Posted on 08/23/2014 8:04:40 AM PDT by null and void
The Soviets were perfecting the means to trasmit Ebola or Marburg, in the most severe strains, for use through aerosol. so... I’ll trust Ebola MAY be able to be transmitted through other means. We only know what we know. These things mutate very quickly.
Not from what I have read. Most believe it can be spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Please cite your source. (or are you just making things up again?)
Could you have said the same thing 40 or even 20 years ago?
That shift only occurred after the risk of breeding superbugs with excessive use became apparent.
We're still using antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock, but even that's slowly being phased out.
Joe, you are not going to run me off this thread as you did the other one. I left that one just as promised because you started the thread.
Now you are acting like the usual Harpies who tend to harass me as I move about the forum. if that is what you are, or what you intend to do, then I can’t prevent it.
As to the Rino virus, it is only responsible for 20% to as high as 40% of colds, but again it only initiated the cold which is why anti-biotics are still used for treatment.
As I said you harbor that virus and dozens of others in your nose. If they decide to get active, bacteria also play a role to add to the symptoms.
But again, that was not the point I was making. The subject was respiratory involvement as it relates to Ebola Zaire. I was trying to show that Flu like symptoms, said to be a precursor for Ebola, are not to be confused with the Common cold symptoms because Ebola does not affect the respiratory system. I also pointed out that lung involvement(lower respiratory) was usually bacterial and could come as the result of a cold, to which you have now taken me to task, trying to explain, when it really was not that important to my point.
So....It must follow that you are just trying to bug me...
and that is not what is going to happen today. I let it happen yesterday...That obviously was a mistake.
“These things mutate very quickly”
No....they don’t....
If they did, then I would share your fears, but they don’t.
In fact, recent studies going back millennia seem to indicate that the virus has changed very little in thousands of years and there are known reasons that make it very stable. It can’t easily recombine with other viruses because of it’s structure.
As to the Rino virus, it is only responsible for 20% to as high as 40% of colds, but again it only initiated the cold which is why anti-biotics are still used for treatment.
Source, please.
You see, I made the one New Year's Resolution this year I have ever been able to keep. To correct inaccuracies wherever I found them. I am a scientist. I really, really like truth. Veracity is my stock in trade.
I saw a statement, sans substantiation, which called other posters' statements into question --as many of your posts I have seen do. You do not substantiate your posts, but when questioned, resort to calling people names. That doesn't benefit anyone.
I just want you to post the links to credible sources for the statements you make. Now, that isn't so hard, is it?
“Not from what I have read.”
Problem is that you apparently don’t believe what you read.
I was making a reference to the hundreds of Ebola posts expressing fear that you could catch it from a sneeze or on a airplane just by being in the cabin.
Cold and flu viruses can be transmitted by proximity, but since Ebola is not known to be spread in that way, since the shedding occurs by blood and fluids in the last stages, and that respiratory involvement is not known to occur....
Well.....I think I made my point...
Anything else you would like to nitpick?
But that might also be a method of spread..
Please explain
I don't really care about "recent studies" nor the WHO websites which say they've been aware of "all" instances of Ebola and Marburg when they make no reference to those that happened within the Soviet Union and Biopreparat.
The gent from the Soviet Union's name is Ken Alibek, who defected from the Soviet Union thus allowing this story out into the public. It's an interesting read and shows... we only know what we know.
“Source, please. “
Don’t have one.....But I have been to a doctors office and I do know what the standard of care is.
I also am aware that pneumonia is mostly bacterial as are other diseases of the lung and they all seem to begin as colds.
So that is why the standard of care still includes antibiotics.
I am not going to go find you a source, and if you really were a scientist, we would not even be having this conversation. It would be beneath you.
I have no science background, and I have no medical background. But I do have a brain that usually works pretty good. I am intrigued by viruses and have been since I first read Michael Crichton’s books..decades ago.
My writings are opinions for the most part, based on some degree of factual knowledge, but having said that I am not going to engage with you on trivial aspects of what I might say when that aspect was not the topic I was addressing.
So if you really are a scientist, then show me, since it is so important to you, that bacteria play no roll in the progressions of common colds....and that antibacterials are just prophylactics, and that this has a damn thing to do with Ebola..
Ebola might be able to be mutated in a lab, but in the real world the mutations, when they occur and they have, are not very large. They only affect a small portion of the disease and often disappear because it can’t be sustained. We have had essentially the same strains for a long time now..but there are some divergences.
But it’s way more involved then what I can post from memory...You might want to look at this...for example..
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3571414/
Molecular evolutionary analyses for Ebola and Marburg viruses were conducted with the aim of elucidating evolutionary features of these viruses. In particular, the rate of nonsynonymous substitutions for the glycoprotein gene of Ebola virus was estimated to be, on the average, 3.6 x 10(-5) per site per year. Marburg virus was also suggested to be evolving at a similar rate. Those rates were a hundred times slower than those of retroviruses and human influenza A virus, but were of the same order of magnitude as that of the hepatitis B virus. When these rates were applied to the degree of sequence divergence, the divergence time between Ebola and Marburg viruses was estimated to be more than several thousand years ago. Moreover, most of the nucleotide substitutions were transitions and synonymous for Marburg virus. This suggests that purifying selection has operated on Marburg virus during evolution.
Please don't think we are all naive about how viruses and other illnesses, can change in strength, form, stability and virulence. They can, do and will continue to do so. Ebola is clearly no exception.
One strain injected into a man that becomes a stronger and more stable strain is a mutation. It's not a change in form(blood born to respiratory) but a change nonetheless.
With only a small number of viral particles (1-10 virons) necessary to transmit the disease, those droplets are bodily fluids which are contaminated, and sufficient to infect another person if the droplets contact mucous membranes.
While that would require close proximity to someone exhibiting symptoms, it is far from impossible in close quarters. I think an airplane might rate 'close quarters'.
Considering how few of the infected are economically likely to be on an airplane, no such cases have been documented.
Documenting such a case, and not being able to attribute it to more direct contact or contact with fomites would be difficult outside of experimental conditions.
I doubt you'd find many volunteers.
Well.....I am unaware of the story you refer to and somewhat perplexed as to the strain you are talking about.
The study I gave you a link to, should provide you with all the known strains and known mutations.
I think the salient point here is that the virus has survived in one form or another for at least 10,000 years and originated in Africa and remains in Africa, even though people have been coming and going from and to Africa from other parts of the world for as long as we have know about it.
In all that time, Ebola has not been able to sustain it’s self anywhere else and has not mutated much beyond it’s current known forms. (I might list Reston as a interesting anomaly) but again, the mutation became harmless to humans and resolved on it’s own via our immunity.
I also note that Ebola and Marburg are similar in their nature and are seem to be related to some time in the distant past.
In any case, they seem to know a lot about them as they have been studying them now for over 40 years.
Usually because the infected are too sick to travel, or they most often end up in medical care facility upon arrival where they know what to do and how to diagnose it before anything can be spread...
That’s the best explanation I can give you..
You can verify that explanation by simply looking at the travelers who have indeed made it to their destinations and the ones who did not..
To have that sort of virus load in saliva, the air traveler would not likely remain upright in his seat, much less have been allowed on the airplane or even have the energy to sneeze for whatever reason...allergies...whatever..
That is the flaw in your logic..
There would have to be a number of things that lined up exactly right to have a Ebola infected person start to shed virus on a aircraft.
In my opinion the only person in danger would be the one sitting next to him or her and the infected person would be in no condition to hide the fact he/she was sick.
Something else to consider Joe...
We have among us, many thousands of people with communicable blood born viruses that they carry everyday and travel on airplanes every day.
Aids, hep b.....all kinds of them that are transmissible via blood or any fluid that may have blood in it as you described to me regarding nasal discharge or saliva.
These people sneeze on aircraft all the time..
Just food for thought....regarding probabilities...
While that bacterial infection may be a complication, it isn't a cold that is the problem at that point, but a secondary bacterial infection. Include Bronchitis and pneumonia, but then, those are no simple cold, tend to be bacterial (if not caused by chemical/physical irritants), and commonly respond to appropriate antibiotic therapy.
Could it be that those you refer to are in fact going to the doctor because they have something more serious than the common cold, such as Bronchitis or Pneumonia?
It is also apparent that different areas have different standards of care, if antibiotics are prescribed where you are for ordinary colds (for that matter if people even go to a doctor for a mere cold), unless those patients have a history of complications (bacterial infections) or pulmonary issues.
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