The Ebola outbreak compels me to step beyond the "senior" focus of this blogspot. The focus remains to speak out against fraud in our world.
Last week I unfriended someone on facebook because of their negative comments about immunizations and a possible Ebola vaccine.
This week, as the world situation further heats up over Ebola, it is more apparent that the long percolating lack of respect for expertise in medicine and science is manifesting in public policy (now with New Jersey holding a well (ie, not sick) international aide worker nurse in an in-hospital tent quarantine as she returns from Sierra Leone) and in the expressed beliefs and fears of the public.
I am alarmed at the health-related statements made by some of my facebook "friends" --- modern, supposedly educated people, statements that could have life-threatening consequences for individuals, even the world. These are lay people (ie, not scientists or health care workers) who grew up in the same education system as I did. Yet, their pseudoscience statements and beliefs (in particular about immunizations for common childhood killer infectious diseases), and the religiosity in which they express them, emerge as if they have as much factual validity as truth. They come with complete disregard for the years of education and dedication required for true science / public health expertise, what comes from studying all the fine details of a topic for a career lifetime. There is also careless disregard for those who have literally placed their hands on the process against public health threats, infectious disease such as the Ebola virus, and risked their lives for the care of us all.
Disrespect of science, as if science is one opinion, of equal standing with any other lay (especially celebrity) opinion and the now emerging discrimination against health care workers who are willing to go the heart of the Ebola outbreak in Africa, or discrimination against the unfortunate souls who have had loved ones who were sick from or who died of Ebola (such as Louise Troh) will ultimately backfire and lead to a worldwide disaster.
Politicians making policy in isolation from world health expert council and approval qualifies as another form of societal fraud, which, in the currently perilous environment, could devastate mankind for all time. This is the fraud of political extremism or partisanism, which we have already now seen rear its ugly head in the Ebola crisis debates. In the extreme effort to gain power for one political party or group, false statements and beliefs are perpetuated. While such actions are not historically new, in the context of a viral epidemic that could wipe out a significant percentage of the world population, such false beliefs, and the actions they support, come with perilous consequences.
In this time of world crisis we need politicians to be the LEADERS to embrace the advice of colleagues who are experts in TRUE science (in this case public health infectious disease), and in true world wide public health interests. We do not need more pseudoscience, non expert fear opinion, or interests that are believed to exclusively represent one country or another.
As has been pointed out by one of the most respected experts in American public health, America will not be immune to the Ebola outbreak if the world does not support continental Africa aggressively.
osterholm-protect-new-yorkers-stopping-ebola-epidemic-west-africa-article-1.1987405
The world response to Ebola needs to be to send MORE health care workers to Africa, to express gratitude and praise for those who are willing to step up to help protect us all, and to arrange for their comfortable re-entry back to American society (not unjustified punishment and waste of resources to keep a well person in a hospital isolation tent). Perhaps a compromise of voluntary quarantine at home for 21 days, ala similar to what Louis Troh or Nancy Snyderman did, could be reached for these individuals. Or, perhaps even this is not logical. Does this mean that Dr Anthony Fauci (world renowned infectious disease expert at NIH who also now cared for patient Nina Pham) should now also be in tent quarantine? Or the health care workers in Nebraska, or the next place we see a patient with Ebola in America?
As a health care worker I am tired of negotiating with people for their own good, as if the "truth" is debatable. Usually this is only a matter of patient personal choice/ health care autonomy, however, Unfortunately, in the case of Ebola, it is more than a matter of personal choice - what happens next will eventually affect us all in a very profound way. If the front line health care leader experts and hands on workers are disregarded, ostracized or discriminated against, and /or, if we health care workers choose to hide or walk away from the problem in pure frustration, the whole world/ history will lose .
If we quarantine our health care workers we will soon have no health care workers to care for any of us. Is this really what we want? To my facebook "friends" - perhaps you will then remember that I told you so.
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Update, Feb 2015:
It is interesting to now see the response on Facebook about immunizations in the face of the Measles outbreak.
I am no longer friends with anti-immunization advocates (or at least not with any that are outspoken about it on Facebook).
All of my "friends" support immunization, where possible, for communicable disease.
