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The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

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141–150 of 176 posts

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#141
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you bring up some good points and I don't mean to discount the moral dilemma here, but in reality such moral considerations are hardly ever considered. I don't think the article is suggesting invasion, but if that was the best solution, I don't see a problem with it if it prevents an epidemic or worse, a world wide pandemic(especially if it mutates into airborne transmission). After all, the US has invaded ma…

And given the level of equipment and training the military have with regard to doing their job while wearing full Nuclear/Biological/Chemical protection. I would honestly prefer that if the situation escalates and we see confirmation of airborne transmission, the situation be dealt with by prompt deployment of fully NBC trained military medical units and sufficient security forces to ensure that whatever those doctor…

It isn't SARS, it isn't Spanish Flu... it isn't airborne. And the way it's composed, it isn't a simple mutation away from being airborne.

Guns down.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its historically been where lots of abuse happened - quacks offering miracles; legitimate researchers overstating the hope and downplaying the suffering involved in 'new' treatments. So there's a lot of rules in place.

> So there's a lot of rules in place. I'm not sure if you are aware but in Africa right now people infected are actually going to see the quacks and shamans because they have no other option. Maybe it's time to think about providing them with something that has more scientific ground to actually work.

I'm not sure there are anything but shamans there - once I heard of the doctor that hid his infection and exposed 200+ other people, I have lost all faith in local doctors to accomplish anything.

Exotic cures are sure exciting to talk about. But for a disease that can be stopped cold in its tracks by washing hands and effective quarantine, they're having a bucket of trouble accomplishing anything. Maybe its a little blue-sky to be adding complex drug protocols to the plan.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#143

Time to face some brutal facts here. 1) We are due for another pandemic. If this one isn't it, there will be another. 2) Democracies run on public opinion. Right now everybody is riled up about some homicidal idiots in Iraq. This is off their radar. Hundreds of thousands of people die from some natural cause or another all of the time. It's not a huge spectacle on YouTube. 3) The enemy really isn't Ebola. Ebola is ju…

Saying that we're due for another pandemic is quite simply the gambler's fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy . The odds of a pandemic may well be higher than recent experience would indicate, but pandemics still occur randomly.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#144
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Where do you make the cutoff with your drug experiments? " I don't know where you make the cutoff, but I'm comfortable saying that its somewhere below having a disease with a 50% mortality rate in under 14 days. I'm pretty much okay taking any risk at that point.

What if the risk was survival but with locked-in syndrome and constant very high pain? Or survival but severely brain damaged - no ability to feed yourself; or talk; or understand the conversations of other people.

A risk? yes. But if that risk is significantly less than the other high-risk form of "severely brain damaged, unable to eat, talk, or understand" known as death, many would take it. Remember, the point is trying something that doctors & pharmacists believe has a sensible chance of actual _cure_ (perhaps with acceptable side effects better than death/dementia).

I don't understand the propensity of some to demean "hey, there's a serious immediate problem, let's do everything we can to help" with "but it might (with minuscule odds) go horribly wrong! therefore we can't let anyone do anything that's not established best-condition status quo!" With that mindset, it's a wonder such people ever drive to work (you might die in a horrible flaming carbecue!).

Statistical prioritization matters. Just because there isn't a perfect solution doesn't mean there isn't a better one.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#145
post #113
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. There's no 'invasion' when you're being invited in on a humanitarian mission. People need help.

I'm sure the folks we point guns at will agree. No, better -- they'll welcome us with open arms and throw flowers at us! (In case you're dense, just like the last time we tried to bomb a country into freedumb.)

you seem to have never been taught the lesson that clever wordplay doesn't prove your arguments

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#146
I'm no expert and I'm just as frightened by the spread of this disease as everyone else, but I think people in this thread, and the media in general, are being a tad "end-of-the-world"-y about this without looking at some of the important facts. Namely:

1) The article mentions the R0 of Ebola and claims it is between 1-2 in the current outbreak. Previous outbreaks of Ebola have been as high as 2.7. But this is relatively low compared to other diseases... the R0 of the Measles for instance is 12-18 (and nobody is really talking about the recent outbreaks in the US due to parents not vaccinating their children). Chances are, this rate would even be lower in the West because conditions in African slums and even hospitals are downright deplorable. Doctors aren't using suits or even gloves to examine patients, medical staff are reusing disposable needles, hospitals rely on family members to wash soiled linens because they don't have in-house cleaning services like western hospitals, etc. And don't forget that cultural norms are feeding the spread of the disease: well family members are observed to be sharing beds with sick loved ones in hospitals, people are practicing cultural burial routines of washing and in some cases kissing deceased loved ones, people are still eating the meat of things like bats and gorillas that are sick with the virus (and even found dead), etc. These are all things that just wouldn't happen in the West. People also do much better here at heeding the advice of the medical professionals - for instance, bodies of people who had died of Ebola would like be burned without concern for any regular traditions, without much complaint.

2) Part of the reason Ebola is so scary is the high fatality rate cited in articles: 50-90%. If you extrapolate to the entire planet, this sounds like it would be devastating to the human race. But is this the actual fatality rate? Western hospitals do a much better job of carefully monitoring patients and tending to every minor development. The main problem with Ebola isn't that the body can't fight it, it's that it kills you before your body can recover - the drastic difference in care between the West and Africa would likely make a huge difference in mortality. Make no mistake, this is a deadly disease, but probably not quite as bad as 50-90% in the West.

3) This article and others like it have shared the concern that Ebola could mutate into something transmissible by air. This would make the R0 of the disease skyrocket up into something that could quickly overwhelm Western medicine and very rapidly turn into something perhaps even more devastating than the plague. It's possible of course the virus could mutate in this way, of course, it's already believed that it can spread like this in pigs. One important thing to recognize is that Ebola in humans affects the liver not the lungs, which poses a barrier to being airborne. In addition, to become truly airborne, the virus would have to mutate it's outer coating to resist the drying effect of the air. So in order to become transmissible by air, it would have to mutate 2 different major adaptations and completely change everything about itself. The example I've read is that we don't worry about HIV becoming transmissible by air, and it is thought to mutate more quickly than Ebola. We've never observed any deadly virus change it's method of delivery, although of course airborne diseases evolved that adaptation in the first place.

None of these points mean we should sit back and do nothing. We need to help at minimum because of the following reasons:

1) People are dying and we can help them. With effective medical care, the mortality rate as mentioned in point 2 above should go down.

2) Ebola is destabilizing the region. This is already a region prone to state failure, corrupt and ruthless governments, etc. This disease could well cause wars in Africa, which in turn would make conditions worse and likely increase the fatality rate and the infection rate.

3) While there is a reasonable scientific case to be made against the unlikelihood of the mutation of the virus into airborne transmissible, it's possible and very scary. When considering the risks, we need to multiply the rather small chance against the rather large negative effect of such a change. We need to stop this to avoid this thing from becoming more deadly.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#147
post #112
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? When you are going to die you should have the choice to go on a treatment which is untested. That's what people with AlS have been asking for YEARS and still cannot get because they have to follow the usual regulatory process.Cancer patients can get drugs as soon as Phase I, I don't see why we don't allow other patients who are in critical condition to try whatever is new out there. What do you have to lose?

The death rate from the current ebola is approximately 50%. While that sucks, what patients have to lose is both a 50% chance of living and their right not to be a playground for medical experimentation. edit: and just who vets the people/companies who get to offer drugs to desperately ill people? Does anybody with $1k to buy needles get to make a sign and advertise curative injections? I'm sure glibertarian idiots w…

glibertarian idiots

Please avoid making personal attacks like this on HN.

As a mostly libertarian-minded person myself, the height of compassion is to allow dying people to reach out for any hope out there.

Cruelty would be to prevent people from attempting to save their own lives "for their own good"; especially when no alternative cure is being offered by the politicians and bureaucrats making such life-impinging decisions.

Yes, the quacks and charlatans will try to take advantage and they should specifically be combatted. That doesn't mean that people should not be able to make decisions about their own lives.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#148

Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid? Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that…

The American perspective is to solve every problem with the military or money. We believe that violence and more money are the only effective solutions to every single problem the world faces. Original thinking just doesn't happen. A creative solution would be to temporarily halt all regulations on anti-ebola drug development and let them experiment on any willing person in Liberia who wishes to receive treatment. Th…

I'm from the american southwest, there's a kind of snake here who's effects of venom are remarkably similar to the effects of ebola. All the crazy regulation has been holding up any US research, but in northern mexico, a Doctor Stanley has been doing monkey trials. His unique combination of mineral oil seems to boost immune response, while the venom inures the cells to ebola's most harmful attack vectors.

I realize the people of Africa are very poor and can't really afford the scale of production necessary. Perhaps your country would be willing to help out with a few million dollars, I'm sure this snake oil would do some good.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the world religions disagree with you.

That you have been downvoted is very telling of the crowd that CS people are. We pretend to be all rational professionals on our high horses, decorated with degrees and what not.. And yet, when something manages to hit us on an emotional level we falter. What Afforess said is a statement of fact and relevant to the discusssion. Thus it's a valid counterpoint. You may not like it and you may not agree with it .. you m…

It isn't actually a statement of fact though.

Not all religious sects have an afterlife and some, like Calvinists, believe in predestination, so nothing you do affects where you are going anyway.

edit - The position of respecting other beliefs as the number one priority is basically saying that it is better to let someone die than offend them. However from a religious perspective you wouldn't normally give a shit about offending other people's beliefs as other religions are generally regarded as heresy. There are exceptions, such as the Baha'i, but generally the idea of trying to respect all beliefs is largely a secular position.

Re: The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

#150
post #107

Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid? Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that…

Related; an example of efficient government action: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_outbreak_of_smallpox_in_Yu... Somehow I don't believe that an action like this is possible in a democracy :/

Oh yes it is:

- 1924-1925 smallpox outbreak and mass vaccinations in Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul: http://www.mnopedia.org/event/smallpox-epidemic-1924-1925

- 1947 smallpox outbreak and mass vaccinations in New York City: http://www.virology.ws/2009/12/22/smallpox-in-new-york-city-...

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