Rise of the "Disease Cowboys" and "SUPER HUMANITARIANS"

Rise of the "Disease Cowboys" and "SUPER HUMANITARIANS"

This was an NPR led forum at Harvard from a few days ago, some metaphors used, the virus has as much chance of becoming airborne as "baby mice sprouting wings", the per capita spent on health in these countries nearly matches that spent in the US yet how it maybe spent means it has been poorly allocated. This was informative for a number of reasons, but at the same time was kind of strange, in that these experts deferred to metaphors to describe complex subjects the same as any media news report does. They also state millions will die due to slow response to start of outbreak and the current spread to larger population centers. But does NPR ramble on about millions dying on their news reports, no they downplay it. At the start they also decide not to talk about the current outbreak in the US, which seems to imply the CDC maybe paranoid about people spreading info about the outbreak without it being vetted first. Also different diagnostic tests maybe used, "very little harmonization" of tests. Lots of NGO reasons they didn't stop the virus from spreading....said nobody listened to them when they said this outbreak was different, in other words not the same spread or transmission going on, yet nobody wants to hear this info so metaphors will do.

"Cluster systems" have been activated..... we need "training, training and training" of volunteers in these countries....they were not asking for people and soldiers "parachuting in" and "building hospitals and giving money"....it's been around since 1976 "why isn't their a vaccine already" asks the NPR host..."one is about to be rolled out by a major pharma company" at 40 min mark "we have FOLKS from all over the world" says the NPR lady host as she reads emails and asks questions from the audience....

www.youtube.com...

www.hsph.harvard.edu...
de.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Rise of the "SUPER HUMANITARIANS"....:>) "Career Humanitarians"
www.bostonmagazine.com...

"How do you make a natural disaster in a developing nation even worse? Send in the relief workers. Now Harvard’s Michael VanRooyen wants to change all that with an innovative program that uses satellite technology and tactics borrowed from the military to turn out a new breed of super-humanitarians."
"VanRooyen, in other words, just may be the world’s most dashing example of what can loosely be thought of as a career humanitarian."...

en.wikipedia.org...

"Named Commander of The Order of The British Empire"

Before joining WHO, Prof. Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also worked in India for two years as a medical epidemiologist in the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme, where smallpox was eradicated in 1978. Prof. Heymann also took an active role in the first Ebola outbreak in 1976, and led the response team during the 1995 Kikwit outbreak. In 2003, David Heymann was at the forefront of the SARS epidemic, working with his team to mediate international effort to halt the pandemic.
For his work in public health, Prof. Heymann is regarded as one of the "Disease Cowboys".

www.youtube.com...

^^^^This guy says in one forum that mutation maybe about as likely as mice sprouting wings....while in another forum for the public media not at Harvard he states there have been more than "350 mutations of this strain"....www.cbsnews.com...

"The virus has mutated more than 300 times from previous strains of Ebola, Gire said. Researchers have also pinpointed about 50 places in the genetic code where the virus has changed since this outbreak started. So far, they don't know what any of those mutations mean, but they hope to find out."

"We need to crowd source this outbreak response," Sabeti said. "I want high school students analyzing this sequence. You want people in every country working to do something."

But ISIS terrorists maybe going to get us, wouldn't crowd sourcing let the terrorists get access from these HS students?

"On Thursday, officials at the National Institutes of Health announced that they were launching safety trials on a preliminary vaccine for Ebola. Researchers have already checked that still-not-tested vaccine against some of the more than 350 mutations in this strain of Ebola to make sure the changes the disease is making won't undercut science's hurried efforts to fight it, said Pardis Sabeti, a scientist at Harvard University and its affiliated Broad Institute."

we always need more $$$$$$$

www.bloomberg.com...

"Yet in 2013 appropriations for the institute dropped to $4.26 billion, their lowest point since 2003, according to the National Institutes of Health website. While the institute’s budget rose to $4.39 billion in 2014, purchasing power has been hurt by inflation and the lack of increases, he said.

“The resources have not been sustained,” said. “All of NIH’s endeavors have been slowed. It’s not exclusive to Ebola.”"
NIH needs more money....or you all will get Ebola....
World Health Organization Perspective on Implementation of International Health Regulations
www.medscape.com...

"I'll start with Ebola. There is little chance of an outbreak happening here, but the situation in West Africa reminds us how swiftly outbreaks occur; of the disruption they cause to our increasingly interconnected global economy; and of the devastation they bring in terms of human lives lost.

This epidemic underscores the importance of fully implementing the International Health Regulations, so that we can strengthen our ability to detect outbreaks early and effectively communicate and rapidly confront these threats together.

While we've made significant progress building on our core capacities as a region, there's still more to do.

This past February, we came together with international partners to launch the Global Health Security Agenda, committing ourselves to working together across sectors to accelerate IHR capacity building and to mobilize support to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks."

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services issued the text of the following speech by Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell
en.wikipedia.org...


Here's a quote from a cranky skeptic....

"But the TSA strip searches everyone, how did they let this get through?"

"We really are a stupid group of people, we Americans.

We could have prevented AIDS from growing here, with a simple quarantine, but we didn't because of our devotion to our silly,

politically correct nonsense

Now, we're going to do it again.

What's the point of having border police, customs officials etc if we deliberately do not use them for their intended purposes?

We Americans, in particular the American medical community, are deluded that we can fix this, find a cure and move happily on.

We haven't done it with HIV/AIDS yet and we're not going to do it with ebola.

If we had the ability to cure or control ebola, we would have done it twenty years ago, when

Maybe I should strike while the iron is hot - take advantage of the panic - and write a post-apocalyptic bio-goth novel loosely based on crowdsourced Ebola research. It will be hotter than 50 shades of Grays. Then I will retire to my bunker with a steady supply of shekels and Cheetos, and never work another day in my life!

a reply to: bubbabuddha continued....raised its head.
Right?

The CDC is lying to us about their abilities and the prognosis for containing ebola, just like they lied to us about HIV/AIDS.

AIDS ran through our population despite all the assurances from the federal government, the CDC and silly Americans.
Ebola will do the very same thing.

Obama is certainly fundamentally changing America.
He and his socialists are turning the US into a third world country, complete with incurable, contagious, deadly diseases.

Say what you will, all of the above is fact. "

a reply to: bubbabuddha

Super long and pretty good post!

I have but one rebuttal.. Magic Johnson might disagree with you on whether or not there is a cure for aids.. But then again... He's magic!

a reply to: bubbabuddha

io9.com...

this is an article to mice with wings


great post by the way

a reply to: rockpaperhammock
Thanks and also good link about the mice with wings...I thought he made an interesting metaphor considering that fruit bats, which maybe mice with wings technically are supposedly how this whole thing got started! :>)

Bad audio at the start, but here's more info on the The Launch of the Global Health Security Agenda