cruise ship??  Really??  They couldn't just say "hey, maybe you should wait that 21 days just to be perfectly safe"??

 

If anyone else gets it from one of those poor health workers...  I just can't imagine the you-know-what-storm that will cause.

[idnib]

.

[idnib]

.

[Arcadia]

That's another way ebola and AIDS will probably be different. There's no "sin" in being on an airplane with the wrong person.

Ebola is more like SARS or H1N1 than AIDS. However the SARS epidemic was in 2003 so more than enough years for hospitals to improve their processes on how to cope.

[Pawz4me]

Here's an interesting but heartbreaking series of e-mails from a doctor with UNC who worked with MSF in Africa this summer treating Ebola patients.  From one of them:

 

 

 

With Ebola you can’t have a good death. You are isolated from your friends, your family, your home. You are cared for by people whose primary focus is on stopping transmission from infected to susceptible and from patient to provider rather than comfort and cure.

These people often die without the comfort of a human hand, without seeing someone's full face or even just knowing that a loved one is near. I think of all the death notes that I’ve written in the United States and the bulk of them usually include the sentence, “they passed away peacefully with family at the bedside.â€

I didn’t get a chance to write that for this little boy. Despite the hope that his smile brought me, he died overnight. In the void of darkness he converted to hemorrhagic shock with massive vomiting of blood and I’m told he bled out on the floor of the isolation ward.

[Lisbeth]

I think there's so much denial.

[Chris in VA]

It's heartbreaking.

I really hope the health care workers' "protocols" improve. I was talking to a dear friend who works in the blood lab (for lack of a better term). She said her hospital is using TB protocols, with how they cover up themselves,  but the ebola virus is much smaller, so at least they are aware of that and now re-thinking. They better think faster.

 

edited to correct spelling

[Crimson Wife]

What I don't understand is that the fear of Ebola is overshadowing the outbreak of Enterovirus-D68 that is ALREADY WIDESPREAD in the U.S. and is leaving kids with polio-like paralysis. As a parent, I'm much more worried about my kids getting EV-D68 than Ebola. True, Ebola has a much worse prognosis but is a lot harder to catch and so far there have only been 3 cases in this country. Whereas EV-D68 is airborne and in nearly every state already.

[Katy]

What I don't understand is that the fear of Ebola is overshadowing the outbreak of Enterovirus-D68 that is ALREADY WIDESPREAD in the U.S. and is leaving kids with polio-like paralysis. As a parent, I'm much more worried about my kids getting EV-D68 than Ebola. True, Ebola has a much worse prognosis but is a lot harder to catch and so far there have only been 3 cases in this country. Whereas EV-D68 is airborne and in nearly every state already.

 

Slight correction.  Enteroviruses are not airborne.  They are droplet protection, exactly the same as ebola.  Someone might cough or sneeze and make droplets aerosolized, but they do not float around in the air endlessly like TB.

[Crimson Wife]

Slight correction.  Enteroviruses are not airborne.  They are droplet protection, exactly the same as ebola.  Someone might cough or sneeze and make droplets aerosolized, but they do not float around in the air endlessly like TB.

 

Good to know. Still scary that a simple sneeze can pass it to everyone in close proximity, though!

[umsami]

I am old enough to remember the start of AI DS in this country. I distictly remember when "they" knew of three ga y men who had the illness. No one was put in isolation or quarantined. The overriding concern was that those medical efforts would further stigmatize ga y men. The decisions made were political, not medical. We all know how the virus spread from there.

 

 

 

I'm also old enough, but I don't understand your statement.  Why should they have quarantined men with AIDS, or even isolated them?  It's not like it's an airborne virus.  It's not like casual touching would infect somebody.   Needle stick (either IV drug user or accidental to a medical professional), sex, or blood transfusion are the ways people get infected.   

[albeto.]

What I don't understand is that the fear of Ebola is overshadowing the outbreak of Enterovirus-D68 that is ALREADY WIDESPREAD in the U.S. and is leaving kids with polio-like paralysis. As a parent, I'm much more worried about my kids getting EV-D68 than Ebola. True, Ebola has a much worse prognosis but is a lot harder to catch and so far there have only been 3 cases in this country. Whereas EV-D68 is airborne and in nearly every state already.

 

My guess is because the consequence of contacting Ebola is far more frightening than contacting the Enterovirus. Fear is a deep, primal emotion. It's easy to tap into. With the plug pulled on journalist's Fairness Doctrine, we see media use capitalism to make profit for an alarming price - ignorance of the population. It's enough to present one issue as The Most Important Issue Evah, but add to that all the guest speakers and opinion pieces dressed up like news reports, and it doesn't take much to whip up a frenzy. Explosive diarrhea and bleeding out of your eyes is far more attention catching than getting a fever and not feeling your legs any more. Damn. It's all terrible, but creating an ignorant population for personal profit is beyond scummy to me. Kinda makes you wish everyone knew a little more about how science really works, no?

[Farrar]

The way that many people have blamed the nurses for their own infection certain does remind me of AIDS.

 

Some other aspects don't at all. If this were ever to become a real widespread outbreak here in the US, I think the comparison might not totally hold.

[GinaPagnato]

I'm also old enough, but I don't understand your statement.  Why should they have quarantined men with AIDS, or even isolated them?  It's not like it's an airborne virus.  It's not like casual touching would infect somebody.   Needle stick (either IV drug user or accidental to a medical professional), sex, or blood transfusion are the ways people get infected.   

 

No clue, but maybe this was before they knew how AIDS was communicable, and there was some thought that it was airborne?

[idnib]

I'm also old enough, but I don't understand your statement.  Why should they have quarantined men with AIDS, or even isolated them?  It's not like it's an airborne virus.  It's not like casual touching would infect somebody.   Needle stick (either IV drug user or accidental to a medical professional), sex, or blood transfusion are the ways people get infected.   

 

Not to defend the idea of quarantining gay men with AIDS, but they didn't know how it was spread in the early days. Not only did they not know how it was spread, in the really early days they didn't even know it was a virus.

[LucyStoner]

I just wish that people, of all ideologies and political stripes, would stop trying to gain from this, politically and otherwise. It's insanely unseemly and crass.

[EmilyGF]

My friend, who is an infectious disease doctor, posted on Facebook, "Stop worrying about Ebola. Flu kills up to 50,000 each year. Go get your flu shot." 

[Guest]

I don't think so. Just remember that the media makes its living mostly by sensationalism rather than journalism.

I feel this way, too. It doesn't remind me of Aids in the 80's; it reminds me of SARS and Bird Flu and H1N1.

[ddcrook]

I hope that people treat Mr. Duncan's family with compassion and common sense when they are released from their quarantine.  I am especially concerned for the child.  He's in middle school, isn't he?  

[Pawz4me]

He's in middle school, isn't he?  

 

I think he's 13.

[6packofun]

I don't think so.  Just remember that the media makes its living mostly by sensationalism rather than journalism. 

 

Yes.  And people making grandiose declarations like the one starting this thread.  Why do that?  So we can make it into another bigger-than-it-is issue requiring some sort of activism and pitting sides against one another?  (I mean activism beyond just finding a way to prevent/treat/cure the disease.)

 

Will some people be stupid about it?  YES.  This is the case in pretty much every scenario in the history of mankind.

[idnib]

I just wish that people, of all ideologies and political stripes, would stop trying to gain from this, politically and otherwise. It's insanely unseemly and crass.

 

I know, but there have always been people who capitalize on tragedy. Always have been, always will be. The best we can do is call them on it even though it's like a game of whack-a-mole.