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US Army To Transport American Ebola Victim To Atlanta Hospital From Liberia
acidradio (659704) writes American air charter specialist Phoenix Air has been contracted by the U.S. Army to haul an American physician afflicted with Ebola from Liberia to the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. This will be the first 'purposeful' transport of an Ebola victim to the U.S. The patient will be flown in a special Gulfstream III (formerly owned by the Danish Air Force) outfitted for very specialized medical transports such as this. I dunno. I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
theodp (442580) writes with related news In response to the Ebola outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Interim Guidance about Ebola Virus Infection for Airline Flight Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel. "Ebola virus is transmitted by close contact with a person who has symptoms of Ebola," the CDC explains. "Close contact is defined as having cared for or lived with a person with Ebola or having a high likelihood of direct contact with blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Examples of close contact include kissing or embracing, sharing eating or drinking utensils, close conversation (3 feet), physical examination, and any other direct physical contact between people. Close contact does not include walking by a person or briefly sitting across a room from a person."
The Zombie Apocalypse is nearly upon us! Run ! RUNNNNNN!
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
CNN had an article on this shortly before it popped up here. In their article, they said that an Ebola vaccine is well underway, with trials expected to begin in humans soon. It's apparently been proven effective in monkeys already. I was a little concerned before I read that, but if they've got a working vaccine, it's really not a big deal.
Wasn't a patient transported on a Gulfstream a sub-plot of a Tom Clancy novel? (Executive Orders, IIRC)
The Centers for Disease Control is in Atlanta.
It's nice to see reason and logic flying out the window with most of these early posts, by the way. I think I'll invest in pitchfork futures, pronto!
#DeleteChrome
The disease is not particularly communicable. It tends to externalize a lot of bodily fluids, which is why in places with poor sanitary conditions, it spreads pretty quickly. Hospitals which handle patients like these tend not to be considered poor sanitary conditions..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Just for fun, the folks at the CDC should combine Ebola with the rabies virus. This zombie apocalypse isn't going to start itself!
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
Ebola is hardly the only scary pathogen handled by the CDC. In fact I believe the CDC doesn't even consider this among the most dangerous of pathogens because of the relative difficulty in transmission which requires direct contact and it evolves relatively slowly apparently. They know very well how to handle this. The main concern is that they actually follow proper procedures. If they do that then there is little to worry about.
If you really want to study ebola to find a cure this is probably a very good idea provided they exercise appropriate caution. You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
In all likelihood, nothing. The CDC handles copies of pretty much every known pathogen on the planet. It is the premier pathogen research institution on the planet. They've already seen ebola. The only thing novel about this is that they are bringing in a live patient with the disease to a top tier hospital so they can bring the best tools to bear on researching the disease and hopefully treating this guy.
Is the TSA agent going to give the Ebola patient a pat-down? After all, he might have a bomb in his underwear.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Emory University's Campus touches the CDC, so much so you can look out of some of the windows in Emory and see into the offices at the CDC. They also work together professionally. Essentially this person is being transferred to the CDC.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Herp and derp, doctors in african countries in makeshift hospitals should have access to all sorts of sanitary facilities, just like in the CDC!
Look, I managed to counter your argument without seeking refuge in ad hominem, you pinheaded microphallic butt sniffer!
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
When did Slashdot become home to stupid FUD* spewing dweebs with little or no common sense? The subtitle is "News for Nerds," which would suggest somebody who submits something might have half a clue about what they are talking about (leaving the plebs to pontificate on logical and scientific fallacy or imagine a Beowulf cluster of hot grits ).
I want my Slashdot with nerds filter enabled.
And yes it is an excellent idea, because it gives the CDC a living "test tube" of the actual active Ebola virus, not a sample of infected blood collected, and shipped on ice. Making it ideal for study, and possibly detection of any variant (i.e. mutation) that had not been notice before. Of course, this will likely cost the American doctor his/her life, but such is the risk of fighting an viral outbreak, and the real-world beyond web forums and politicians rambling.
* FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
If you could catch Ebola by touching the sweat somebody left behind as they passed through a room, it would have spread a lot farther than it has. I'm pretty sure they'll be testing everybody that comes into contact with this guy for the virus, and even if the tests miss it, the symptoms are not subtle, it being a hemorrhagic fever and all...
Not every virus acts like the flu or cold viruses. Ebola isn't particularly virulent, even if it is pretty nasty if you come down with it. Being able to perform tests on a live patient in a state-of-the-art facility (as opposed to a 3rd-world heap whose "hospitals" are about as sanitary as a mid-grade highway rest stop) is invaluable in researching treatments. Just like the movies, the CDC has on-site facilities specifically designed to treat people with scary diseases we don't want in the population at large; this seems like an excellent use for them.
As long as no-one shoots down the plane, while it is over some heavily populated location, like, Atlanta.
Um, there are massive differences between Atlanta and Liberia.
Do you believe the following are regular occurrences in Atlanta?
1) Family of someone who died of a known infectious disease choose to hand-wash the corpse anyway, with full knowledge of the cause of death. (Note: Many Africans apparently don't believe the disease exists.)
2) Local residents protest the hospital because they believe that the "story" about the infections disease is a coverup for ritual cannibalism. http://www.reuters.com/article...
3) Local residents break in to the isolation ward to remove an infected family member from the hospital
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This guy had limited equipment, and was treating patients in a facility that would make a highway rest stop look like a model for cleanliness. I expect he was taking every precaution he could, but that's not necessarily a lot.
The CDC has purpose-built facilities designed precisely for treating patients with deadly diseases a lot more communicable than this. This seems like a good use for them.
Yup, CDC knows how to handle this sort of shit.
Yes they do. Nobody's perfect but I trust the CDC to handle this. I've met people that work there. I'm married to a physician that deals with the CDC from time to time and she trusts them. They are very good at their job.
It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
And that is relevant in what way here? Seriously. Explain to me how some leftover vials of a pathogen from decades ago has any relevance to this case beside pointing out the already obvious fact that there is a tiny but non-zero chance someone might do something stupid. That failure mode has precisely zero bearing on this issue. People are not perfect, news at 11.
Cut out the sissy NIMBY scaremongering. There is really, truly nothing to worry about here. It's not funny and it scares people who don't know any better.
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Probably yes there is a research interest. Otherwise there would be no reason to choose Atlanta (home of the CDC) of all possible treatment locations. There are plenty of places for treatment but only one place where the experts at the CDC can look at things up close. It's a lot harder to bring the CDC to the patient than the other way around.
You realise the different between some freeze dried sample in a jar, in a sealed drawer, in a sealed room, and a living human being infected with it and being transfered all over the place? Right?
Of course there are differences which is why comparing the two is both stupid and irrelevant. The failure modes have nothing to do with one another. It is well understood how ebola is transmitted and we have very well established containment protocols that we know work well. Ebola is not highly communicative, readily contained and the risks are quite low. The CDC doesn't even consider it among the most dangerous pathogens because it is relatively hard to transmit. They've already had the ebola virus in Atlanta for study. The only thing different here is simply that they have a live patient to handle which is something infections disease doctors deal with every single day.
There's a reason animals (and humans) are paranoid about shit we don't understand. From a survival standpoint, it's an advantageous attitude to have. And right now, I'm pretty fucking paranoid about being anywhere near people with Ebola!
Then you need to educate yourself because ebola is NOT even in the top 20 pathogens you should be worried about. Infectious disease doctors worry about diseases like Vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus which is an example of a much more serious threat. You're worrying about a meteor strike when while living in Tornado Alley. Sure there is a tiny risk but it isn't what you should be concerned about. Ebola is scary but there are MUCH scarier and FAR more likely pathogens out there.
Ebola is hard to transmit, easy to contain, evolves slowly and is very unlikely to come anywhere near you in the near future.
Better to study Ebola in a large, properly-equipped research facility where we know exactly who has it (this one guy), and can take appropriate precautions. The precautions needed to keep the infection from spreading in a hospital setting are not particularly elaborate; better than what's available in BFE General Hospital, but nothing fancier than the isolation unit present in just about every major academic medical center in the US.
That's about 1000x better than somebody bringing it over here and spreading it to some other people before somebody recognizes it for what it is, and that being the first chance to run real research on a live patient. This way, we bring over one guy, and the best infectious disease doctors in the world can all be treating him at once in a facility designed for exactly this purpose, with virtually zero chance of this not-particularly-communicable disease going anywhere.
Or, we could have a surprise panic when this shows up in a family somewhere in flyover country, or somebody spreads it to patients in the waiting room of the Metropolis General Hospital ER... yeah, that's LOTS better.
Or not.
As God as my witness, I thought ebola victims could fly!
SCIENTIST 1
I'm afraid we'll be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedures today, Gordon.
SCIENTIST 2
Yes, but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us. This is the purest sample we've seen yet.
SCIENTIST 1
And potentially the most unstable!
SCIENTIST 2
Oh, if you follow standard insertion procedures, everything will be fine.
SCIENTIST 1
I don't know how you can say that. Although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely, I remain uncomfortable with the---
SCIENTIST 2
Gordon doesn't need to hear this. He's a highly trained professional. We have assured the Administrator that nothing will go wrong.
SCIENTIST 1
Ah yes, you're right. Gordon, we have complete confidence in you.
SCIENTIST 2
Well, go ahead. Let's let him in now.
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
They are all, already here. If you think they aren't, you're rather foolish. The difference here is this case got the media's attention. You literally have to get the carriers bodily fluids in your mouth to catch this. That's only happening in areas with sanitation so poor that hardly exist in this country, or if you're in healthcare and taking care of the victims. Which, btw, is what both these people were doing. They're heros, and should be treated as such.
We've had about 30 years to decide draw up plans for dealing with Ebola. There is the real amount of time available for transparency, not the brief time you claim. That we chose to make no plans today does not mean we automatically agree to bring Ebola infected patients into our population centers, even if someone's life is on the line.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Many of the foreigners are dirty with infestation and disease And that's the fucking point. They're supposed to be in guarantee. No actually, they're supposed to be DEPORTED unless they have a valid entry visa!!! In fact, that's exact what went on at Ellis Island.
Am I against illegal immigration? You God damn right I am. OUR PEOPLE COME BEFORE THEIRS! Period. Those fuckers need to walk back to where they came from and start a revolution in their own countries. If they can't keep their own country form turning into a 3rd world hellhole, why in the fuck are we allowing the same thing to happen to this one?
Let me beat you over the head with a clue stick. It's for the votes. The middle class is a threat to the establishment. Both the Republican's and Democrats want slave labor. A caste base system is their ultimate goal!
or research ... risking an Ebola outbreak in a major US city
The entire point of the research is to learn enough to be able to stop an outbreak in a major US city if one were to start.
Why do you seem to be advocating not doing such research?
I'm all for it, just do it in Africa. Send a team from the CDC with everything they need and enough LN2 to freeze every specimen they could possibly want, then fly that back to the CDC and do the research in a BSL4. If you want to do in vivo research, then use an animal model. Unlike many other pathogens, there are animal models for Ebola infection that are comparatively good. Realistically, bringing two patients who are already infected with Ebola to the US probably isn't going to advance knowledge in that area in such a quantum way as to outweigh the potential risks.
Worry about the folks who flew here from Africa who didn't know they were infected, and are even now having hamburgers at the airport.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
who can blame me for saying this is batshit insane? and isn't the level-4 biohazard lab at the CDC still closed because they can't read the freakin' instructions?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It's not like there is some magical cure awaiting them upon arrival at Emory, there is no cure for Ebola. About the best they can hope for is palliative care, so why not just send a team to West Africa to do the same.
Actually there ARE some experimental treatments and antivirals, both general and specific to Ebola, being worked on. At Emory, in particular. (It's their business.)
In fact, according to previous reports, THIS GUY was working on them. And he had ONE dose of one of them WITH him.
Unfortunately, when he and a colleague both started showing symptoms, THIS GUY gave the ONE DOSE to the OTHER GUY.
Has he had other treatments already that might have made him more resistant than J. Random Villager? Haven't heard yet, but it sure wouldn't surprise me.
Bring this partiular guy back to the US, to the CDC facilities, shove him in a best-of-its-class isolab, and give him the best supportive care available (including more experimental stuff)? This might make sense, big time, despite the risks in transit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The ebola virus, so far, are not airborne, but it does spread via liquid flow
The ebola virus that CDC and all other research labs study are stored inside sealed containers which are stored inside sealed rooms which are inside sealed buildings, and every single time they are done with their research ***EVERYTHING*** goes into the incinerator, ***EVERY SINGLE THING***, in order to make sure that no virus, not even one , will get the chance to escape
But bringing in the patients striken with ebola will mean importing a human being with all the body fluids that are infected with that virus --- and the bodily fluid, from tears to saliva to sweat to blood to excrement are full of the virus
Unless they seal the patient inside a sealed container and then move that seal container inside the military transport plane, and then moved it out when the plane reached the destination, that military transport plane itself will, one way or another, be left with traces of bodily fluid from the ebola patients
Now, I am not scare mongering, but in the medical world there is a thing called "vector" --- which means, the way the disease spread --- and those traces of bodily fluids inside the big military transport plane may become a vector for spreading that disease
Furthermore, when the patient arrives inside the States, that patient will gonna discharge his/her bodily fluid (pee, sweat, saliva, blood, shit) and how are all those bodily fluid gonna be taken care of ?
Unless that hospital has a specialized toilet where all the thing flushed from that toilet goes through an incinerator / or some kind of total disinfection system before that fluid was discharged out into the sewage system --- which will flow down, eventually, into rivers --- how can anyone be sure that none of the ebola virus is going to escape from the hospital ?
It is not about NIMBY --- it is just common sense
for mistaking 'bringing back Ebola' with 'bringing back Ebonics'. I just wish he hadn't mixed up those CDC acronyms...
No animal model is a substitute for real human treatment data. Speak to any immunologist/virologist and they will tell you that you can never be sure if pre-clinical treatments, developed in animal models, will actually be effective in humans.
If you think rationally about the potential risks, then you will realize that there is really is no chance of an outbreak in the US and the only people that have any risk are those that are going to directly come in close contact with the patient.
It's a public policy issue, not a people in white coats issue. So, the public gets to comment, and the burden is on the CDC and the rest of the government to prove that what they are doing is necessary by public standards. The only people who trust the white coats to make consistently smart decisions in the public interest are people who have an ideological investment in believing that they make great decisions far above what we mere mortals can, and those who are profoundly ignorant and follow the government's lead regularly. For everyone else, for everyone with a brain and no ideological investment, questioning is practically an ethical mandate.
Your wrong on this. If Ebola has gone airborne (it kills more than 2/3rd of infected and it's got a 21 day incubation) we could be in for the worst pandemic the world has seen since the black death in Europe. The typical response to that statement is an eyeroll and a "they've said that before". Yes they did, and then they did what they always do, massive massive research to understand the virus so they could develop a vaccine before it got to the kill everyone stage. The end goal of bringing these people home is a vaccine for the rest of us before Ebola comes here for real (and it will come here if it goes airborne). The secondary goal is to save their life. But if they die they have direct access to the live virus and a corpse killed by it. The research value is immeasurable for those two things.
Please understand without a threat of this coming to the west there is almost no chance whatsoever that a vaccine will be developed. West Nile Virus has been around for hundreds or thousands of years. It's arrival in the US triggered real research that is probably going to result in a vaccine next year. The same is true of Ebola, bringing an infected American home is going to result in fast tracking the research on this virus.
A pandemic like this is incredibly scary. In every major city in the US we have enough medical beds to support about 1/4 of 1% of the population being sick enough to require hospitalization. If 20% of the population needed medical attention about 19.75% probably wouldn't get any. There is a movie that I think accurately displays this. It's called Contagion, they show the CDC and FEMA building basically large warehouse facilities to hold the sick and dieing (with very little care) and they even show the massive central disposal systems that would need to be in place to handle that number of bodies. The other nice thing is they show the breakdown in society including uncontrolled rioting and all the bad stuff humans will do to survive.