The Ebola Outbreak as a Deep Political Event

[Lauren Johnson]

Sorry, but this is a conspiracy theory I don't buy - at least not as stated. Ebola is endemic to African fruit bats [to which it gives something like the flu - and is not fatal]; Africans eat fruit bats and other 'bush meat' that may have come in contact with fruit bats and this is the apparent cause of the start of epidemics - mixed with the human tendency [unfortunate] of pushing into / disturbing the space of nature (and its creatures) around human settlements. It is NOT easily contained - in fact extraordinary measures are needed - the kind ONLY found in the most advanced hospital and medical facilities. While I am aware that race and cultural-specific bioweapons have been both thought about and made, I do not think Ebola is one of them. That said, the lack of 'panic' in the 'West' is due to racism and the 'its over there NIMBY' phenomenon. When it comes to the 'West' there will be panic. The drug that is being used on the doctor and nurse in Atlanta was only developed in the last year and is being used without being tested on humans [though it has been successful in monkeys with Ebola]. That is has not yet been issued to anyone in Africa, is again racism, IMHO, rather than care about proper procedures of testing it first through the standard protocols [another year or two]. African traditions of touching the dead before burial and general lack of education due to colonialism and subsequent underdevelopment are the main causes of infection spread in Africa - but even without that, Ebola is deadly and easily transmitted from one person to another by the slightest touch or touch of something that person touched once the virus has begun to replicate in a person. It is the ultimate nightmare disease. I know the symptoms and one can find it on the internet....about the most horrible death one can imagine - a hemorrhagic fever that causes one to bleed from every possible oriface, including ears - and much pain too. While I have long been mildly suspicious of AIDS, I do not think Ebola is a concocted disease, but it has long been known about [The first reported cases were 1976] for a while and development of cures for diseases that only usually attack those in the underdeveloped world are of no interest [read profit] for the drug and medical industries. Ebola will spread the same way in the West as it does in Africa - however, the medical infrastructure and general level of education and ability to get out the do's and don'ts to slow the spread are infinitely better in the West than in Africa. Should it come to the West in small numbers it can be contained - in large numbers, even our superior medical structures will be challenged and could fail. One can build a special containment wing of a hospital or clinic, but only so many and so fast.

Peter, the conspiracy theory you think I said isn't the conspiracy theory I think I thought I said. I think. ::

As a matter of fact, I don't have a conspiracy theory. Furthermoe, I agree with everything you said EXCEPT that something has changed in this last outbreak. The fear factor has in fact been ratcheted up. The Centers for Disease Control are up to Defcon One (mixed metaphor, sorry). By using the words "deep political event" and putting it under the Black Ops Forum is not a theory. Like many things we post hear just don't smell right -- there's a "glitch in the matrix." (Another mixed metaphor.) Just think, strangely, for a disease for which there has been no cure, a mysterious serum now exists and some spooky people get to try it out. All about the same time that a mild sense of panic is actually starting to set in.

My argument is that we are in new territory with this disease, and it seems kind of spooky. That's all.