CDC Removed Info On Coughing And Sneezing From Ebola Q&A

[bananas]

Source: Huffington Post

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly removed some Ebola information from its website. The changes follow claims from news outlets and conservative blogs that the agency hasn't been forthcoming about how the virus spreads, but it was not clear on Thursday afternoon whether the removal was related to the reports.

<snip>

An earlier version of the page is still available in Google's cache. It said that while Ebola is not "airborne" like chickenpox or tuberculosis, it can travel a few feet in the air inside droplets emitted when someone coughs or sneezes.

"A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose," the document said.

The CDC has also changed an Ebola Q&A, deleting the below question about coughing and sneezing (which are not typical Ebola symptoms):

<snip>

The version of the Q&A still online notes that Ebola can survive on doorknobs for several hours. The removed question is available in Google's cache from Oct. 29.

What's strange about removing the coughing-and-sneezing question is that it has been reposted all over the internet, including at news outlets like the Washington Post in early October, on state public health agency websites, and on blogs like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos.

A CDC official said the agency is continually updating its website. "This particular Q&A is being updated to ensure people understand that Ebola is not an airborne virus like the flu and will be reposted soon," the official said in an email.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/30/cdc-ebola_n_6078072.html

[bananas]

1. The original pdf's are in the wayback machine (archive.org)

links are in this GD thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5739206

[PatrynXX]

27. wayback machine is my standard

to check on old pages provided they trolled thru the pages that don't change like the old kcuf.org pages which someone tried to resurrect on a .com page but it's gone as well don't spell that backwards (black metal music)

[Shadowflash]

2. Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!

I couldn't figure out how to attach a picture of Jan Brady.

[bananas]

6. Two things need to be done about Ebola.

Hugh Gusterson points out:

http://thebulletin.org/isis-vs-ebola7753

I am struck by a kind of magical thinking among Americans who cling to the belief that, in a globalized world, they will be immune to eruptions of infectious disease in countries with collapsed public health systems as if they had nothing to do with us. If there is a single lesson about security, it is that it is indivisible. We cannot be truly safe from an epidemic if thousands of others are dying from it, even if they are on a different continent. Viruses cross borders more easily than terrorists.

The number of Ebola cases in Africa is doubling every three weeks. The New York Times reports that unless the West gives massive aid, experts fear a new infection rate of 10,000 cases per month in West Africa, with the total number of dead rising to as many as 1.4 million by early 2015. Remember that, with only 4,500 dead by official counts, Ebola has already made it to Europe and the United States. Now we are anticipating more than three hundred times as many dead, unless strong preventive action is taken. This increases the likelihood that individual cases of Ebola will recurrently appear in the United States, requiring strenuous programs of biocontainment, waste incineration, and epidemiological tracking to stop them from spreading. But even if, unlike SARS and avian flu, Ebola can be kept out of the bloodstream of international tourism, commerce, and refugee movements, think of the human catastrophe that 1.4 million Africans dying painful, lonely deaths represents. When 800,000 Rwandans died in 1994, we called it genocide and wondered how the Clinton administration could have done nothing as the massacre unfolded. Will the Obama administration now stand idly by as twice as many Africans are massacred by a virus that can be stopped not at our borders, but only at the source?

Nurses unions are telling us what they need to do their job:

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/page/s/national-nurses-united-urges-you-to-take-action-now

Nurses across the country demand that President Obama take action now.
Sign below to demand protection for all healthcare workers.

On behalf of registered nurses and other healthcare workers across the United States, we understand that the only way to adequately confront the Ebola crisis, that the World Health Organization has termed the most significant health crisis in modern history, is for the President to invoke his executive authority to mandate uniform, national standards and protocols that all hospitals must follow to safely protect patients, registered nurses, other front-line healthcare workers, and the public. Every healthcare employer must be directed to follow the Precautionary Principle and institute optimal protocols and personal protective equipment for Ebola that meets the highest standards used by Nebraska Medical Center, or a higher standard, including:

<snip>

[yellowcanine]

22. Here is a pic to go with that.

[Shadowflash]

26. Thanks!

Much better.

[bananas]

3. Here's the DU thread mentioned in the article

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5734865

Ebola can be spread through the droplets of a cough or sneeze.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/infections-spread-by-air-or-droplets.pdf

[merrily]

4. We'd save a lot more lives getting people to stop smoking.

Or just to exercise more.

This hysteria is so out of proportion, it's unreal.

[bananas]

7. Thanks for providing another example of "the empiricism of the idiots."

http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-taleb-heres-what-people-dont-understand-about-ebola-2014-10

Taleb explained to Business Insider that many people talking about the disease don't "have a grasp of the severity of the multiplicative process."

The argument that the US should be more worried about a disease like cancer — which has more stable rates of infection than Ebola does currently — is a logic that Taleb calls "the empiricism of the idiots."

The basic idea: The growth of Ebola infection is nonlinear, so the number of people catching it doubles every 20 days. Because of this, you have to act quickly at the source of infections, he says. "The closer you are to the source, the more effective you are at slowing it down ... it is much more rational to prevent it now than later."

The problem Taleb sees is that if there is not more urgent action in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — to the point of restricting travel and other measures that may now seem like an overreaction — then there will be consequences here.

"If you have to overreact about something, this is the place to overreact," he said.

If Ebola doesn't get contained at the source now, he says, there is a risk that people start perceiving it as out of control, and that could have major economic consequences in the US — shutdown airports, people too afraid to go out of their house to buy anything, and so forth.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Luckily Taleb is not an epidemiologist.

So his recommendations can be ignored. He is correct however that there is a threat that panicked overreaction could happen here. His suggestion to quarantine Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea is misinformed.

[bananas]

13. He's an expert on risk, only an idiot would ignore him. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

28. he is not an expert on epidemiology or ebola.

Only a blithering idiot would follow his advice.

[bananas]

21. He didn't say "quarantine"

There are already some travel restrictions and it's not considered a quarantine.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. No he didn't use the "q" word.

At least not in the excerpt from the article reporting on what he did say. What that says is:

to the point of restricting travel and other measures that may now seem like an overreaction — then there will be consequences here

Which says we should impose harmful quarantine like restrictions on the nations struggling to control this disease, not to help control the disease but to forestall "consequences" here, which consequences are mostly panic driven idiocy. In other words, fuck the people of West Africa.

As I said, nobody who is an authority on Ebola is taking this seriously because Taleb is not an authority on the subject, and that is a good thing.

[merrily]

19. Thanks for providing a side of offensive overreaction with your Henny Penny entree.

Not a hallmark of leftists.


My statement was extremely mild, yet you had to be dismissive and come as close to calling me an idiot without risking a hide. Just couldn't let it go. Had to over the top overreact. And you're doing the same to other posters on this thread, implying that everyone on the thread who is not joining in your shenanigans is an idiot. For example:

"3. He's an expert on risk, only an idiot would ignore him."



Now, idiot this:


Yes, I understand pandemics.

I also understand facts.

I also understand hysteria. I also notice who is banging the drum for the hysteria and who is not.

Jon Stewart been mocking the hysteria pandemic for weeks. So have a lot of other people that I consider both highly intelligent and eminently sane. If you want to tell Jon Stewart he''s an idiot, please give me a head's up. I love to laugh.

And that's before we get to all the doctors telling us not to panic.

Meanwhile, your view, and your kind of response when faced with even the mildest resistance, is aligned with those of the geniuses at FOX News.




BTW, did you actually rec your own thread? And still get only two recs?

[Warren Stupidity]

5. They are hiding the massive outbreak here by secretly transporting all the infected people

to their massive outdoor concentration camp detention centers.

It is the Ebola Zombie Apocalypse.

We Warned You But You Wouldn't Listen. Now It Is Too Late.

[bananas]

8. Over at conservativecrackpots.com, they hate unions and nurses.

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/page/s/national-nurses-united-urges-you-to-take-action-now

Nurses across the country demand that President Obama take action now.
Sign below to demand protection for all healthcare workers.

On behalf of registered nurses and other healthcare workers across the United States, we understand that the only way to adequately confront the Ebola crisis, that the World Health Organization has termed the most significant health crisis in modern history, is for the President to invoke his executive authority to mandate uniform, national standards and protocols that all hospitals must follow to safely protect patients, registered nurses, other front-line healthcare workers, and the public.

[leftynyc]

9. Well, that certainly explains

why people are so afraid to have any contact with someone who may have been exposed. While still unlikely to catch ebola, the CDC obviously knew they were creating more of a problem or they wouldn't have deleted that part.

[bananas]

11. But the information wasn't wrong, and now they make it look like they're hiding something.

And as the article points out,

What's strange about removing the coughing-and-sneezing question is that it has been reposted all over the internet, including at news outlets like the Washington Post in early October, on state public health agency websites, and on blogs like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos.

So now they look stupid, too.

[leftynyc]

12. Agree

While I understand their motives for deleting it, it was a mistake. The CDC has handled this entire mess badly.

[bananas]

14. That's what the Surgeon General is for - and why it's important to get out the vote.

Republican obstructionists have blocked everything, including appointing a Surgeon General.

New England Journal of Medicine:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1412890?query=featured_home

Where Is the Surgeon General?
Gregory D. Curfman, M.D., Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D.
October 22, 2014DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe1412890

As an unchecked Ebola epidemic moves out of West Africa to touch the United States and the rest of the world, we should rightfully ask, “Where is the Surgeon General?” The answer is, quite simply, that we do not have one. We face a growing crisis of confidence in our ability to protect patients and health care workers, and the position of the chief public health officer of the United States remains unfilled.

How did this happen?

President Barack Obama nominated a highly qualified candidate, Vivek Murthy, to be the nation's next Surgeon General, but the nomination was not advanced to a confirmation vote in the Senate because conservative lawmakers and the National Rifle Association found his very reasonable views on firearm regulation unacceptable. A highly respected physician with impressive credentials who would have been an outstanding Surgeon General was turned away solely for political reasons.

<snip>

As the nation's principal public health official, the Surgeon General leads a 6500-member commissioned corps focused on the critical health issues we face. The U.S. Public Health Service is responsible for communicating important health information to the public — including, for example, information about influenza vaccination as we enter the 2014–2015 influenza season. Because the symptoms of influenza may closely mimic those of Ebola, we can expect confusion between the two diseases in the months ahead. Clear communication of accurate health information to the public, which is the job of the Surgeon General and the Public Health Service staff, will be vital.

<snip>

Democracy Now:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/10/23/ebola_czar_we_need_a_surgeon

Ebola Czar? We Need a Surgeon General
By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

The United States now has an Ebola czar. But what about a surgeon general? The gun lobby has successfully shot down his nomination — at least so far.

The Ebola epidemic is a global health crisis that demands a concerted, global response. Here in the United States, action has been disjointed, seemingly driven by fear rather than science. One clear reason for this: The nomination of President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the public health position of surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, is languishing in the U.S. Senate. You would think that an Ebola epidemic would move people to transcend partisan politics. But Vivek Murthy, despite his impressive medical credentials, made one crucial mistake before being nominated: He said that guns are a public health problem. That provoked the National Rifle Association to oppose him, which is all it takes to stop progress in the Senate.

<snip>

[leftynyc]

15. I don't understand why Democrats aren't

making a bigger deal about not having a SG because he said something about guns. The hold the NRA has on all of our politicians is outrageous.

[riversedge]

16. You are probly right about

them looking stupid (or confusing the press, public) in the shortrun. Just removing it has and will continue to cause problems.

[840high]

24. Yes. They look stupid.

[cactusfractal]

17. Why is it always "quietly" removed?

Such spin in that little word. Was it "quietly" because there was no press conference detailing the update of posted information? "Quietly" because CDC is trying to pull something? Gee, how about "quietly" because not every jot and tittle of our evolving understanding requires front page public notice?

"Quietly". Feh. These people should go fuck themselves. Quietly, of course.

[sharp_stick]

25. They need to post this for a day before changing items on their webpages

that'll shut up the conspiracy nuts I'm sure.

[KMOD]

18. It was causing confusion so it has been updated

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/30/cdc-ebola_n_6078072.html

UPDATE: 10/31/14, 7:41 a.m. -- The CDC has added a new answer about coughing and sneezing to its Ebola Q&A. The new answer emphasizes that the virus doesn't spread that way:


Can Ebola be spread by coughing or sneezing?

There is no evidence indicating that Ebola virus is spread by coughing or sneezing. Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with Ebola; the virus is not transmitted through the air (like measles virus). However, droplets (e.g., splashes or sprays) of respiratory or other secretions from a person who is sick with Ebola could be infectious, and therefore certain precautions (called standard, contact, and droplet precautions) are recommended for use in healthcare settings to prevent the transmission of Ebola virus from patients sick with Ebola to healthcare personnel and other patients or family members.



This article has been updated to include the CDC's response.

[stonecutter357]

20. .

[sharp_stick]

23. Pretty much because

too many people were either intentionally or stupidly using it to persuade themselves and roving bands of simpletons that it meant something it didn't.

Everybody should read this: A Q&A with a real Ebola expert.

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/10/reality-check-how-catch-ebola

[cynzke]

30. It needed to be removed because it was taken out of context.

The risk from infectious airbourne droplets or aerosol mist is to health care workers in a hospital or care facility, when ebola is in the advanced stages where it has built up the viral load affecting bodily fluids. The respiratory system is one of the last affected by ebola. Some researcher believe that ebola could transmit into a fine aerosol mist that can suspend in the air and therefore all healthcare workers coming into close contact should be wearing a respirator, not just a mask. The expert qualify their belief on the premise that there are virus that are airbourne/spread through aerosol mist and therefore the possibility that all virus has that potential. HOWEVER, it hasn't been proven yet for ebola, more research is needed. Never the less this possibility remains in the later stages of the disease.