Please explain to me why it is fallacious (I'm going to have to try throwing that word around as much as you do) to say that a disease which is certainly quite deadly, but has barely made a ripple in overall deaths in the United States is more concerning than influenza? if you think it is fallacious to dismiss the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and replace it with one that has killed a small handful... perhaps your way of thinking is fallacious?
I'm not dismissing the significance of someone who contracts Ebola. I'm certainly not saying that adequate precautions should not be taken. That would be fallacious.
I'm pointing out that you've apparently bought into the hysteria by placing it above something that kills, year in and year out.
never did answer docjohns question regarding your credentials. I'm a practicing physician, If you want to know mine.
It's already been explained why it is fallacious. No need to reiterate because it is clear you are being purposely obtuse. But for those too lazy to look at my original post:
1. Influenza and Ebola are two completely different diseases, and aren't even tangentially related. To lesson the severity of Ebola by comparing it to Influenza (wherein the only comparison you are making is the absolute number of people who have died from each) is as ABSURD as reducing the severity of any disease by comparing it to heart disease or cancer, let alone one that is undergoing the largest outbreak in its history and has just recently jumped continents for the first time.
2. Influenza can be deadly to infants and the elderly, and those in a pre-weakened state. But for a healthy adult, it is nowhere near as dangerous. Ebola has a death rate of as high as 90%+. Even those who receive proper treatment face a death rate of over 60%. Nearly everyone on this board has had the flu in their lifetime, and has suffered no lasting effects from it. Now, when we are all old and weak (probably from reading this post), and we get the flu, that may lead to us dying. But that in no way justifies reducing the importance of exercising reasonable caution with Ebola.
It is an OBJECTIVELY bad comparison. There is no room for argument here. Move on to your next ridiculous insult, like how you think "fallacious" was overused when it is the most appropriate term to describe the analogy. [btw, I used it twice in a post, wherein the second use of the term was purposely used to reference the first use. You used it four times in your post].
To address your other logical missteps, Ebola has barely made a ripple in the overall number of deaths in the US THUS FAR. The first case of Ebola on US soil in the HISTORY OF MANKIND occurred only a few months ago with Brantley and his nurse (August IIRC). The first case of an infection being flown in despite screening measures in was in September (Duncan). The first case of a live transmission was either that month, or the next in October (Pham + Vinson). The first case of a possible secondary transmission was in the same period of time, wherein Vinson was allowed to fly AFTER having been infected with Ebola (cross-country 2 times). By comparison, Influenza has been here for centuries, and has infected nearly every individual in the US (or will) in their life.
That is because we are "being hysteric" as you call it, and taking reasonable precautions. (BTW, calling people who are being rather reasonable as "hysterical" is a mix of an ad hominem and a strawman argument.) If Ebola were to become as widespread as Influenza, if it were to become "airborne", we would all be royally screwed. If you, as a doctor, do not believe that, then I suggest you consider another profession. The CDC already estimates that in 2014-2015, we will have 1 MILLION+ cases of Ebola in West Africa after correcting for underreporting. If you do not think that is reason for concern, again, enjoy whatever your practice is, because it is nowhere near real medicine. Unless you are an expert in infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc., I don't think your LASIK/Podiatry/etc. practice qualifies you as an expert. And to address why I even asked if the other guy was a real doctor, it was because he made an ABSURD comparison to Dengue Fever which has a death rate of under 5% and was just utterly stupid to bring up.
Should we worry about it becoming airborne? No. No one needs to panic, but you cannot rule that out as a possibility. No one can, including the leading scientists in the world. We can reduce it to a certain probability, but there is NO algorithm or statistical analysis out there that can fully account for the STOCHASTIC replication of the viral genome. The Reston Strain was a new mutation that occurred in the 90s, and luckily, that strain only affected simians. But you can see, by that example, how NEW mutations are entirely possible and can lead to wide-reaching outbreaks in even the United States.
Now that we've checked those off our list, our biggest concern should be human error, as repeatedly demonstrated by the CDC and the hospital in Dallas. Human error (sending a patient home who complained about Ebola-like symptoms and traveled from Liberia; two nurses becoming infected despite all precautions taken; and a nurse traveling across the country twice even after alerting the CDC to her fever after working on an Ebola patient) is enough to justify reasonable caution.
And we do not need absolute deaths to be concerned. Infections alone are enough to justify concern, as are the MILLIONS of dollars being wasted where this entire situation was preventable. You wouldn't have to spend this money on special cleanup crews, isolation units, etc. every time someone spiked a fever or vomited had you just shut down the 100-150 flights coming in from three West African countries daily; or at the very least, put those fliers through a more thorough examination process with a mandatory self-imposed isolation/monitoring period for at least the incubation period of Ebola before they flew.
It is now estimated that up to three Ebola-infected persons will fly out of these West African countries each month, which will increase over time if the infection continues to spread.
ANYONE, on either side of this argument, who asserts they know precisely what will happen is being arrogant. Tom Frieden (head of the CDC) has already demonstrated his hubris, and has already been demonstrated empirically to be absolutely wrong about how controllable this disease is.
To sum up:
Discussing a topic does not make someone hysterical simply because they take a different position than you do.
Reducing a situation's severity by making invalid comparisons is unreasonable, as are personal attacks that are misplaced themselves.
For the case of Ebola, the CDC and our healthcare providers have demonstrated negligence. By the technical definition of the term, we have already had an "outbreak" in Dallas, which was completely preventable. Duncan should have never been sent home the first time. He actually should have never been able to fly from Liberia to the US, overnight, without any other precautions than having his temperature taken by an IR thermometer and a self-reported exit survey (which he lied on).
Addressing these concerns, shooting down stupid comparisons like to Dengue fever and influenza, and correcting several people about how Ebola is transmitted (e.g. while not "airborne", can be transmitted via droplets in the air) is not "hysterical." It actually sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Since you are a doctor, I'm going to take it you already know where the nearest burn unit is.
