Family Living with American Doctor Who Contracted Ebola Return to the States

originally posted by: excelents
Meanwhile, in the UK



2nd line.

Yikes. Do they know what contagious disease he has?

originally posted by: texasgirl

originally posted by: excelents
Meanwhile,
2nd line.

Yikes. Do they know what contagious disease he has?

Tuberculosis

I hope Brantly's family is well and my heart goes out to them for having lost a husband and father.

This report says the family only returned to the US a week ago.

a reply to: loam

Better get out those guns! Round up the posse! None of the mining companies or deforestation corporations or any of the respectable capitalist ventures currently raping and pillaging West Africa are going to disclose their travel agendas - but don't worry, the missionaries and medical volunteers are open about it all and you'll have plenty of targets.

...[Samaritan's Purse & Serving In Mission (SIM)] announced Tuesday that they have now ordered the evacuation of their non-essential personnel from Liberia after an upsurge in the number of Ebola cases in the country.

A statement from SIM says no symptoms of Ebola are present in any of the evacuees, who are being monitored continually.

Sounds like you need a refresher on how quarantine doesn't work to stop epidemics or pandemics, although granted, it's great for victimization and depopulation.

a reply to: soficrow

Come on sofi, my only point is wouldn't it have been more responsible for someone to have said the family was tested and deemed safe?

I haven't seen this in print yet.

a reply to: loam

Still love you. I'm just p'od at the whole thing and the way it's playing. ...The situation with Lagos is WAAYYY more relevant -and dangerous- than a returning missionary's family - or a bunch of non-essential missionary personnel. From my post above, wasn't highlighted:

A statement from SIM says no symptoms of Ebola are present in any of the evacuees, who are being monitored continually.

Still, as we all know by now, it could take 3 weeks for symptoms to appear - so isolation is important. But if I was a Brantly, I'd be bloody hiding from all the ignorant rednecks and taking my chances with the wolves - no need for any formal isolation and quarantine (which would just ensure a single infected person would infect everyone else). ...You should read some of the stories coming out of Africa about how suspected patients -and even Ebola survivors- are being treated. Not pretty. Not civilized. Not productive. No different.

a reply to: soficrow

Understand your point entirely.



Spooky situation that will bring out the ugly in everything if it doesn't flare out.

Hopefully it does.

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: loam

Still love you. I'm just p'od at the whole thing and the way it's playing. ...The situation with Lagos is WAAYYY more relevant -and dangerous- than a returning missionary's family - or a bunch of non-essential missionary personnel. From my post above, wasn't highlighted:

A statement from SIM says no symptoms of Ebola are present in any of the evacuees, who are being monitored continually.

Still, as we all know by now, it could take 3 weeks for symptoms to appear - so isolation is important. But if I was a Brantly, I'd be bloody hiding from all the ignorant rednecks and taking my chances with the wolves - no need for any formal isolation and quarantine (which would just ensure a single infected person would infect everyone else). ...You should read some of the stories coming out of Africa about how suspected patients -and even Ebola survivors- are being treated. Not pretty. Not civilized. Not productive. No different.

Rednecks? lol You couldn't get an argument rolling on your on thread, so you troll someone else's? Why didn't you just open your topic with instructions on how you expected everyone to discuss the topic.

And by the way, if you were Brently right now, I highly doubt you'd give a crap about what some people on a website are speculating, because you'd be too busy crapping and vomiting and hoping not to die.

Your points, with regards to the bigger picture, are important and valid, but it is being overshadowed with your insulting replies and expectation that everyone discus the topic only they way you want them to.

The family is on fever watch but not isolated. Here is a boatload of info in yesterday's CDC media briefing and Q & A.

Press Briefing TranscriptCDC Telebriefing on Ebola outbreak in West Africa

Monday, July 28, 2014, 2:30 p.

Link to full transcript

There are many noteworthy points in this briefing.

Two questions I would have asked are: After possible exposure to the virus by anyone, what is the earliest that a test can detect infection?

Everything I find seems to only point to testing once symptoms have developed. And 2, they state that there are no commercial US testing facilities. How long will results take?

In terms of testing in the U.S., there are no commercial labs I'm aware of that provide testing for Ebola virus.  We have testing capability here at CDC and through the Department of Defense Laboratory at Fort Dietrich in Maryland. 

Confirming this nasty bug in anyone coming into another country from an affected area is going to be a problem. If cases can't be readily tested....well you get my point.

In closing...the message was....this is going to be a marathon.

This family is only one of many with risk qualifications. Sad, scary stuff.

a reply to: soficrow

Well, I considered removing my above post, because it doesn't help anything and 99% of it is off topic, but felt it would be chicken poop for me to do that and wouldn't consider it an issue if a mod removed it.

I'm going to project a bit here.

First let me say that I have always followed your topics and posts and have appreciated your in depth reporting of information on the "big picture" of subjects I would likely have never come across, or considered.

Ok, on with projecting. lol I know that when something scares me, I get mad. I maybe wrong here, but I wonder if that's why you are responding so angrily,,, because you are scared. So am I. There's certainly good reason to be.

I'm not going to apologize, nor say I'm wrong for considering and speculating about Dr Brently and the circumstances of his family's return to the US. That brought it home for me, so to speak. He didn't take his family there expecting to be involved in the worst ebola outbreak, ever.

I can also imagine that it became increasingly obvious that even those using strict protocols were getting ill, and maybe he even knew, or suspected leaving the country would get increasingly difficult, as well. It's entirely possible, that they just happen to return home just a few days before he fell ill.

I bet that even Dr Brently worried his family had been exposed to Ebola.

a reply to: NoAngel2u

originally posted by: NoAngel2u
I can also imagine that it became increasingly obvious that even those using strict protocols were getting ill, and maybe he even knew, or suspected leaving the country would get increasingly difficult, as well. It's entirely possible, that they just happen to return home just a few days before he fell ill.

I bet that even Dr Brently worried his family had been exposed to Ebola.

My thoughts as well. No question the entire situation is disturbing.

It also makes one wonder how many others deployed the calculus you suggest? This thing could be further out of control than even we realize at this point.

originally posted by: loam
It also makes one wonder how many others deployed the calculus you suggest? This thing could be further out of control than even we realize at this point.

Which is, of course, Soficrow's point. It's really hard to not feel panicked. Really hard.

a reply to: NoAngel2u

The Patrick Sawyer situation only makes that all too clear:

Ebola: Doctors told to prepare for global outbreak after victim was allowed on two planes

Doctors have identified 59 people who were near him and have tested 20. But they are struggling to find the others, who could have flown to anywhere in the world from Lagos.

Bloody hell. ( No pun intended. )

ETA:

And this:

Ebola outbreak: Victim who sparked fears of global epidemic was on way home to US

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Cobra Meeting As UK Doctors Warned Over Ebola

I'm in Fort Worth, and this makes me incredibly nervous. His family is currently in Abilene (where his wife is originally from & her family lives). She is a nurse and they are self-monitoring for fever. That doesn't sit very well with me considering the severity of this illness. While the US has better sanitation conditions & medical care (generally) than Africa, I still think this family should be under a CDC quarantine until the risk period is over. I'm just not comfortable with this.

A little more background info: The wife & kids returned to the US for a wedding of another family member (wife's brother). The doctor was scheduled to fly back to the US to join them for the wedding this week. He did his residency in Fort Worth & they were living & attending church here before going over there. The trip back to the US was planned well in advance & they weren't sent home out of fear/risk.

Did anyone else read about the Carolina Medical Center ER being roped off for several hours this morning while a patient was being "tested"?

a reply to: NoAngel2u

loam and I have a 10 year history of collaborating on ATS - no trolling involved - I do NOT promote arguments and frankly, do not give a flying fork about ego-attention, stars or anything else except the issues. As it happens, I know this issue and its history inside and out, and have been posting on it for the past 5 months. In this particular case, I'm concerned about the way people are allowing themselves to be manipulated by the media. My concern with all the panic, fear and animosity is that it really doesn't look -or play- much different than the 'ignorant' African tribes peoples' mob attacks and treatment of Ebola patients and survivors. ....There are many implications here and lessons to be learned - not the least that promoting mob hysteria is NOT the way to go.

For the past 5 months when posters here, authorities and pundits were still insisting Ebola always burns itself out quickly and there is no problem (some still think that way), I kept posting hard, factual information showing we do indeed have a problem. Because I believed it was and is important, NOT because I want attention or points. As I posted back in March, this Ebola Epidemic Could Become Global Crisis and July 1, outlined the evidence (like multiple outbreak epicenters) suggesting this Ebola epidemic is Bio-Terrorism for Corporate Economic Control. When the WHO finally admitted there really was problem and they couldn't handle it, I flagged it. That was was July 19: Ebola Outbreak Too Big For the WHO to Handle.

Focusing on one small family detracts from the real issues. Like the fact that volunteer Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and missionaries are carrying the load in West Africa - and failing because they don't have the resources. Or the fact that this Ebola epidemic is really different from others, and no one is acknowledging -or dealing with- the differences. And then there's the little fact that we're all connected. Never mind missionaries who are returning home who are possibly infected. Never mind global trade and travel. The winds blow microbes and particles around the world, and rain plays a role too - the grasshopper effect can make it happen in days. Our different climates used to protect us, but no longer. And who knows what other natural processes of "sharing" we have yet to discover? Fact is, we really are all one - right down to the nano-level. And we really need to recognize the fact and deal with it better.

'We Need More': Fight Against Ebola Is Thin on the Ground

BY MAGGIE FOX

It’s the biggest outbreak ever of Ebola, affecting more than 1,200 people in three countries — four, if you count the man who traveled to Nigeria and died there. The virus is spreading out of control, according to all the experts involved, and there is no clear end in sight.

The casualties include health care workers on the front lines, most recently an American doctor and a hygienist colleague working for charities, and Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, the doctor leading the fight in Sierra Leone, who died.

So there must be a cast of thousands in there, deploying equipment, medications and vaccines, and dispensing advice, right?

Wrong.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent 12 people. ...

They’re not treating patients — they’re providing advice.

What about the World Health Organization? That’s a big international group. (but) ... Cutbacks in international investment have forced WHO to slash budgets. [and resources, and staff]

The rest is being covered by nonprofits, and the affected countries' health departments, which are not even close to being equipped to handle an outbreak like this.

2002. Dust in the wind: Fallout from Africa

…An ocean away from the Sahel (in Africa), coral reef ecosystems around the Caribbean are dying, and scientists are beginning to think that dust from Africa is playing a major role in their collapse.

…Dust reaching the opposite shore of the Atlantic is nothing new. Haze from the Sahel occasionally reduces visibility and reddens sunsets from Miami to Caracas, and is the source of up to half the particulates in Miami's summertime air. Pre-Columbian pottery in the Bahamas is made of windborne deposits of African clay; orchids and other epiphytes growing in the ralnforest canopy of the Amazon depend on African dust for a large share of their nutrients.

….Satellite photos of the largest dust event ever recorded, in February 2000, show a continuous dust bridge connecting Africa and the Americas.

….Researchers have since found a variety of live bacteria and fungus in dust hitting the Caribbean, defying conventional wisdom among microbiologists that microbes could not survive a five-day trip three miles up in the atmosphere. "Swarms of live locusts made it all the way across alive in 1988 and landed in the Windward Islands," Shinn says. "If one-inch grasshoppers can make it, I imagine almost anything can make it."

….After the seasonal floods of the Niger River recede and its banks dry, mud--mixed with raw sewage, human and animal waste, and miscellaneous garbage left behind--turns to dust. "Microbes, synthetic organics, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, you name it," Garrison explains. "Then the winds come, and it's a perfect avenue to take those substances aloft, often north toward Europe or west toward the United States."

….Africa is not the only source of dust that affects faraway places. Nutrients from the deserts of north-western China sustain Hawaiian rainforests growing on weathered soils. Chinese haze has long afflicted residents of Japan and Korea…. South Korean officials suspect that the dust may have been the source of a recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle along Korea's west coast. …

…."It's just another example of how small the Earth is, and how so many things are interconnected: global processes mixed up with how people live their lives," says Garrison. The mounting evidence of damaging fallout thousands of miles from sources of dust may help convince the rest of the world to pay more attention again to the forgotten, dusty corners of planet Earth. "Maybe we're not quite as isolated as we thought from areas with major health problems," says Garrison. "And maybe we should be more concerned about the welfare of people and the land in these far away places."

The Grasshopper Effect

Persistent and volatile pollutants – including certain pesticides, industrial chemicals and heavy metals – evaporate out of the soil in warmer countries where they are still used, and travel in the atmosphere toward cooler areas, condensing out again when the temperature drops. The process, repeated in "hops", can carry them thousands of kilometres in a matter of days.

originally posted by: soficrow
loam and I have a 10 year history of collaborating on ATS -

Love you as always, Sofi.

Actually, most of the time, you just confuse me with your brilliance. Seriously. I always know I'm gonna learn something way above my pay grade when you post.

originally posted by: soficrow
Focusing on one small family detracts from the real issues. Like the fact that volunteer Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and missionaries are carrying the load in West Africa - and failing because they don't have the resources. Or the fact that this Ebola epidemic is really different from others, and no one is acknowledging -or dealing with- the differences. And then there's the little fact that we're all connected. Never mind missionaries who are returning home who are possibly infected. Never mind global trade and travel. The winds blow microbes and particles around the world, and rain plays a role too - the grasshopper effect can make it happen in days. Who knows what other natural processes of "sharing" we have yet to discover? Our different climates used to protect us, but no longer. Fact is, we really are all one - right down to the nano-level. And we really need to recognize the fact and deal with it better.

No question all of this is true....100%.

But sometimes a little fear generated by stories like this, bring the other issues home. From what I am reading, it looks like the UK is taking this more seriously than before. The US, not so much...

*sigh*

In any event, what's your gut call on this? Is this gonna flare out or are we in for something much more ominous? The issues don't seem to be aligning for the former....

a reply to: NoAngel2u

...I know that when something scares me, I get mad. I maybe wrong here, but I wonder if that's why you are responding so angrily,,, because you are scared. So am I. There's certainly good reason to be.

I'm not going to apologize, nor say I'm wrong for considering and speculating about Dr Brently and the circumstances of his family's return to the US. That brought it home for me, so to speak. He didn't take his family there expecting to be involved in the worst ebola outbreak, ever.

...I bet that even Dr Brently worried his family had been exposed to Ebola.

I responded above before reading this one, but I'll leave it. FYI - I'm scared of mob rule, not diseases - and I know enough about diseases to be scared paralyzed if I were so inclined. On the other hand, peoples' unreasoned inclinations to take-any-action-out-of-fear scare the shyte out of me.

For the record, I'd bet:

1. Cases are in the 10's of thousands, maybe 100's of thousands.

2. The epidemic hit Liberia and Sierra Leone long before it was admitted officially, was denied for economic-political reasons, and had plenty of time to spread unhindered.

3. It's probably in Senegal, Mali and Ghana at least but not being tracked.

4. Medical people like Brantly, overworked in isolated locations, with little time and resources to track what's happening elsewhere don't have any way to really know the big picture - except gossip - and as soon as he realized how big it could be, Brantly got his family the hellout (yes, I think the "wedding" was a cover story, but no, I do NOT think he thought he himself or they were already infected).

a reply to: soficrow

Reading 1 - 4, I think I got my answer.

a reply to: loam

...sometimes a little fear generated by stories like this, bring the other issues home. From what I am reading, it looks like the UK is taking this more seriously than before. The US, not so much...

True, but then someone has to take the heat for trying to pull everyone back to look at the bigger picture. Hate being Cassandra but hate that more. [sigh] Still, it's better than the de rigueur denial. ...If it makes you feel any better, some reports say the CDC is monitoring the Brantlys and others returning from West Africa. Also, the CDC sent out physician alerts a while ago, advising doctors to be on the lookout. ...So the US is covering butt whilst pushing denial.