Ebola – The Wolf of Main Street
So what are we supposed to make of Ebola?
On one hand we have seen SARS, bird flu, avian flu, epidemics that just didn’t happen. People wore masks in the streets and on planes (they only help if you have it, not if someone else does), stock markets fell, and governments like the UK were conned into buying vaccines they just didn’t need (and asked for their money back)– and probably would not have worked anyway.
And now we have Ebola; clearly a far worse proposition. Yet again it started as a virus in the food chain, the Liberian food chain. It’s a potential plague that had been coming for 30 years; there had been minor skirmishes every few years. Did the WHO and the Western world use their combined knowledge to isolate the plague quickly? No, they moved after about 4 months. Now the Americans and the UK have built field hospitals surrounded by barbed wire.
Back in the USA, the Americans did move quickly on one aspect. They patented the Ebola DNA. Now, theoretically, only they can interfere with that DNA. It is theirs by right. Only they can treat it.
In Thailand there was great news more than a month ago. Thai scientists had isolated an antibody to Ebola. It made the TV every day for a week. Worldwide news? A breakthrough? You’ll be lucky to find it on Google Search.
Then there’s ‘natural remedies’ like colloidal silver. Before skeptics choke while reading this consider three minor points – first, we have no treatment with a jot of research behind it from the orthodox medical profession. Two, there is research on colloidal silver treating respiratory viruses. Three, why not take a couple of hundred patients in Liberia and see if it offers anything? What is there to lose? Instead, Health Authorities would not even allow the parcel of colloidal silver on the plane to Liberia. Natural Health anti-viral compounds are many (astragalus, goldenseal, Pau d’Arco and more). Presumably all these and more are being tested with Ebola? Somehow, I doubt it; but if Pau d’Arco can work with South American rainforest Indians and their viruses, might it not possibly just do something for Liberians? With the world’s health at stake, who has the power to decide NOT to try it?
Meanwhile the CDC in America – who have been mired in scandals over cover ups and lies about vaccines – search for … a vaccine.
Next there’s the nurse in Texas who contracted the virus while helping a patient. The TV spokesperson called it a ‘serious security breach’, but declined to say what the nurse had actually done.
Nurses are, of course, kitted out like the average spaceman. No virus is about to penetrate those suits which are sprayed with disinfectant after use and thrown away. But the truth is that even after 30 years of knowing about Ebola, we are not certain how exactly you can catch it.
Hospitals already have plagues in them – MRSA and clostridium difficile kill more that 20,000 people entering American hospitals every year simply for routine and often minor operations. Surfaces in wards are sprayed with disinfectant as they were 100 years ago. But why? We have known for 40 years that UV kills viruses; it is used in water purification plants throughout the world. An American firm Xenex, even sells anti-viral UV-C ‘robot’ machines. You’d have thought similar hand held machines and machines disguised as floor mops would be commonplace in hospitals all over the world. We are talking here about saving more lives than mammography at a fraction of the price.
So where are we on Ebola?? We now have temperature checks at airports; but the patient in the USA had been wandering around with it for more than two weeks with absolutely no symptoms. There will also be a questionnaire. “Have you been in Liberia and eaten a bat in the last 21 days”, seems a good place to start. Spare me.
So is this another swine flu, or something that will kill 16 million people in the Western world and we need to send urgently for Brad Pitt?
Above all we’d like some honesty. And some genuine worldwide health co-operation. And while we’re about it, who on earth said you could patent a virus? Yet again big business side – lines main street health concerns.
And if only the Health Authorities had not cried wolf so many times before. The UK has 16 million phials of unused plague vaccine. Anybody want some? It didn’t work last time, but what the heck?
