New Ebola epidemic

If it is investment that works.

By the way, they already have a vaccine. Tell your regulatory bodies to hurry up.

 

So long as humans control earth, there will be conflict.

I think your positions are nobel, but completely unrealistic, and certainly have no place in logical discussion in current politics.

 

How's this for an argument , then ? CNN is reporting this morning there may be an Ebola case in Canada---who flew in from Liberia - rather than Guinea.

The Canadian case is not confirmed yet-but-if confirmed, suggests we have three (3) outbreaks up and running....but I suppose we should wait until it starts knocking on doors in your neighborhood before we spend research money.

Why ? If we wait, you'll have something more substantial to complain of.

 

Sounds like an argument for travel restrictions, not research.

 

Refugees, job seekers, fortune hunters,and wanderers of all sorts cross the boundaries of many,many nations: quite often on foot.

How would you go about restricting their travel ?

How would you keep a small gust of wind from helping fleas or fruit bats travel ??

 

Just read up on it myself. This seems to be the case. And because symptoms develop so rapidly after infection it is much easier to quarantine those whom are infected thus stopping the spread.

Not that it scary that something that spreads by the same means as a common cold could possibly kill you.

 

It depends. Ebola is extremly deadly but limited on its infection way. But just one mutation could make it an absolute super bug.

 

Wisp guns, drones, nuking the affected areas--take your pick.

 

West Africa gettin' worried about ebola outbreak in Guinea...

Deadly Ebola Virus Sparks Fears in West Africa
March 31, 2014 — West Africans are growing more apprehensive as the region's first-ever Ebola outbreak spreads. Guinea's president and other leaders are urging people to remain calm, but people across the region say they are scared.

See also:

Scant Funds, Rare Outbreaks Leave Ebola Drug Pipeline Slim
March 28, 2014 — Almost 40 years after the Ebola virus was identified in humans by scientists in a microbiology laboratory in Belgium, pharmaceutical researchers have yet to develop an effective drug or vaccine to fight it.

 

One of the newer research areas is the computer design of pharmaceutical drugs. Of course, this is a true baby in the family of research areas, and it is also very underfunded.

But consider where this will go if we develop enough knowledge. With an advanced computer design of drugs area, the genome of any virus or bacteria could be quickly found, and that could be fed into the computer. Knowledge would be advanced enough so that the computer would know within minutes exactly what virus or bacteria that genome would produce. The computer would also know exactly what any chemical would do to the human body. Remember that I am talking about a very advanced system of medical knowledge that we would end up with if we do enough research.

The computer would therefore calculate a chemical which would kill the virus or bacteria without harming the human body. The computer would also design a vaccine.

So although we are forced to play the odds now, we don't have to play the odds in the future. All we need do is to do enough research, and humanity will be safe from any new virus or bacteria.

This could be an influence towards peace. Having a common goal produces better relationships, and all nations in the world could join in on a crash research program that would produce a medical science advanced enough so that a computer could calculate a good drug and vaccine for any new disease within minutes to a couple of hours after the genome were found.

So what could humanity do?

With a world population of 7 billion people, there are 700 million in the top 10% in genetic intelligence, and 70 million in the top 1% of intelligence. We wouldn't need that many researchers to produce an advanced medical science, but as you can see, we have more than enough intellectual potential to accomplish that task.

Then, many people are doing jobs that could be eliminated if necessary by increasing efficiency. What we are paying those people could be used to pay researchers instead, if necessary. Looked at another way, for a couple of years during World War 2, the United States spent more than everyone's income, by borrowing, on the war. We wouldn't need nearly that amount of money to do the needed research.

Our financial and intellectual cushions are many times the amount that would be needed for the research to permanently protect everyone from new disease organisms. I' m not saying it wouldn't cost anything at all. However, the current Gross World Product is about 60 trillion dollars per year, so it would be easy to spend one trillion dollars per year on the research. However, I don't think it would even cost a trillion dollars per year.

 

With our current level of medical technology, a vaccine for Ebola in the next few decades is unlikely. Ebola, like AIDS, is a rapidly mutating disease. That means that if one develops a vaccine, the disease has already produced strains that the vaccine won't protect against.

Remember that since AIDS was identified, there have been predictions of a vaccine in "just a few years" but all vaccines under development have failed. It will probably be the same with Ebola because Ebola is also a rapidly mutating virus.

 

Why should something noble be automatically unrealistic? Certainly, every medical researcher of the past has been noble, and they have actually discovered some helpful medical technology. So that wasn't unrealistic.

Sometimes, it is the noble which is realistic and the political which is unrealistic.

 

Fear produces stress, so it is reasonable for people to protect themselves from fear by denial. Sometimes, people also deny because they are so upset by what is being done to other people, or will be done in the future.

There is something one can do, however. One can support a solution just by itself, and still suppress the fear or the upset from strong compassion. Then, one will think one is supporting the solution for some other reason than fear or compassion. That will get the solution done, without having to think of the fear or the upset from compassion.

 

18 years. Same amount of time it takes to raise a burger flipper. Then the researcher in training goes to college. The McWorker goes and starts asking people if they want fries with that.

The world needs less burger flippers and more researchers. It will pay off in the long run, if we can keep all the military brass from gobbling the researchers up and putting them to work on more ways to kill people.

 

Not really. Medicines that block reverse trancriptase enzyme have been prooved to extend the life of HIV patients. The mutations of HIV antigens and glycolsys capsule arround the virus make it hard do vaccinate against but we just need to work the enzymes since it only has 3.

On the other hand ebola is a disease that kills poor people and as long as it continues to kill poor people no cure will be developed.

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It has already reproduced which is it's goal. By the time they induce the infected cells into suicide they have already spread.

 

Killing jobs is not a good political selling point. Having more people who are constantly fighting with each other already is not a recipe for peace in my world view. Beyond all that, as long as there is such a thing as intellectual property rights like patents, your dream will continue to be a pipe dream.

 

There is zero chance for a world without conflict, and thus without war.

 

The drugs which extend the life of AIDS patients are not a cure. and something like an economic disaster that cut medical care funding could deprive many AIDS patients of the drug, upon which they would immediately become ill again. A vaccine would prevent or extend lives on a permanent basis, even if there were a future problem with medical care funding.

 

Here's a video [video=youtube;gj1PYe_Xndg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gj1PYe_Xndg [/video]

With an incubation period of between 2 and 21 days, it can spread anywhere in the world undiscovered

 

1. True, but actually, the new researchers would vacate non-research jobs, and those jobs would become available to those who lost jobs which would not be needed. In addition, new jobs can be created if there is residual unemployment.

2. I don't see why patent rights would be a problem. As things stand now, when researchers in universities are funded by governments and non-profits, scientists who invent something so have patent rights set up their own companies to produce the invention, or sell the rights to an existing company. Basic research, which is more important because in the long run, it discovers the basic knowledge which is later integrated together as a base for new inventions, isn't something that is patented anyway. It usually is written up and published in academic journals. Things would be the same if research is expanded. I can see no way that patent rights would block a major expansion in research.

 

Nobody has ever proven that.

Note that the social sciences are still infants. It is highly probable that there is, many thousands of times as much social science knowledge, waiting to be discovered as we have now. Of course, many humans are arrogant and like to think that they know almost everything, or that humanity knows almost everything. However, arrogance isn't good scientific data which proves what is really true.

Below is a research proposal which should, if it is done, go at least part of the way towards ending war. It might even end war, but that is too much to predict.

Some endowed, or government supported, research institutes would be set up, administered by the top universities in the world. These institutes would at first search for historical instances of agreements between nations, businesses, or groups in conflict, which agreements have produced simultaneous benefits for both or several sides. Then, the institutes would tease out similarities which could be used as guidelines to help create similar agreements by nations, businesses, and groups in conflict. Then, the research institutes, drawing on their own thinking and the thinking of others, would develop additional frameworks that people could use to create agreements which would simultaneously benefit all parties.

It should be obvious how this could lead to future agreements which would resolve conflicts.

 

If you base your positions and agendas on this utopian view, I think that you discredit any validity of your argument.

Conflict in the world is typically caused by power or control. Those are elements of humanism which are not resolved by case studies or historical precedent.

There will always be men and women willing to destroy the earth for control or power.

Your example would be likening to ending sociopaths by studying successful treatment.

The world simply doesn't work like that.

 

This just in:


SECURITY MESSAGE FOR U.S. CITIZENS: BAMAKO (MALI), UPDATE ON EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE; POSSIBLE CASES IN BAMAKO

Africa > Mali > Bamako

The U.S. Embassy in Mali is issuing this message in response to the three possible cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Bamako. These cases have not been confirmed as Ebola. The U.S. Embassy continues to assess the risk to the general population, and U.S. citizens in particular, as low. Lab specimens from these three individuals have been sent to the CDC in Atlanta and results should be available in the coming days. While awaiting these results, the Government of Mali has taken appropriate steps to isolate the three individuals. more...


SECURITY MESSAGE FOR U.S. CITIZENS: NOUAKCHOTT (MAURITANIA), EBOLA SCREENING PROCEDURES

Africa > Mauritania > Nouakchott

Due to the recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in neighboring Guinea, Mauritanian border authorities have implemented a new screening procedure for all arriving passengers at all border crossings in Mauritania. more...