Ebola Virus

biochem wrote:Good point on the would with the example of the syphilis.

And I did come up with a method of how it could be done. Originally I was defaulting to biochemistry/genetic type approaches (which is my personal bias and also seems to be the bias of the conspiracy theorists who claim we invented it) and I still doubt we have the knowledge to do it that way now.

But there is a pharmacology method, serial passage, that has been around since the 1800s and while unlikely, it is at least theoretically possible. Pharmacologists (not my area of expertise) routinely use this method to artificially change target species of viruses for research purposes and both these viruses arose from mutated animal viruses. So in theory it is possible that some secret Psychopaths R Us Inc group used this method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_passage

Combining responses to both cthia and biochem.

The freezers at the CDC and somewhere in Russia contain a lot of odd viruses, bacteria, fungi and other icks -worms, assorted parasites-, many of them highly lethal. One of the scary mysteries of the world is how many of these nightmares are out there in the wild but mostly do not run amok infecting large numbers of people. One of them could do so at any time. No conspiracy by governments, or just idiots, is necessary. Mama Nature can zap us whenever She pleases. There are dozens and dozens of these potential slatewipers toodling around all over the world... but mainly in tropical regions. The wonder is how seldom they strike.

And what, pray tell, may be lurking in the freezers at USAMIID? which is the former home of our bioweaponeers? God only knows. And the freezers of Bioaparat? In the hands of Putin? There's a jolly thought.

And how many other countries or corporations have little germ collections? Or big germ collections? I bet... A lot. And every one of them is an opportunity for stupid and/or sloppy to happen.

Frankly, it is even scarier how many researchers there are fooling around with this and that just to see what they can do. My faith in their competence and safety protocols is not high, due to the lousy track record on the subject. It will only take once. But... this has to be in the same mental file with comet strikes and supervolcanos erupting in cataclysms; stuff I cannot do a darn thing about so -besides giving my self a good scare now and then with a plague that eats the world novel- I may as well ignore it until such time as it actually happens.

There are different strains of HIV which have different affinities that seem to affect who gets them most easily. This could be a basis for the conspiracies... not that paranoid conspiracy theories need any sort of basis.

cthia wrote:
On another note, one of the conspiracy theories does not claim the US as designers of Ebola, just that they (US) used the virus as biological warfare to depopulate Africa, which has long been a target since the dissolution of Apartheid (from theorist eyes).

Part of that stems from the knowledge of The CDC Vault, which contain frozen samples of lethal viruses. The Vault has always been a source of fear, paranoia, disagreement and anger for many.

I have to add one more thing. Nobody ever wants to admit their own social conditions or customs allow a disease to run rampant among them. This is true in Africa just as it was true within the American gay community back in the early 80s when conspiracy theories abounded about the source of AIDS. In that case what allowed HIV to spread was a culture of free love sans condoms, including thinking it was ok to visit third world countries and have unprotected sex with the locals. Combine that sort of thing with the insidious way HIV lurks without symptoms for years while being contagious all along.... You get a tragedy. At the time too many were vociferous in denial those social behaviors had any bearing on the issue. Well, they did. Why it was a surprise that STDs could be dangerous and be spread by that sort of unprotected rampant fooling around... But such is human nature. It was a virus. It didn't give a rat's fanny what anyone's freedom agenda was. Give it a means of spread and it will spread. That is the nature of germs.

Ebola now is spreading wherever contact conditions allow it to spread. It does not care how sacred one's funeral practices are, or anything else, except getting itself spread as widely as possible. Behaviors change or people die. Period.

Blaming the USA or anyone else is frankly, a moot point. It is there and it is running amok. It will stop when people change the behaviors that allow it to spread. Thankfully, so far, Ebola is not seriously airborne. Those are pretty much impossible to stop.

Here is a small mystery. Plague, Yersina pestis, is endemic in many rodent populations in the USA and yet we are not seeing plague break out among people beyond an occasional case. This is the same bug that caused The Black Death to sweep the world killing what? A third of the world's population. It is here right now. It lurks... and so far... only lurks.

Tom Clancy's books Executive Orders and Rainbow Six didn't do anything to help stamp out the conspiracy theories either.

A virus's evolutionary goal in "life" is to make as many replicates of itself as possible. Fortunately for us.


The common cold is the most evolutionary successful virus ever. It doesn't kill the host, leaving the host available for re-infection by a future descendent, slightly mutated so that the host's immune system doesn't recognize it. It is easily transmissible from one host to the next. It's symptoms are so mild that hosts rarely restrict their activities maximizing it's exposure to new hosts. As a result it infects everyone in the world again and again and again. Almost everyone catches it at least once per year if not more often. It is extremely successful.

In the grand scheme of things Ebola isn't particularly successful at it's goal. It kills it's host which is one of the things that was limiting it's spread for decades while it was in small villages. It would basically die with the villagers. It isn't easily transmissible or we'd have 10 million (+) dead in West Africa by now. It's symptoms are severe, preventing the host from being in contact with many new hosts. And it's hosts are evolving methods of further limiting it's spread (quarantine, modified funeral practices etc).

Now imagine if Ebola evolved into a much less severe form similar to the current flu strains, only killing the weak, so that quarantine, changed funeral practices etc were no longer necessary and so on. It would be a much more successful virus and be able to make far more copies of itself than it will be able to in it's current virulent form. So evolution is on our side, the evolutionary pressure is to make it less dangerous.

Northstar wrote:
Unfortunately, it goes beyond mere illiteracy, even here in America. That can be remedied by personal application to learning things. But the disdain for education and 'being smart'... or even having a bit of a BS filter on what one gets from the media etc is a personal choice. It is also nothing new here.

Ignorance is only stupid when it is willing. On that there is a LOT of willingness going around.

Even before the invention of the public library, it was possible to learn. It is just much easier now. The patient still needs to want to cure the ignorance.

If your kids have an elementary school teacher who is able to cause the youngsters to enjoy learning, HANG ON TO THEM! If you need to, fire any administrators who handicap them.

I didn't learn to enjoy learning until college, although I knew how. I ran into something which wasn't understood, and where understanding was desired. Now studying things not yet understood is a hobby. Inexpensive, too

WELL worth reading:

http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2014/11/mic ... dium=email

DDHv wrote:

Northstar wrote:
Unfortunately, it goes beyond mere illiteracy, even here in America. That can be remedied by personal application to learning things. But the disdain for education and 'being smart'... or even having a bit of a BS filter on what one gets from the media etc is a personal choice. It is also nothing new here.

Ignorance is only stupid when it is willing. On that there is a LOT of willingness going around.

Even before the invention of the public library, it was possible to learn. It is just much easier now. The patient still needs to want to cure the ignorance.

If your kids have an elementary school teacher who is able to cause the youngsters to enjoy learning, HANG ON TO THEM! If you need to, fire any administrators who handicap them.

I didn't learn to enjoy learning until college, although I knew how. I ran into something which wasn't understood, and where understanding was desired. Now studying things not yet understood is a hobby. Inexpensive, too

All this is so true.

Our solution to the quality uncertainty situation with schools was to teach all our kids to read, write, and do arithmetic before they started school. Also some beginning science, art and music - learning to observe and draw and paint, to read music, sing and toodle out tunes on the piano, studying the various lifeforms in the house, gardens and yard. "Ooh, mom, look at all the baby spiders...", this from my then 3 year old daughter who had discovered a hatching of baby wolf spiders and had come in with a couple dozen of them dangling off her finger tips like puppets on strings.

Their favorite book, read many many times over by each of them; The Elements Rage, by Frank W. Lane. They all still like weather stuff.

Most read other sort of books; Good Night Moon and, a bit older, The Wind in the Willows. If I had a dime for every time I was asked to read Good Night Moon when they were toddlers...

I'm glad to say they all still love learning new things, all have interesting careers and still read and do music and various arts, including photography, often.

Read to your kids, talk with them, listen to them, take time every day to be with them, make it fun not a chore, most of all set the example by being seen to study things for the pleasure of it yourself, etc. And do teach them critical thinking skills. Take apart ads on tv, help them develop working BS-O-Meters, encourage clear thinking and analytic skills... even when they disagree with you because of it. Encourage independence, but also an awareness of communal and cultural realities to be dealt with, including a need for some basic courtesy and respect for others without becoming a doormat. Most of all love them and respect them.

As to moi, well, I'm the classic bookaholic and love it.

Could the more than half million dollars per treatment for Ebola be a factor in the delays in treatment of several patients that ended in death?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola- ... ts-n250986

One such case:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ ... l-26964965

cthia wrote:Could the more than half million dollars per treatment for Ebola be a factor in the delays in treatment of several patients that ended in death?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola- ... ts-n250986

One such case:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ ... l-26964965

I saw much lower figures for treatment in Africa. The high figures probably include high quality isolation suits, experimental treatments, etc. Hope they find something that can be passed on. GSK company seems at present to be in the lead for a vaccine, with several others also working on that. If an effective vaccine exists the ring treatment can be used - vaccinate everyone surrounding any patients. That is how they stopped smallpox, which was still too common in my grandparent's time. Unless some fool releases SPox from the laboratories, we shouldn't have that again.

It would be nice to read a SF story featuring a hero who comes up with some method of producing a vaccine quickly Perhaps some variation on the computer aided design and manufacturing now used so much in industry When I was studying engineering, CAD and CAM were barely mentioned, only the giant corporations could afford either. If CAD/CAM could be used to quickly evaluate a virus, design an antibody, and produce it, there would be another revolution in medicine. Give strong odds someone is working on one or another aspect of this right now. For example, costs and speed for a genomic charting are dropping, which should apply to virus genomes also.

There was a picture showing some workers in isolation suits, looks like they are using standard safety goggles on the face. The rest may be a bought suit, or possibly the trash bag design if the trash bags over there are white. Which might make sense, given the climate. Liberia thinks they are controlling Ebola, we should know by next year whether that is accurate. Source:

https://www.mnnonline.org/news/liberia- ... ew-normal/

Northstar wrote:
Combine that sort of thing with the insidious way HIV lurks without symptoms for years while being contagious all along.... You get a tragedy. . . ..

Ebola now is spreading wherever contact conditions allow it to spread. It does not care how sacred one's funeral practices are, or anything else, except getting itself spread as widely as possible. Behaviors change or people die. Period. . . ..

Remember the artificial disease in the Empire of Man series that wiped out most life? One thing DW did for that series was to have it spread before symptoms. The other factor was that it killed everything. I wish we could trust the germ warfare people NOT to aim in that direction.

I'm glad our immune systems were designed to fight off many genetic variations It is a very complicated system, and it is worth studying what we know about it. Our biochemical knowledge is increasing by leaps and bounds, but as I remind kids when discussing learning, our civilization has learned to value knowledge and understanding, but is still lacking in using them wisely. We get too many barbarians, internal and external, with advanced weapons.

cthia wrote:Could the more than half million dollars per treatment for Ebola be a factor in the delays in treatment of several patients that ended in death?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola- ... ts-n250986

One such case:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ ... l-26964965

If some people come in too late, all the money spent won't stop them from dying. The last patient that died,m arrived too late to save him, the disease was too advanced for any treatments to be effective. Plus the experimental treatments are just that; experimental. These are the first human trials.