Rob_74
Likes Dirt
Yeah that isolation thing might be way to go. Its working out well for north korea.
Ebola - The End of the World?
- Thread starter indica
- Start date
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
People could be heading towards us already intending to spread the virus...
What if it doesn't actually exist? The outbreak is merely a fabrication designed to keep us all under control?
What if it is actually here and all this talk about therr is to distract us while dying..?
Shit! I have never had the chance to taste the sweet flesh of monkeys. Fuck the pineapple.
Last week I renewed my first aid certification. The trainer was fairly out there and not a fan of western medicine etc. He raised some ideas about the origins of Ebola based on the evils of the European influence across northern Africa in the slaughter of indiginous folk and animals. All rather conspiracy like...or revenge of the gods ish. Was really hard to keep up with his web.
What if it doesn't actually exist? The outbreak is merely a fabrication designed to keep us all under control?
What if it is actually here and all this talk about therr is to distract us while dying..?
Shit! I have never had the chance to taste the sweet flesh of monkeys. Fuck the pineapple.
Last week I renewed my first aid certification. The trainer was fairly out there and not a fan of western medicine etc. He raised some ideas about the origins of Ebola based on the evils of the European influence across northern Africa in the slaughter of indiginous folk and animals. All rather conspiracy like...or revenge of the gods ish. Was really hard to keep up with his web.
Bermshot
Banned
If you don't face up to the realisation that "conspiracy" is 3/4 of what your fed, well, you only have an opinion of what is false. Wow! This starting to feel all spiritual, whooooo...
BTW, Not necessarily focused at you johnny
It's extra interesting for me given that I'm supposed to be complicit in these conspiracies (work for private company that is regularly accused of being part of the whole new world order/Bilderberg/mil complex BS) yet I've not heard a single theory that's even credible, let alone accurate.
In saying that, govt and business def trade on fear to sell themselves, no doubt about that. However it's more contained to immigration policy, crime, Saddam Hussein, finance, aging, being wanted/popular/accepted, etc. All the shit regarding pandemics, FEMA, etc is just bullshit. Bad diseases exist, terrorism exists, WMDs exist....., even if Saddam didn't have them. Political, ideological and commercial interests capitalise on these things to benefit from them, fo sho, but they do not make them up from scratch, they don't need to - the world is a tough enough place already.
In saying that, govt and business def trade on fear to sell themselves, no doubt about that. However it's more contained to immigration policy, crime, Saddam Hussein, finance, aging, being wanted/popular/accepted, etc. All the shit regarding pandemics, FEMA, etc is just bullshit. Bad diseases exist, terrorism exists, WMDs exist....., even if Saddam didn't have them. Political, ideological and commercial interests capitalise on these things to benefit from them, fo sho, but they do not make them up from scratch, they don't need to - the world is a tough enough place already.
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Bermshot
Banned
When did the UN become a private company johnny or has this always been the case? Perhaps you don't work for them now but you did at one point yeah? You don't work for Blackwater now do you:spy:? LOLZ
I don't know....maybe your just a little man and do what your told, perhaps it's better for you not to know, some could say your a gatekeeper but sure as shit you cannot simplify as you did above.
You can all call me what you want and i'll happily die a fool, but even if i'm half correct I won't have gone down wondering.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Yes they did. Somewhere along the journey of life somebody made them from scratch. They didn't fall off a tree...except maybe mustard gas. That might be from a mustard tree.
Ridenparadise
Likes Bikes and Dirt
Forget the conspiracy stuff. The health workers infected were using appropriate personal protective gear. Health workers are at greatest risk and it is hard to come up with a justification for transferring infected people outside the infected area. Basic triage dictates you do not risk those with a chance of survival in favour of someone with 90% chance of death. That makes as much sense as someone training people in western medical techniques (life support) being against western medicine!
c3024446
Likes Bikes and Dirt
I guess if it becomes airborne we start to worry. Controlling the disease is possible with good medical awareness, something that most African countries unfortunately lack.
The was so much hysteria about SARS and birdflu in Asia, but none about this? I'm thinking it must be because they are spread airborne and this isn't. Can't be because we don't care about Africa....?
The was so much hysteria about SARS and birdflu in Asia, but none about this? I'm thinking it must be because they are spread airborne and this isn't. Can't be because we don't care about Africa....?
shake_rattle_and_ roll
Pumpin'
Hit the nail on the head. Forget the conspiracies of how Ebola came to be- the reality is that it has been surviving, though until recently, relatively dormant, contained & closely monitored. And as per the reports, the two doctors in question were very much by-the-book types who followed all of the safety protocols & took all of the relevant measures to protect themselves, & still they managed to contract Ebola. Despite having been able to keep it relatively contained & isolated for 50yrs, & despite all of the medical advances since its discovery & scientists now having a far greater understanding of Ebola's gestation, transmission & that it is very much an airborne (despite not categorically being regarded by absolute definition) virus, there is now an unprecedented number of cases & it is very much of epidemic proportions. Having spent some time working with a couple of NGOs in Africa in the early-mid 2000s, from experience unless it has a significantly exportable economic value then by-in-large, due to the region's volatility, the African continent (excl Algeria, Egypt, Libya) is typically treated as one giant containment area by the outside world, which is why I find everything about these two US doctors with Ebola being transferred BACK to the U.S. absolutely diabolical. Every single rule & safeguard of science, logic & hazard containment is being broken & the risks to the global population is a very real one.
PINT of Stella. mate!
Many, many Scotches
1. It's a 60% chance of death not 90%
2. The two doctors were trying to follow all the safety protocols to the best of their ability. Proper protocol when dealing with highly contagious viruses like Ebola are the use of positive pressure suits with independent air systems in a negatively pressured laboratory that have quarantine locks, decontamination showers etc.
They were operating in third world countries where they can't even source clean drinking water. Never mind space-age multi-million dollar containment facilities.
3. The two infected Americans are also two people who have had the most experience with the disease so it would be pretty stupid to let all that recently gained knowledge go to waste.
It's not airborne. They aren't landing them in f*****g Times Square and 'Outbreak', The 'Last Ship' and 'The Stand' are not documentaries (I'm not sure the Last Ship can even be considered entertainment)
2. The two doctors were trying to follow all the safety protocols to the best of their ability. Proper protocol when dealing with highly contagious viruses like Ebola are the use of positive pressure suits with independent air systems in a negatively pressured laboratory that have quarantine locks, decontamination showers etc.
They were operating in third world countries where they can't even source clean drinking water. Never mind space-age multi-million dollar containment facilities.
3. The two infected Americans are also two people who have had the most experience with the disease so it would be pretty stupid to let all that recently gained knowledge go to waste.
It's not airborne. They aren't landing them in f*****g Times Square and 'Outbreak', The 'Last Ship' and 'The Stand' are not documentaries (I'm not sure the Last Ship can even be considered entertainment)
pharmaboy
Eats Squid
Where's the evidence it's airborne?
Don't make assumptions about what procedures were followed. In that environment the contact could have come from an infected person who was undiagnosed.
shake_rattle_and_ roll
Pumpin'
It's an assumption based on having been subject to stringent operational protocols in Africa before. Having to take precautionary requirements when I was there due to the evidence of monkeypox/smallpox (something that is supposed to have been eradicated) outbreak in the communities we were working with , it'd be a safe & educated assumption that the operational & personal protocols/check-measures being taken were 100 fold on ours because of the obvious & infinitely higher exposure risks & implications.
Yes, any experiments, treatments or studies of such a virus requires it to be in vivo, but there is absolutely zero reason to transport these people out of continental Africa- ZERO! Why? Because of Africa's history of disease & because of Africa being globally recognised as the continent of origin for a number of fatal viruses/diseases in the world, by virtue of this it's an ideal study environment & as such a significant number of the world's leading epidemiologists & epidemiology test facilities are in Africa & have been since the late 1960s. These key facilities are generally privately owned & funded entirely from off-shore Western dollars (pharmaceuticals, foreign gov subsidies, universities etc) & they are fundamentally there & function to provide real-time, on-the-ground study, monitoring & containment within their "natural" environment. Everything needed to study, monitor & treat can be taken there & done in Africa. About the only that couldn't be done in Africa is the production of a quantity of vaccine require for the population if scientists managed to find one.
One such report/study from 2012, which has recently popped up again, & lends credence to Ebola having the ability to be transferred via indirect contact or the air- yes, for the sake of semantics I'll avoid using the specific term airborne, because as previous eluded to, by pure medical definition it isn't "airborne".
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121115/srep00811/full/srep00811.html
Pint, the verified fatality rate of Ebola is between 60% & 90%- so yes, statistically it'll f#%king kill you in a slow & horrible fashion long before your runny nose stops; & no, unlike the common flu our bodies will never evolve to cope with it because of Ebola's MO being cellular breakdown. Sadly scientists can't even determine how those who survive managed to do so despite having been exposed & exhibiting the hallmarks. Based on what reports are out there, who the doctors were working in association with & their place not only in the study of Ebola but also in the program's hierarchy to try & arrest this latest outbreak, & being very aware of the asset management lengths taken by companies & organisations to not only protect the researchers but the research, then given each of the doctor's experience there is no way they wouldn't have been operating in a hot-spot & directly been in contact with patients, let alone fellow staff based at these field infirmaries, without a PPPS let alone mobile disinfection suites (showers that chemically douse down PPPS users multiple times prior to removal). As for the nationals who are the first points of contact or ongoing points of exposure (nurses, doctors & those charged with sterilization/decontamination of field facilities or disposing of the dead), well as to whether they'd have been wearing what would be considered an appropriate level of protection, I'd say absolutely not- because they aren't a private asset, they are merely localised collateral in the equation & replaceable. Not sure that you necessarily appreciate just how much money from the medical industry is poured into Africa purely just to enable the study of infectious diseases- that flow of money turns in to a torrent of money whenever an outbreak such as this happens & it's naive of you to think that just because its Africa that neither of the doctors would've had access to the relevant safety equipment, let alone be operating without the strictest of protocols in place. What I would agree with you on though, is that there is some likelihood that both of the doctors' source originates from an undiagnosed person, or alternatively a major breakdown in protocol has happened & exposure has occurred at a field unit. Unfortunately that's the admirable quality of Ebola- it's stealth, highly contagious & can go either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed until the individual exhibits the symptoms of early organ failure, by which time it's too late, & more often than not kills.
PINT of Stella. mate!
Many, many Scotches
If it were airborne, why has there only been two confirmed cases from the Monrovia-Lagos flight? Not to mention given the high population densities in West Africa I would expect to see the infection rate soaring to flu-like levels.
The US patients were not flown on a Jetstar flight into JFK. They, the pilots and medical staff will all be under the strictest monitoring and quarantine conditions and as for it not being 'procedure' , how do you know? Unless you are or have been an employee of the US CDC, you can't claim any such thing. I'd hazard a guess that offering the best possible treatment in the case of infection is one way of actually getting the best, most knowledgable medical staff to risk their lives by flying into the middle of an infection in the first place.
The US patients were not flown on a Jetstar flight into JFK. They, the pilots and medical staff will all be under the strictest monitoring and quarantine conditions and as for it not being 'procedure' , how do you know? Unless you are or have been an employee of the US CDC, you can't claim any such thing. I'd hazard a guess that offering the best possible treatment in the case of infection is one way of actually getting the best, most knowledgable medical staff to risk their lives by flying into the middle of an infection in the first place.
PINT of Stella. mate!
Many, many Scotches
I've actually spent a few years working in the Oil industry in Angola, Ghana and Nigeria - and had family living in Nigeria for over 20 years- so I've seen first hand what happens to millions and millions (if not billions) of dollars worth of foreign investment in a West African country.
It tends to result in widespread theft and corruption at every level and the erosion of damn near every safety standard that international giants like Chevron and Shell usually enforce rigorously because of a combination of lack of education, endemic corruption and general anarchy. I can't really see the medical industry being any different. Also going by the photos of medical staff in the news marigolds, duct tape and safety goggles appear to be the standard protective uniform. I certainly haven't seen anything resembling the space suits normally worn in western disease labs.
Never worked for the UN, probably wanted to as some stage before I realised how screwed up the world is and how impotent most branches of the UN actually are. Nope, not Blackwater or even anything similar.
Yes, I am a little man. A very, very little man indeed. But I sure as shit can and did simply things like that and I most definitely stand by it.
Not sure you're reading me correctly. I'm saying that all the great threats in the world such as terrorism, WMDs, disease/epidemics, environmental challenges, belligerent state actors and so on are real. They are not fairy tales whipped up by secret societies, the military complex or big pharma or even politicians and ideologues. The world most definitely is a dangerous place where terrorism is real, diseases and savage people exist. Particular interests such as politicians, ideologues and capitalists take advantage of these threats to sell their policy, ideas and products but they don't need to construct these threats in order to sell themselves, these threats already exist exclusive of their selfish agendas.
K, back to bleeding out your orifices and other delightful thoughts!
shake_rattle_and_ roll
Pumpin'
Hang on, Sunshine, either you don't read, are ignorant or you're trigger happy. Who's making an aspersion that these doctors are being flown on a conventional commercial flight? Your input & rebuttal is based on you having been involved in an industry whose objective was to mine & remove the economic resource from that particular nation- an industry who directly contributes & in many cases instigates political coups to destabilize governments etcetc to increase lease rights/ secure continued & ongoing mining rights... So the motives for corruption & incidences of it are naturally going to be (incredibly) high- governments, mutli-nationals, traditional landowners & every greasy hand in between rightfully wants a bite of the pie. And trust me, I know EXACTLY what the mining industry is about- from Tabubil PNG, Makeni SL & Mandeville JAM, through to Gove in the NT, Mt Isa & Blackwater in QLD, I've done lengthy stints in all of those places not only as a child of a mining industry family but then also as a professional, so I've 20yrs of my own hands-on experience & a better understanding than most when it comes to the whys & wherefore which create the procedural & cultural issues that you're talking about in the mining game. And as such I can also tell you first hand that any erosion in procedure or protocol that happens to your BHPs, your Rios, Shells, your Al-Can/AlPart, Chevron or Barricks in these foreign operations happens only through piss-poor management or internal workplace culture & that alone. If your experience working for a mining/petro-chem operator has been otherwise then I put it to you that you've been either working for a smaller operator or the operator is cutting corners in a fashion reflective/indicative of the mine's/operation's short life-span (ie cut n run ops)/lease term or through the volatility of the ruling government.
Whilst also obviously susceptible (predominantly the pharmaceutical corporations) to corruption particularly where high consumable pharmaceuticals are concerned, the medical industry actually relies on people getting sick & dying in order for treatment advancement in these not-so-understood illnesses/diseases- it needs people suffering in order to develop, trial & study, & as such the industry is reliant on gaining its most valuable understanding of disease from within its natural environment (in this case sub-Saharan tropics). No industry is exempt from corruption, but the important thing to recognise in this situation is there isn't an African nation who wants an epidemic like Ebola wiping out the constituents let alone their population & what (relatively) little domestic economy they have. As every single person who has been exposed to the mechanisms of an under-developed nations, yourself included, will agree on; people & cultures can survive without money or a "positive" economy, but families, culture, politics & nations don't exist without a population. It is for that reason alone that by comparison the levels of corruption would be very, very low. After all the motives & outcomes are poles apart from the happenings in the mining industry- were talking about a horrific virus capable of wiping out populations. Money's no good to anyone if you can't see, smell or defecate the excesses of said money through the blood that is pouring from your orifices.
It's messy enough to think about the conspiracy outcomes if Ebola were weaponised, but rather than stoop to that paranoid knee-jerk idea, let's just think about it at its most basic level: given Ebola's ability to fly under the radar & the vast expanse of unknowns when it comes to understanding it, can you even begin to imagine the impact a single case of an uncontained Ebola would have if it were encountered in the general US populous? The reality in Africa is that for every person who is diagnosed, it is estimated that there are as many as 10 to 15 carriers who go undiagnosed, be it as a result of misdiagnosis ("oh, it's just flu"), transience, geographical isolation, tribalism or distrust of western medicine etc. Based on this conservative estimate, that means of the 1600 Ebola deaths (verified & died in facilities setup specifically to treat & contain Ebola) there's potential for the true, albeit speculative, contingency number being closer to potentially 16,000 who have died. So the exposure risks are incredibly high & made worse by the fact that it is so easily carried about in a region of the world with very little in the way of a healthcare system & it is very difficult to access. The only saving grace is that population densities & methods of transport are very different which in turn helps to stymie Ebola's ability to spread.
In terms of whether the African nationals are wearing adequate protection, as I clearly stated in my previous post & based on my own experience- no they would not. Because they aren't an asset or vital to any research being conducted by the organisations or facilities whose auspices these 2 US doctors are working under, the workers at the coal-face of this outbreak are employees of a foreign government & as such would be operating with what government resources are available ie coveralls, dust masks & marigolds. And having just looked at all available & current imagery associated with this latest outbreak of Ebola, sure enough they aren't. And likewise I could not find a single picture of white healthcare worker in any of those available- surprising? Not one bit.
That's the core difference between the mining industry & Ebola & why I'd challenge your corruption angle, PINT- NO ONE wants Ebola leaving its shores of origin. Once again, unless you haven't been reading, despite how long Ebola has been around for the only advancement that has been made is a more accurate method of testing & diagnosing Ebola, that is how little is understood about it. SO to suggest that there is some logic in transporting this unknown & fatal virus out of relative containment, because there are "better" treatment options in the US which outweighs the risk, despite some of the world's leading facilities & researchers being in Africa because of the high rates of infectious disease incidence, is not only complete madness it's complete bullshit.
Regarding the Mon-Lagos flight, you touch on the most 2nd most fucked up part of this whole incident so far. The reality is that it's now gone from being isolated outbreaks in war-torn & subsequently shadowed regional West Africa where it is hard to get accurate information in or out of the countries to having now skipped borders thanks to Mr Sawyer, who has subsequently carried Ebola to Lagos from Monrovia via Lome in Togo & died in Africa's most populated city of 21 million people. Lagos is an international transport hub! Only two confirmed cases from that one flight, huh? Well I can all but guarantee you a case of Stella that there will be more cases which will come to light in the very near future based on the gestation/infection rates/time frames.
Am thankful that of the half-dozen mates that are over there (all in the mining industry) all of them have already sent their families home within the last month & they aren't far behind them, such is the lack of information & publicity regarding the extent of the problem.
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PINT of Stella. mate!
Many, many Scotches
Nope. For a start i never once mentioned mining so I think you yourself should cut back on the accusations of 'not reading' particularly if you are then going to swamp us all with irrelevant background info.
Secondly erosions in protocol and procedures largely happen in West African operations because they happen at every level of society in these nations. What, do you think Nigeria being the spiritual home of internet fraud is just a random meme? Is the stereotype of the Rolls Royce driving Swiss Bank Account owning African politician just a figment of the imagination?
We're talking about a nation where a significant part of the population suddenly decided to riot en masse killing hundreds of people because of the Danish 'Mohammed' cartoons over a year after they were first published. Where you cannot fly in and out of any airport without having customs and immigrations agents hitting you up for small 'gifts'. Same goes for the cops. A nation that has at one end of the country, the high-profile kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls -still unresolved to this day- and at the other end the second largest proven oil reserves on the continent (after Libya) that remain at minimal production levels because of widespread theft, corruption and kidnappings.
Somewhere in the middle is the the rapid growth industries of internet fraud and widespread drug smuggling from South America.
Their neighbours aren't in much better shape. Before the Ebola outbreaks Sierra Leone and Liberia had both civil wars and murderous dictators to contend with. Not to mention the whole blood diamond trade.
Its a nice sentiment but I'm afraid history is full of countless leaders who have been happy to let their populations starve just to keep themselves in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.
I dunno where all these 'magic' hospitals are of yours in West Africa but I'm pretty sure if I were suffering from an incurable viral infection I would want to be somewhere clean, sanitised and not currently swamped by other infected patients or at risk of being firebombed by a terrified local population.
Finally I'll refer you back to your original statement. Every single rule & safeguard of logic & hazard containment? absolutely diabolical? Gimme a break
Africa is a porous continent. There is no guarantee that an infected person couldn't wind up one of the hundreds of flights from West Africa to Europe, or board a packed boat full of migrants and cross the Med. Flying two US citizens in a tightly controlled special flight to a facility where they already have a virtual candyshop of all manner of nasty shit is in the grand scheme of things not that risky. Particularly when one of those patients is a Doctor who not only has first hand experience of the current strain but happens to be carrying a whole shitload of it for the CDC to get to work on in a safe and sanitised environment.
shake_rattle_and_ roll
Pumpin'
**long awkward silence***Nope. For a start i never once mentioned mining so I think you yourself should cut back on the accusations of 'not reading' particularly if you are then going to swamp us all with irrelevant background info.
Secondly erosions in protocol and procedures largely happen in West African operations because they happen at every level of society in these nations. What, do you think Nigeria being the spiritual home of internet fraud is just a random meme? Is the stereotype of the Rolls Royce driving Swiss Bank Account owning African politician just a figment of the imagination?
We're talking about a nation where a significant part of the population suddenly decided to riot en masse killing hundreds of people because of the Danish 'Mohammed' cartoons over a year after they were first published. Where you cannot fly in and out of any airport without having customs and immigrations agents hitting you up for small 'gifts'. Same goes for the cops. A nation that has at one end of the country, the high-profile kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls -still unresolved to this day- and at the other end the second largest proven oil reserves on the continent (after Libya) that remain at minimal production levels because of widespread theft, corruption and kidnappings.
Somewhere in the middle is the the rapid growth industries of internet fraud and widespread drug smuggling from South America.
Their neighbours aren't in much better shape. Before the Ebola outbreaks Sierra Leone and Liberia had both civil wars and murderous dictators to contend with. Not to mention the whole blood diamond trade.
Its a nice sentiment but I'm afraid history is full of countless leaders who have been happy to let their populations starve just to keep themselves in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.
I dunno where all these 'magic' hospitals are of yours in West Africa but I'm pretty sure if I were suffering from an incurable viral infection I would want to be somewhere clean, sanitised and not currently swamped by other infected patients or at risk of being firebombed by a terrified local population.
Finally I'll refer you back to your original statement. Every single rule & safeguard of logic & hazard containment? absolutely diabolical? Gimme a break
Africa is a porous continent. There is no guarantee that an infected person couldn't wind up one of the hundreds of flights from West Africa to Europe, or board a packed boat full of migrants and cross the Med. Flying two US citizens in a tightly controlled special flight to a facility where they already have a virtual candyshop of all manner of nasty shit is in the grand scheme of things not that risky. Particularly when one of those patients is a Doctor who not only has first hand experience of the current strain but happens to be carrying a whole shitload of it for the CDC to get to work on in a safe and sanitised environment.
Oh god...
hoto:I have no idea where to begin, & that's just regarding your attempt at paraphrasing.
PINT of Stella. mate!
Many, many Scotches
Just try filling the thread with another 12 lengthy paragraphs of largely irrelevant information. Seemed to work for you the last time.**long awkward silence***
Oh god...
I have no idea where to begin, & that's just regarding your attempt at paraphrasing.