The Ebola Outbreak as a Deep Political Event

[Lauren Johnson]

The Ebola outbreaks have been marked by concern but hardly panic. The virus is hard to spread and with relatively simple measures, the outbreaks have been easily contained. Now we are hearing about caretakers dying and the disease traveling by air travel. And strangely, there is this possible vaccine appearing out of nowhere.

Lambert Strether of Corrente digs up even more strange aspects to this very worrisome outbreak.

"A nation," he heard himself say, "consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation." William Gibson, Spook Country

Far be it from me to introduce the slightest hint of cynicism into a feel-good story like two health workers and Christians! being whisked from a hemorrhagic fever-infested hellhole to safety in a United States isolation ward and even, we may hope, cure through the injection of a miracle serum developed by a plucky California startup! It's a wonderful story, even if the serum hadn't actually been tested in humans, and the workers and their families all seem like nice people, and who would wish stress like that on anyone? Unfortunately, once we look at the figures moving in the shadows beyond the media spotlight… we see vague outlines of a story, other stories, that might not be so simple. I'm not going to connect any dots, I promise! I'm just going to do the old school media critique, lay the dots out, and hope that others can suggest or watch for with evidence-based, hairball-free connections between them.

The Patients: Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol

Here's how CNN's medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, covered the story initially:

On Thursday, Dr. Kent Brantly thought he was going to die.
It was the ninth day since the American missionary worker came down sick with Ebola in Liberia.

His condition worsening by the minute, Brantly called his wife to say goodbye.
Thankfully, the call was premature.

Brantly is back on his feet literally after receiving a last-ditch, highly experimental drug. Another American missionary with Ebola got the same.
Brantly's and Nancy Writebol's conditions significantly improved after receiving the medication, sources say. Brantly was able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after being evacuated to the United States last week, and Writebol is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday.

(One hopes, indeed expects, that Brantly and Writebol were only medical workers, as has not been the case in Afghanistan and Cuba.) Reading Gupta's breathless prose, I can only hope that Brantly and Writebol secured the movie rights.

The process by which the medication was made available to Brantly and Writebol is highly unusual.

World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl cautioned that health authorities "cannot start using untested drugs in the middle of an outbreak, for various reasons."

Doctors Without Borders similarly weighed in on the side of caution.
"It is important to keep in mind that a large-scale provision of treatments and vaccines that are in very early stages of development has a series of scientific and ethical implications," the organization said in a statement.

"As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experimental treatment would do more harm than good."

"[O]ur first priority is to do no harm." Loose ends: Are other entities involved with other priorities? Why Brantly and Writebol, and not others? (Others not from the United States, or middle class, or Christian, or white.) And now did such an "unusual" "process" happen? As we shall see unfortunately! all these loose ends will remain loose ends.

Their Employer: Samaritan's Purse

CNN's Gupta, although he makes nothing of it, mentions that Brantly and Writebol work for Samaritan's Purse (SP). SP is a powerful and politically wired evangelical Christian organization run by Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. (Both of the two cases to follow are in the context of Bush's then-controversial decision to fund "faith-based" organizations with Federal money. I'm not concerned with that issue; rather, I want to get a sense of how SP as an institution operates.) Here's one case involving their work in post-Saddam Iraq, from Steven Waldman of Beliefnet in 2003:

Graham is also, he says, "poised and ready" to send representatives of the charity he runs to Iraq as soon as possible. His primary purpose is humanitarian aidproviding food and shelterbut he also admits, "I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son…."
[I'm not sure] that America's foreign-policy objectives are served by having a Bush-loving, Islam-bashing, Muslim-converting Christian icon on the ground in Iraq tending to the bodies and souls of the grateful but deeply suspicious Muslim population.

The Bush administration has taken a highly principled position of removing itself from discussion of the matter: Ari Fleischer insists that the administration can't block a private group from doing its thing. Ellen Yount, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is coordinating the humanitarian efforts, elaborated: "What private charitable organizations choose to do without U.S. government funding is ultimately their decision. How could the U.S. government control that? We can't just say to an organization, You can or cannot do something,' if we don't fund them. Imagine what the United States Congress would say to us."

Here I'm not concerned with the merits, if any, of Samaritan's Purse involving itself in Iraq reconstruction; rather it sounds like Samaritan's Purse is pretty much used to operating independently of the U.S. government; in other words and here I'm speculating freely pulling whatever strings they need to pull, and calling whichever Congresscritter they need to call. Here's a second case, from El Salvador in 2001:

GUADALUPE, El Salvador, March 3 An American evangelical relief group that is using private donations and United States government money to help victims of two earthquakes has blurred the line between church and state as its volunteers preach, pray and seek converts among people desperate for help.
[SP spokesperson Dr. Paul Chiles, the country director for SP] insisted that his group was not looking for converts, and that need was the only criterion for help. The conversion of 150 people mentioned on Samaritan's Purse's Web page is credited to the pastor of a local evangelical denomination that is the group's aid partner.

In other words, the local paster was a nominee, a straw. So the loose ends here are how, exactly, SP got the "miracle serum" to Brantly and Writebol, and then got Brantly and Writebol into the United States, and into an isolation ward. And we don't know, but we do know that SP blurs the line between church and state, uses "straws" or nominees, basically acts as if they were a sovereign, and has a lot of political clout with Congress.

The Plane: N173PA

So I was watching a video of Brantly's plane arriving, and I spotted the tail number: N173PA. N173PA, a Grumman Gulfstream III, was originally owned by the Royal Danish Air Force (then numbered F-313) and became N173PA in January 2005 (planespotter). N173PA does not appear on Wikipedia's list of rendition aircraft although, when you think of it, evacuating a patient in an isolation hood is, logistically, a lot like rendition although Shannon Watch, monitors foreign military use of Shannon Airport in Ireland, includes it on its list of suspects. This may not be remarkable; William Gibson uses the world of very private aviation as local color in his stylish Spook Country, and in that world, much like the world of Richard Smith's shell companies, it can seem like everybody's a suspect. From 2005 to 2010, N173PA was operated by Phoenix Air (planespotter). N173PA and its sibling, N163PA (planespotter) "are fitted with a large freight door on the starboard side and seem to be used … mainly on cargo and air ambulance work" as in this ebola episode. (See here for a third potential use case for freight doors.) And speaking of shell companies, N173PA is owned by N173PA LLC, BRANDYWINE BLDG, 1000 N WEST ST FL 10, of Wilmington, DE. [URL="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/89097"]Irish Indymedia has more, in 2008:

[/URL]

Wilmington, Delaware is one of those addresses that instantly makes you sit up and take notice. A number of CIA shell companies operate out of Wilmington. Don't take my word for it check out the report on CIA shell companies from from the European Parliament Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners, November 16 2006. http://www.statewatch.org/cia/documents/working-doc-no-…6.pdf
N163PA LLC and N173PA LLC
The company name is the registration number of the planes. Both are listed as the same address, 824 Market St Mall Ste 1000, Wilmington, Delaware and both operated by Phoenix Air. These planes are known to have landed at Shannon a number of times and frequently fly to US military air bases.

(It looks like the address changed between 2014 and 2008.) From the military site FoxTrot Alpha, "This Amazing Jet Will Transport Ebola Victims From Africa To The U.S.":

F-313′ was sold to U.S. military air support provider Phoenix Air in January of 2005. Phoenix Air is well known for providing adversary support and electronic warfare training to the DoD. … These jets appear to have been used as government contract aircraft on and off over the last decade, as their large cargo doors and convertible interiors allows them to carry out-sized cargo, passengers or modular medical components and stretchers. Also, the jets' inconspicuous [that screams "spook"] business jet nature and civilian N number' allows them to operate in and out of sensitive areas [and that] while keeping a relatively low profile [and that] …. This unique aircraft, and the Federal Government's already close relationship [and that] with Phoenix Air, makes the jet and its operator logical candidates for such a challenging mission.

The writer concludes by raising an interesting point:

The US Army's SMART-AID, Special Medical Augmentation Response Team- Aeromedical Isolation Team, part of the US Army's Medical Research Institute For Infectious Diseases, is the Pentagon's crack outfit that was established to carry out this exact kind of task, even in a war zone environment. They are equipped with top of the line equipment and have been on high alert during the Global War On Terror. Seeing as this is the first time an Ebola patient has been brought to the United States, one would think that such a unit would want to handle the mission instead of a government air ambulance contractor.

Indeed. One would. So, plenty of loose ends here. Why Phoenix Air and not the military? I don't know, just as I don't know why Phoenix Air got picked; perhaps Franklin Graham flipped open the Yellow Pages to M for Medevac, and Phoenix Air had the biggest ad. And I can't prove that N173PA, with its handy and "unique" freight doors, was a rendition plane, or that its use on this project was anything more than coincidence; such a thing might happen to anyone. Although, if I were a Christian, I might want to know.

The Serum: Mystery, Miracle

Another breathless headline, this one from the Atlantic:

what exactly is the secret serum? It's a question practically everyone's been asking. The answer: Something the National Institutes of Health and Mapp, the biopharmaceutical firm that manufactured it, are largely keeping mum about.

Indeed!

According to a report in August 2013, the company, which collaborated with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, tested the serum on monkeys. When administered to monkeys within 48 hours of infection, there was significant chance of survival. The results showed that all four monkeys that received the serum within 24 hours of infection survived, and two of four who received the serum within 48 hours did so.
But beyond that study, Mapp provides little information on its Ebola researchits website, for example, is sparse, including few news updates to their research. The serum appears to have evolved from evolved from research conducted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute in 2012 that showed a mix of various antibodies could stave off the Ebola virus.

But did the monkeys recover "in an hour," as CNN said Brantly did? LA Times:

"I would be ecstatic if Larry's product helped save these people, but I also need to be extremely cautious," said Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
"To say the whole thing cleared up in an hour, that doesn't happen in reality," Geisbert said. "That's like something that happens in a movie."

So the composition of the ZMapp is one huge loose end and there's that Hollywood feeling again!

The Company: MAPP Biopharmaceutical

Here is Mapp's skeletal website; they currently have only one major government contract, with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, for $2.33 million. (For William Gibson fans: I can't resist free associating Mapp Biopharmaceutical with Maas Biolabs.) From the San Diego Union-Tribune, "San Diego firm has sudden starring role in Ebola rescue" (and note again the Hollywood language):

A San Diego biotech firm with nine employees was thrust into the international spotlight (and made local headlines) Monday for its role in developing an experimental Ebola treatment. … ZMapp is a combination of two agents, made by Mapp with LeafBio in San Diego and Defyrus Inc. in Toronto. One of them, MB-003, provided 100 percent protection to monkeys when given right after exposure to Ebola virus, and even helped after symptoms developed. The other is ZMAb, a combination drug that its developer says provided 100 percent survival in primates a day after exposure and 50 percent survival after two days.

(It's important to note that "100%" is not stated to come from a clinical trial. In fact, Mapp's products aren't even commercialized; LeafBio will do that.) Fine, but why Mapp? But there have be other companies, even in the San Diego area, that look just like Mapp. A reader writes in:

There are a *lot* of small firms in the area, all congregating around UCSD, the Salk Institute and Scripps Research. Let's just say I'm not surprised that the serum was developed in the area.

The San Diego Union-Tribune once more:

Samaritan Purse's outreach resulted in Mapp Biopharmaceutical sending three frozen vials of ZMapp to Liberia last week. The privately held biotech company has just nine employees, and it has only tested its cocktail of antibodies on a small number of monkeys with mixed success.

I dunno. SP "reaches out," just like that?

Its Funding: Defense

From an interview with Dr. Larry Zeitlin, President of Mapp, in January 2014 (that is, before this story blew up):

There has been no treatment or cure that has been effective against the Ebola virus, and with the potential ability to turn Ebola into a bio-weapon, it is labeled as Risk Group 4 Pathogen.
[Dr. Zeitlin] started studying Ebola virus when he was offered funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2002.
1. How did the idea to test MB-003's effectiveness post infection come about?
[ZEITLIN] This was driven by funding agencies.They wanted post-exposure efficacy rather than prophylactic protection.

Well, that does tie up one loose end: I've been wondering why prevention (like a vaccine) as opposed to cure, but the answer is the defense spending: If the requirement is to defend against weaponized Ebola, then "post-exposure efficacy" is exactly what you want.

The Sudden Entry Of The World Bank

The Financial Times ("World Bank pledges $200m to fight Ebola") totally buries the lead:

"In the mining sector, if the evacuation of skilled expatriate staff continues, there will be a sizeable decline in production," the World Bank said.

The very last paragraph. I'm not kidding! So here, I'm not sure there are many loose ends at all, although it would be nice to know who from the mining sector called the World Bank.

The Oddly Silent Administration

The role of the Obama administration, indeed of the government generally, in moving the patients from Africa to the United States seems curiously muffled in the reporting I've seen; we've covered funding above. Here is AP's coverage, "US gov't had role [what role?] in Ebola drug given aid workers".

In a statement, [Mapp Biopharmaceutical] said it was working with LeafBio of San Diego, Defyrus Inc. of Toronto, the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada on development of the drug, which was identified as a possible treatment in January.

Oh? "The U.S. government"? Any particular agency? Not, apparently, the FDA:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must grant permission to use
experimental treatments in the United States, but the FDA does not have authority over the use of such a drug in other countries [even over experimental drugs manufactured in the US?], and the aid workers were first treated in Liberia. An FDA spokeswoman said she could not confirm or deny [Huh?] FDA granting access to any experimental therapy for the aid workers while in the U.S.

Surely this is cut and dried? Surely, as a functioning bureaucracy, the FDA knows which experimental drugs its granted access to? So why not give a straight answer? (The FDA does have a "compassionate use" exception for access to investigational drugs without trial, but the process is typically time-consuming.) And presumably they're going to be treated with something? Else why move them?

[Samaritan's Purse ] contacted U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials in Liberia to discuss various experimental treatments and were referred [By whom? Why?] to an NIH scientist in Liberia [for what purpose?] familiar with those treatments.
The scientist answered some questions and referred them to the companies but was not officially representing the NIH and had no "official role in procuring, transporting, approving, or administering the experimental products," the [NIH] statement says.

"No official role." Oh, OK!

To make this all even weirder, the White House is hosting a meeting of African leaders right now, while all these events are taking place, and isn't trying to spin heck, mention the story of how a generous America is helping to stop a terrible epidemic in Africa with the very latest in medical science. The administration, typically, isn't shy about claiming success, and so, along with whether the FDA was circumvented, or not, the role of the CDC as go between, and the role of the NIH in the US and Liberia, I'd classify that as yet another loose end.

Conclusion

NOTE Writebol used "the same plane" as Brantly.
1) The Patients: Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol Why them and not others? Especially since SP is a humanitarian institution?
2) Their Employer: Samaritan's Purse Who exactly did SP reach out to, and how? Did they blur the lines between church and state?
3) The Plane: N173PA Was it a torture plane? And do that plane, and Phoenix involvement, signal a role for the intelligence community?
4) The Company: MAPP Biopharmaceutical Why them? And how did SP find them?
5) Its Funding: Defense
6) The Sudden Entry Of The World Bank Ka-ching.
7) The Oddly Silent Administration Obama never goes near anything that might make him look bad. He's not going near this. Why?
Then add to all those loose ends the Hollywood feeling that keeps cropping up….

[Peter Lemkin]

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.

[Lauren Johnson]

I guess we should not be surprised.

Right before chatting with a Republican congressman on his on "Trunews" program yesterday, End Times radio host Rick Wiles said that an outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. might actually be a good thing if it ends up giving an "attitude adjustment" to all the gays and atheists, along with people who use pornography or have had an abortion, who will die if they aren't "protected by God."
"Now this Ebola epidemic can become a global pandemic and that's another name for plague. It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming," he said. "Ebola could solve America's problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion."
"If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God. If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper."
Previously, Wiles linked President Obama to the Ebola outbreak.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ri...9T8Hp.dpuf

[Peter Lemkin]

One can download scientific books on Ebola here.

[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.

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.defyrus.com/images/News-July1...icense.pdf

http://www.leafbio.com/PettittAug2013.pdf

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="class: articleTitle"]Experts: Give new US Ebola drug to Africans
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]

[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: Tmp_hSpace10"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Almost 900 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been killed and more than 1,600 infected [Reuters]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: DetailedSummary"] Three of the world's leading Ebola specialists have called for experimental drugs and vaccines to be offered to people in West Africa, where a vast outbreak of the deadly disease is raging in three countries.
Noting that American aid workers who contracted the disease in Liberia were given an unapproved medicine before being evacuated back to the United States, the specialists - including Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola in 1976 - said Africans affected by the same outbreak should get the same chance.
Piot, David Heymann and Jeremy Farrar, all influential infectious disease professors and respectively directors of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, and the Wellcome Trust, said there were several antiviral drugs, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines under study for possible use against Ebola.
[TABLE="class: in-article-item video"]
[TR]
[/TR]
[TR]

[/TR]
[/TABLE]

"African governments should be allowed to make informed decisions about whether or not to use these products - for example to protect and treat healthcare workers who run especially high risks of infection," they wrote in a joint statement.
The World Health Organization (WHO), "the only body with the necessary international authority" to allow such experimental treatments, "must take on this greater leadership role", they said.
"These dire circumstances call for a more robust international response," they added.
Almost 900 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been killed by Ebola and more than 1,600 infected since the virus started spreading in Guinea in February.
Two American aid workers who fell sick with Ebola in Liberia saw their conditions improve by varying degrees in Liberia after they received an experimental drug called ZMapp, developed by San Diego-based private biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
Piot, Farrar and Heymann questioned why Africans were not being given the same chance.
If the deadly virus was raging though wealthy countries, they said, medical agencies "would begin discussions with companies and labs developing these products and then make rapid decisions about which of them might be appropriate for compassionate use".
Little of drug available
"Experimental treatments shouldn't be rolled out generally without prior safety testing," they said in their statement, issued in London late on Tuesday.
"But in the face of the critical challenge in West Africa, the WHO and Western medical agencies should be helping countries weigh the risks and benefits of limited deployment of the best (drug and vaccine) candidates to those in the greatest need, while continuously monitoring safety and efficacy."

Biotech firm Mapp and its commercial partner Leaf Biopharmaceutical said the ZMapp drug was only identified as a potential treatment candidate in January and that, as a result, very little of it was currently available. The company said that the treatment was hard to produce and that it was working to scale up production as soon as possible.
The ZMapp serum consists of three antibodies manufactured in modified tobacco leaves, which take weeks to grow.
A spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO told Reuters news agency that the United Nations health agency "would not recommend any drug that has not gone through the normal process of licensing and clinical trials".
Treating patients with experimental drugs that have not been tested in humans to determine safety and efficacy is highly unusual.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: Tmp_hSpace10"] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/201...16828.html[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[Peter Lemkin]

[Lauren Johnson]

Peter, which of his 'takes' do you disagree with. I must say, I was shocked by the favorable POV of the efficacy of a world wide pandemic as population control.

[Lauren Johnson]

It seems to me that when threats that dominate the news appear, a deep political back story should be investigated and at least ruled out. I have not yet been able to rule it out.

Just Google "ebola" and "Isis" and I should think it is time to put on the tin foil hat. Why? This is pure NLP (neuro-linquistic programming).

Can you all easily scoff at the possibility? I can't any more.

From alt-market.com

....

The recent discovery of an Ebola infected patient in Dallas, Texas has led to reasonable concern from the general population, but mainstream media efforts along with CDC and White House spin have subdued any practical response by the citizenry. The constant droning voice of the establishment claims there is nothing to be worried about; that even if there was an outbreak in the U.S., it would be quickly squashed by highly prepared medical response teams.
First and foremost, the existence of just one Ebola infected person within America's borders indicates a likelihood of others, or the possibility of others in the near future unless policies and procedures are changed. As far as I can tell, the government has no intention of introducing rational fail-safes such as requiring mandatory quarantine for those seeking to reenter the U.S. from known outbreak regions, shutting down unrestricted travel into the country from countries with Ebola, training hospitals properly in the identification of the disease, or committing mass resources to quelling Ebola in hot zones before it reaches our shores, at least not in time to make a difference.

Secondly, the establishment also has no intention of giving the general public accurate information as to the behavior and dangers of Ebola. Those I have spoken with in the medical field including some who work within major city hospitals have related to me that the CDC has not been honest in its assessment of the probability of outbreak. For example, the CDC is consistently reminding the public that Ebola is not an "airborn" disease, and this is technically true as far as the science indicates. However, they forget to mention that it is indeed a "droplet born" disease, meaning, it can travel through the air carried in an infected cough or sneeze. The tight quarters of an airplane make for a perfect petri dish, with droplets and particulates passing back and forth through the same space and oxygen for hours at a time. The spread of Ebola is nowhere near as containable as the CDC claims.

I have been told that most hospitals are completely unprepared to fend off an outbreak of a virus as destructive as Ebola. Little to no standardized training has taken place, and some facilities are only now putting together a list of emergency procedures. Human error within the chain of care also occurs often, as we saw in Dallas, Texas, and these errors can lead to greater infection in a hospital environment.

CDC and WHO efforts in countries like Liberia have been so ineffective and halfhearted it leads one to question why their budgets are in the billions of dollars? Where is all their capital and their resources going if not to bring an unprecedented hammer down on a clearly dangerous outbreak of Ebola? Why is the virus being allowed to flourish rather than being destroyed right where it started? Where has the full force of the CDC been for the past several months while death gestates in Africa?

The one legitimate function of government, any government, is to protect the right of the people to pursue their own life, liberty, and happiness. I think stopping the invasion of mortal viruses would fall into this category. The one job our government is MANDATED to do, and it refuses to do it. Why?
I have made the point many times in the past and I'll make it here again; when a catastrophe takes place, or a crisis is imminent, ask yourself, who ultimately benefits? I believe that the lack of strong prevention response from our government, an inadequacy which is obvious to all of the health care workers I have talked with and to anyone who has the sense to do their own research, could be absolutely deliberate. I believe the spread of Ebola may be desired by certain power brokers, and here is why:

The Perfect Cover Event
I have been warning for quite some time that the banking establishment in particular is well aware that an economic collapse of incredible proportions is coming. In fact, they have done everything in their power to make one possible. This collapse, according to my research, is designed to clear the way through monetary carpet bombing for a new international Bretton Woods-style agreement which will plant the foundation of a truly global economic system centralized and controlled by a highly select few elites. Needless to say, the internationalists would prefer not to take the blame for such a calamity.
Regional or widespread war, terrorism, cyber attacks, etc, are all useful vehicles to conjure mass confusion, and can also be used as scapegoats for the eventual downfall of our economy. That said, a viral pandemic truly surpasses them all in effectiveness. All other tragedies could easily be tied to the first "domino" or "linchpin" (as Rand Corporation calls it) of Ebola transmission, but the strategy goes deeper than this...

An Act Of Nature
Even though most people are well aware of the fact that governments have been engineering biological weapons for decades, few people think political leadership would ever use them at all, let alone use them on the people they are tasked to protect. Even with the complacency and inaction of our government in terms of the response to Ebola, the general assumption by most of the American population will be that any viral outbreak is a product of nature, not of men.

Acts of nature are not things that the common man can easily rebel against. People rebel against governments and corrupt despots all the time, but not the plague. If a viral pandemic strikes, nearly everything a government does after the fact, no matter how corrupt or destructive, can be rationalized as necessary for the greater good of the greater number. If anyone does rebel, they will be labeled as pure evil, for they are now disrupting the government's ability to stop the pandemic from spreading, and thus, are partly responsible for the mass deaths that follow.

During a viral outbreak, government becomes mother, father, nurse and protector. No matter how abusive they are, most people will still look to them for safety and guidance, primarily because they have no knowledge of disease. What they do not understand, they will fear, and fear always drives the ignorant into the arms of tyrants. One should also take into consideration the fact that most globalists lean towards the ideology of eugenics and promote the concept of population reduction. A pandemic would fulfill this desire nicely...

Rationalized Economic Collapse
Who would question the event of an economic collapse in the wake of an Ebola soaked nightmare? Who would want to buy or sell? Who would want to come in contact with strangers to generate a transaction? Who would even leave their house? Ebola treatment in first world nations has advantages of finance and a cleaner overall health environment, but what if economic downturn happens simultaneously? America could experience third world status very quickly, and with it, all the unsanitary conditions that result in an exponential Ebola death rate.

The treasury, labor department, and private Federal Reserve have gone to vast lengths to skew statistics and rig markets with trillions in fiat dollars. Despite historic numbers of Americans falling off unemployment rolls, imploding shipping and manufacturing statistics, and the U.S. teetering on the edge of global "de-dollarization", a large portion of the citizenry has been led to believe that economic recovery is assured. What they do not understand is that fiscal implosion is unavoidable, and the whole bull market is a circus designed to distract.

Amidst even a moderate or controlled viral scenario, stocks and bonds will undoubtedly crash, a crash that was going to happen anyway. The international banks who created the mess get off blameless, while Ebola, an act of nature, becomes the ultimate scapegoat for every disaster that follows.

Rationalized Travel Restrictions
If you want to lock down the movement of a population to prevent the spread of dissenting groups or ideas, I can't think of a better way than to claim it is to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Our government and world health officials are approaching Ebola with an attitude of nonchalance right now, because prevention is NOT part of the plan. When Ebola strikes hard within our country, that is when they will finally decide that strict measures are needed. Suddenly, those borders that they could never secure before will become impassable for you and I. And traveling between states or perhaps even counties may be extraordinarily difficult. "Papers please..." will become the new mantra of petty authority.

Forced Health Measures
Do not be surprised if an Ebola vaccine of some kind suddenly appears on the market just as the situation begins to turn tragic. And, do not be surprised if said vaccine is a total sham that ends up making more people sick. Expect that forced vaccinations will take place, especially as a prerequisite for receiving treatment from CDC or FEMA hazmat facilities. Expect that these facilities will become nothing more than obscure prisons for the sick where people quietly die. Expect that every American will be required to be tested and screened, with biometric data carefully stored, beginning with airport travel (once the virus is already entrenched). The options are endless for abuse in terms of totalitarian health laws when the public thinks they could end up bleeding from every orifice and dying of liver failure.

Rationalized Martial Law
Imagine if some Americans decide they don't like being poked, prodded, tagged and bagged by the establishment. Imagine they decide to fight back, Ebola be damned. An already uphill battle becomes an epic struggle when a large percentage of the population thinks you are a monster that wants to hasten the spread of Ebola. Not that the ignorant count for much in the grand scheme of history, but waking at least some of them up in the future to the bigger threat (the globalists) is hard to do when all they can see is devilish microbes. Those who plan to combat the rise of the internationalists, as I plan to, should accept now the likelihood that the only people we will have on our side tomorrow are the people we have been able to wake up today. Martial law will be welcomed by the rest.

International Response
An international response is almost guaranteed during a major pandemic. Sovereignty will be tossed in the dirt. UN and WHO teams and perhaps even troops could accompany an aid package to the U.S. Think of the glorious propaganda, as globalists tell stories of how they "saved humanity" by surpassing the barbaric practices of national and individual sovereignty, defeated the Ebola virus (after millions of deaths, of course), and out of the ashes, the "phoenix" of global governance was born. If they succeed, imagine what the history books will say for the next several centuries.

What Do We Do?
There are no silver bullet solutions. There never have been and there never will be. People looking for them will be sorely disappointed and ill prepared after wasting so much time searching for an easy out. The only answer is for communities of people to take their own survival into their own hands and become as self sufficient as possible. This means that neighborhoods, towns, and counties will have to take precautions now to steel themselves for a pandemic event, instead of simply sitting on their hands and expecting government officials to save them.

The treatments for Ebola in most cases involve nothing more than the steady replacement of vital fluids, electrolytes and plasma until the patient's body can build up an immunity to the virus. Those with stronger immune systems before contraction are more likely to survive and beat back the disease. Government care, for the most part, is NOT going to save many people either way. That is to say, your survival will depend on you and your immune system, not them. Communities that make efforts to prevent contact and that strengthen individual immunity will have a better chance of survival than going into any government run hazmat facility. Government is not needed, and will often end up being more of a threat than the virus itself. Groups I work closely with and talk with, many with their own doctors and nurses, are already setting prevention guidelines in motion.

If you can prove you don't need the system to save you, their rationale for attempting to control you is weakened. The ignorant will still try to demonize us for our efforts, but self sufficiency is all we have in the face of this kind of storm. If we can lead by example with our own successful health standards while saving people where the establishment could not, perhaps we can turn the tide.

Here is a response who claims to be an MD (troll)?.

Excellent article.
A Liberian doctors has treated 15 Ebola patients. Two died that started treatment 5 or more days after onset of symptoms. The other 13 that survived commenced medication 4 or less days from onset of symptoms. They have been treated with Lamivudine a HIV medication.

This is 87 percent cure for all the patients. For patients that got treatment 4 days or earlier he has 100 percent cure rate. For this last result to have happened by chance has a probability under one in a million if the untreated mortality is 67 % (0.33^13 = 0.00000055). Lamivudine is an inhibitor which blocks a viral enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This enzyme only exists in so called retroviruses. In Wikipedia Ebola is not listed as a retrovirus HIV is. So this new Ebola virus has a 10 times longer incubation time (making it more likely to spread instead of burning out) and totally new metabolism compared to earlier versions. It is hard to believe that this total transformation of the new strain of Ebola has happened spontaneously in the wild.

The CNN reporter that reported on the successful treatment, Elizabeth Cohen, is now back in the US. She has reported on the lack of screening on her arrival at Atlanta Airport. Is she back because CNN did not want more reports on the successful treatment.

The world's humanity is on the precipice of a catastrophe. Why is this treatment not getting more attention and active support?

Finally, are those FEMA coffins finally come into use?