Pitfalls of Polysemy

In the context of Philosophy of Science, we have previously posted essays on the theme “Discovery versus Invention”, tracking more broadly with (Platonic) Realism vs. Nominalism.    A rather recondite subject, but which you may read about here, if so inclined:

    https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/discovery

Yet now, jarringly, in the day’s headlines, one reads of the fostering and festering of conspiracy theories to the effect that Covid was a deliberate laboratory product (a familiar meme, historically -- Ebola and whatever else).  To which the obvious logical response (distinct and independent from the many empirical shortcomings of such theories) is:  Cui prodest?  (Or, more forcefully, Cui effing prodest??!??)

Reportedly, something over a quarter of Americans believe this.  But what caught my eye is that nearly such a proportion of Frenchmen believe this;  and that, moreover, part of the genesis of this delusion stems from a semantic misapprehension:   an alleged polysemy of the word invention in French:

26 % des Français estiment ainsi que le SARS-CoV-2, le virus responsable de la pandémie actuelle, a été créé par l’homme. Aux Etats-Unis, selon une étude de journalism.org, ils sont même 29 % à adhérer à cette thèse pourtant battue en brèche par toutes les publications scientifiques.

Mi-mars, un internaute français scandalisé se filmait en train de commenter un brevet en virologie de l’Institut Pasteur portant sur « l’invention » (le terme juridique pour une découverte) d’un coronavirus de 2004. Bien que très mal renseignée, sa vidéo d’inspiration complotiste a été partagée plusieurs millions de fois avant d’être supprimée par Facebook.

--

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/03/31/l-etrange-obsession-d-un-quart-des-francais-pour-la-these-du-virus-cree-en-laboratoire_6035093_4355770.html

Now, my trusty old two-volume Harrap’s (French => English) does report such a use of invention in specialized areas:

A[rchaic]: finding, discovery (still used in (a) Ecc]lesiastic]) : Invention de la (Sainte) Croix, Invention of the Cross; (b) Jur[istic]: invention d’un trésor, finding of a treasure trove.

We are put in mind of the old anecdote about the floorplan of the (American? British?) embassy in Berlin, during the 1930’s, whose floor-plan (obtained by the Germans) listed one room as a “powder-room”.  German intel (not philologists, it seems) interpreted this as designation a secret chamber  in which the devious Anglo-Saxons were storing gun-powder.

~

Historical note:  ‘finding’, rather than ‘creating’,  is in fact the oldest attested sense of the English word invention.  We still see something of the original sense in our word inventory.

Footnote:  Example of a (presumably) non-linguistically-based instance of Corona-Conspiracy pathology:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-01/man-charged-derailing-train-hospital-ship-mercy

Corona-cum-Popcorn

As a rule, I avoid disaster flix;  and shun movies about diseases ‘like the plague’.  Thus, a fortiori, disease-disaster flix.

But out of interest in the psychological dimensions of global climate change, I did watch “Take Shelter” -- which, to my delighted surprise, turned out only to pretend to be a meteorological disaster flick, but in reality is a psychological thriller.  At least, that was my take on it, in an intricate essay here.

And now Covid19 (as, when this was first posted, ebola), elbowing much else off the front page these days.

* “The Andromeda Strain”  (novel: 1969;  movie: 1971)

Michael Crichton’s novel is differently focussed from the works that follow, being about big science and extraterristrial organisms and spooky military stuff.   And it has no psychology whatsoever, just a workmanlike plot  laid out in a wooden style, interrupted from time to time by edifying mini-lectures in biology (Crichton began as a physician).

*  “The Cassandra Crossing” (1976)

The opening scene, in which terrorists insinuate themselves into the World Health Organization in Geneva (our own WDJ headquarters are just down the street, as it happens), and one of them gets infected in a secret lab, is a masterpiece of economy and timing.   The fact that the rest of it takes place on a train, is also to the good;  trains go with movies like peanut-butter with jelly.   And the collateral-damage/government-conspiracy plot towards the end, is even more plausible now than when the movie came out.

So, a fun watch;  but no real food for thought. 

 * “12 Monkeys”.

 (A hefty head-trip.  I would have to see it again before saying anything intelligent.)

* “Contagion”  (2011)

This one I really looked forward to, since it comes highly praised by critics, and is from the director of the excellent “Traffic” (2000);   but it turns out to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen.   That being so, there’s no point in even listing its demerits.   Just skip it.

Leaving the best till last.

*  “Outbreak” (1995)

Early on, purportedly at Fort Detrick (a site not far from where some friends of mine live), there is a useful review of the different levels of bio-hazard.  

While still in the Level-3 room, she casually takes off her mask;  and walks out, leaving the door open behind her.

Now:  As a cinephile, you ask yourself:

(a) Is this meant to be a foretoken of some horrible events that follow from this negligence?

or is it

(b) just some stupid movie sloppiness that banks on the inattentiveness of viewers to overlook? (Hitchcock famously defended this latter view.)

Having seen the movie, I can report:  (b).

OK, so, the movie is sometimes cinematically sloppy, much as that researcher was sloppy.  But over all, it repays what you spent on the popcorn.

The film has extended sequences at what purports to be the CDC.  These days, that is roughly the equivalent, in terms of tense attention, as the CTC of “24”.

Dustin Hoffman is excellent in this, at least when not bogged down in an uninteresting human-interest subplot about an ex-wife and some freaking dogs.  (Whereas Matt Damon was wasted -- in both senses -- in the wretched “Contagion”).

Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman are suitably icy in chilly roles.  (Sutherland even manages to look like ice.)

The monkey is wonderful.  This must surely rank in cinematic history among the all-time greatest performances by a capuchin.

The movie then slides off into a whiz-bang finale, basically reprising Crichton’s plot-device of a secret government plan -- there called, aptly, “Cautery” -- to simply incinerate any area harboring the otherwise unstoppable infection.  In the novel, that eventuality is avoided by a ridiculous turn of events, whereby all the virions simultaneously, in the lab and outside of it, suddenly ‘evolve’ to a non-virulent form.  In “Outbreak”, some stab is made at verisimilitude, as the immune monkey’s blood provides material for a serum.  In practice, it would be quite some time before such a serum could be developed, tested, manufactured in quantity, and distributed: by that time, everyone you had seen on the screen would have died.  But whatever.

It goes back, arguably, to 1950’s “Panic in the Streets,” in which heroic doctor Richard Widmark saves New Orleans from an outbreak of pneumonic plague carried by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/08/ebolafilm/BY3Va2qm6eSJZw35LpMjkK/story.html

Ebolarama

Western interest in Ebola has been eradicated;  the disease itself  has not:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/12/rise-in-new-cases-shows-ebola-has-not-released-its-deadly-grip/

The chances are there will be a new wave at some point, some months or years down the line;  by which time, the beast may have mutated.   And this, in ways that might make it more fearsome, or less.

For:  Ebola, like any pathogen, doesn’t really want to harm us:  we are, after all, their playground, their womb.  They’d like us to remain alive as long as possible, so that they can frolic in our rich system.  Their only purpose in what viruses call “life”, is to reproduce, and reproduce, and reproduce some more.  (Actually, they sound like teenagers;  although these only wish to practice the preliminaries of reproduction, and not actually change diapers.)   One way of expanding their reach is to invent new pathways of transmission (the dreaded “airborne” route);  but another is simply to learn to live with the host, which many many organisms have (over the eons) learned to do.

Who knows?  By the time that ebolavirus has settled into a merely commensal relation with ourselves, it might confer such advantages as immunity to the dreaded Stuxnet worm, which by then (having escaped the confines of the thumb-drives) will have evolved into epizoötic forms, and be decimating the planet.

 

So, while awaiting the release of “Ebola III”, here are some suggestions for summer viewing and reading.

~

As a rule, I avoid disaster flix;  and shun movies about diseases ‘like the plague’.  Thus, a fortiori, disease-disaster flix.

But out of interest in the psychological dimensions of global climate change, I did watch “Take Shelter” -- which, to my delighted surprise, turned out only to pretend to be a meteorological disaster flick, but in reality is a psychological thriller.  At least, that was my take on it, in an intricate essay here.

And now ebola, elbowing much else off the front page these days.

* “The Andromeda Strain”  (novel: 1969;  movie: 1971)

Michael Crichton’s novel is differently focussed from the works that follow, being about big science and extraterristrial organisms and spooky military stuff.   And it has no psychology whatsoever, just a workmanlike plot  laid out in a wooden style, interrupted from time to time by edifying mini-lectures in biology (Crichton began as a physician).

*  “The Cassandra Crossing”.()

The opening scene, in which terrorists insinuate themselves into the World Health Organization in Geneva (our own WDJ headquarters are just down the street, as it happens), and one of them gets infected in a secret lab, is a masterpiece of economy and timing.   The fact that the rest of it takes place on a train, is also to the good;  trains go with movies like peanut-butter with jelly.   And the collateral-damage/government-conspiracy plot towards the end, is even more plausible now than when the movie came out.

So, a fun watch;  but no real food for thought. 

 * “12 Monkeys”.

* “Contagion”  (2011)

This one I really looked forward to, since it comes highly praised by critics, and is from the director of the excellent “Traffic” (2000);   but it turns out to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen.   That being so, there’s no point in even listing its demerits.   Just skip it.

Leaving the best till last.

*  “Outbreak” (1995)

Early on, purportedly at Fort Detrick (a site not far from where some friends of mine live), there is a useful review of the different levels of bio-hazard.  

While still in the Level-3 room, she casually takes off her mask;  and walks out, leaving the door open behind her.

Now:  As a cinephile, you ask yourself:

(a) Is this meant to be a foretoken of some horrible events that follow from this negligence?

or is it

(b) just some stupid movie sloppiness that banks on the inattentiveness of viewers to overlook? (Hitchcock famously defended this latter view.)

Having seen the movie, I can report:  (b).

OK, so, the movie is sometimes cinematically sloppy, much as that researcher was sloppy.  But over all, it repays what you spent on the popcorn.

The film has extended sequences at what purports to be the CDC.  These days, that is roughly the equivalent, in terms of tense attention, as the CTC of “24”.

Dustin Hoffman is excellent in this, at least when not bogged down in an uninteresting human-interest subplot about an ex-wife and some freaking dogs.  (Whereas Matt Damon was wasted -- in both senses -- in the wretched “Contagion”).

Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman are suitably icy in chilly roles.  (Sutherland even manages to look like ice.)

The monkey is wonderful.  This must surely rank in cinematic history among the all-time greatest performances by a capuchin.

The movie then slides off into a whiz-bang finale, basically reprising Crichton’s plot-device of a secret government plan -- there called, aptly, “Cautery” -- to simply incinerate any area harboring the otherwise unstoppable infection.  In the novel, that eventuality is avoided by a ridiculous turn of events, whereby all the virions simultaneously, in the lab and outside of it, suddenly ‘evolve’ to a non-virulent form.  In “Outbreak”, some stab is made at verisimilitude, as the immune monkey’s blood provides material for a serum.  In practice, it would be quite some time before such a serum could be developed, tested, manufactured in quantity, and distributed: by that time, everyone you had seen on the screen would have died.  But whatever.

It goes back, arguably, to 1950’s “Panic in the Streets,” in which heroic doctor Richard Widmark saves New Orleans from an outbreak of pneumonic plague carried by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/08/ebolafilm/BY3Va2qm6eSJZw35LpMjkK/story.html

Time, gentlemen

Check this out:

More than two dozen African countries have already imposed restrictions or outright bans on travel to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and numerous air carriers have canceled flights.

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-ebola-air-travel-20141016-story.html#navtype=outfit

I earlier mentioned the stalwart stance of KSA, in banning the inflight of (pourtant) Muslims  from the top three infected countries, to the Hajj;  thank goodness, this year’s pilgrimmage seems to have gone off especially well.

But I had no idea that so many African countries  were less paralyzed by political correctness, than is America, Belgium, or France.

Ebola nurse, enjoying her Caribbean cruise.

[Update 20 Oct 2014]  And now yet another African country has decided it doesn’t want to be a sacrificial lamb just to please the bleeding-hearts:  Morocco has just rescinded its commitment to host the Coupe d’Afrique des Nations (soccer tournament) in January, owing to the risk.   The soccer authorities tried to twist their arm, but Morocco held tough.

~

There has been much tut-tutting about ‘scare tactics’ re ebola.  In principle, that is a valid concern.  There have historically been many cases of media-inflated panics, simply to “sell newspapers” (permit me this somewhat archaic formulation, propre à  un sexagénaire).  In our own day, “shark attacks” (or child abductions) regularly fill the news vacuum during the summer doldrums; eventually it is acknowledged that there was  statistically  nothing to it.

But there is a contrary possibility, that of “sedative tactics” or “soporific tactics”.  Thus, consider what your impressions are, of the progression of ebola.

[Pause while you reflect.  Then, scroll down.]

.

.

.

.

.

The sense one gets from the media is:

(1) First, one has a slight fever, then perhaps diarrheia and vomiting.  All quite familiar symptoms of a host of minor illnesses, from childhood on, and in that sense  almost reassuring.

(2)  Next, either

(a) you are all better again, feeling your oats, clicking your heels, and immune for evermore,

or

(b) somehow, silently, in the night, (no-one knows quite how)
a gentle death spreads o’er thee,

like some sweet dream,

and thou art risen among the angels,

world without end.

Actually, as a matter of medical fact, there seems to be an intermediate stage, at least in some cases.   These you will not generally hear of.

The standard image in the media these days, is this:

Kinda cute li'l critter, big eyes and a lopsided grin

Not very threatening;  might almost be one of those ribbon stick-ons for your car, in support of Breast Cancer Awareness or whatever.

But if you google-image “ebola symptoms”, a different picture emerges:

Coming soon ...

... to a nursery school ...

.... near you.

Enjoy the epidemic!

Heaven forbid we should offend anyone, by actually protecting ourselves...

Sorry to have to display such things;  but the fact is, the airbrushing of ebola's real nature   amounts to a kind of cover-up.

[Update 18 October 2014]  Never mind, stand down.  Everything is now under control.

The President has just appointed a lawyer and “longtime political operative” as “ebola czar”.   That should fix things.

Problem solved.

(Wonder if, a few months from now, we’ll be hearing “Klainy, you’re doing a heckuva job.”)

[Update 19 October 2014]  Hmm …

President Obama on Saturday evening met with members of his national security and public health teams for an update on the administration's response to the Ebola outbreak. The president's new Ebola czar, Ron Klain, did not take part in the meeting, according to the White House.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/221194-officials-brief-obama-on-ebola-response

Interesting.  Second such meeting he’s missed, so they say.  Is he perhaps, ahh, feeling a little under the weather?  Running a slight fever? ….

OK, let’s go back to panic.

  ~

Yes, all this is kind of harsh;  but that is called-for, given the continuing fog of obfuscation and patronizing Pollyannaism we are being fed.

Thus, the other day, one of the major media outlets had a nice simplified graphic, of the sort that could be understood even by illiterates, to “educate the public”.  Eager to learn, we set down our crayons and pulled our chairs close.

There we saw an icon of a meal with one of those diagonal ‘Not’ lines through it.  Actually that isn’t as easy to interpret as the editors apparently thought, since the most obvious interpretation -- “Don’t eat” (here, or this, or whatever) -- is the opposite to the one intended.   What they meant was:  Go ahead -- “Whatsoever ye find in the market, that eat” (as St Paul put it):  you “can’t get ebola from food.”

Now, we shall readily grant that the chances of contracting ebola from a pizza or whatever  are effectively nil;  but that cheerful slogan brushes over the generally accepted account that this outbreak entered the human population precisely via food:  Namely, bushmeat.

Oh well, true enough (you might tut-tut), but none of that has any relevance to the West, where we don’t eat monkeys and pangolins and bats and what-have-you.  Only … wherever you have pockets of African ex-pats, you are going to find illegal importation of bushmeat, generally in the suitcases of travelers (which means that, in addition, it will not be of the freshest).   A recent article states that 270 tons of the stuff -- viande de brousse -- is smuggled-in annually via Roissy airport alone.

270 tonnes de viande de brousse illégale transitent chaque année par l'aéroport de Roissy (France)

http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_2451.php

De la viande de brousse est toujours importée illégalement en France

http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_2840_viande_de_brousse_France.php#bouton

Don’t take their word for it; here is an official source:

http://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/eng/Sites/Gendarmerie/Presse/Communiques/Operation-de-controle-des-importations-de-viande-de-brousse-a-Roissy

Ebolabonanza: latest updates

The latest faits-divers regarding Western fecklessness in confronting the epidemic (main essay here:  Ebola tourism).

[Update 9 October 2014] 

(1)  The Obama administration’s timid response to the latest events -- a response evidently reluctant, and under public pressure -- to the extent of taking the temperature of passengers from ebola-ravaged lands, only at five airports and only after it’s too late -- namely, after they have arrived here, from whence no-one will have the guts to send them back -- is, as the CDC itself admits, mostly just for show:  to show, not that they actually care, but they can at least pretend to care.   The French socialist government has just announced that they are unwilling to go even that far.   The leader of the Front national, Marine Le Pen, has called for suspending flights from the infected countries;  unfortunately, the general election isn’t till 2017 -- plenty of time for the socialos to do irreversible damage in the meantime.

[Update 15 October 2014]

National Nurses United, a labor organization, issued a statement it said came from nurses at the hospital who reported feeling “unsupported, unprepared, lied to and deserted to handle their own situation.”

The statement said that the guidelines for handling Duncan were constantly shifting, and that for the first two days of Duncan’s isolation, the protective equipment given to nurses did not cover their necks.

The official Texas biohazard suit

Just add duct tape and you’re done!

(2)  Likewise vulnerable is Spain, via their enclave of Melilla in Morocco.   For reasons of political correctness, Spain has refrained from erecting an adequate barrier, so that the one they have is often scaled or knocked down.  Just yesterday, over three hundred sub-Saharans assaulted the enclave at several points simultaneously (apparently coordinated by traffickers) -- some over the wall, some coming into the port on a float.   All this in the hope (which in the past has repeatedly been fulfilled) of being sent on their merry way to Spain, courtesy of the taxpayer, legality be damned, and with all the diseases they might be carrying.  Melilla itself lacks appropriate specialized hospital facilities, and has requested them, in the face of the continued refusal on the part of the Spanish government  to defend the enclave, or to allow it to defend itself.  (Indeed, just a few days ago, yet another bisounours European commission delivered a tut-tut report against the Melillian (and Moroccan) authorities  for insufficient TLC towards the invaders.

(3)  I just watched a video from Sierra Leone, which attempted to show the professional level of measures being taken by the government there.  The camera crew followed a nice young man -- a volunteer, bless him, in a very dangerous job -- driving to a crowded quarter of Freetown  to retrieve an ebola-infected corpse.  (Remember that the corpse is at least as dangerous as the live carrier.)   The crowd was hostile, especially the relatives of the deceased;  a single soldier stood guard but did nothing; ultimately the young volunteer had to retreat, leaving the corpse to rot and infect others.

We then proceeded to a similar mission, this time at a military hospital, so that there was no problem with an unruly mob.  We watching the volunteer and several of his comrades,  patiently and dutifully suiting up, till they looked like astronauts.  Only … one detail:  In a suit like that, the astronaut would be dead.  For the suit left a gaping hole at the throat.  (Sort of like the Maginot Line, which was sound in construction but omitted to cover Belgium;  epic fail.)   The team proceeded anyway, having patched the gap with … Scotch tape!

Uh-oh ... check your zipper ..

(4)  Those who attempt to calm (or paper-over) public fears, speak blithely of “decontamination” of infected premises, as though that at least were a magic bullet.  But the NBC cameraman who came down with ebola despite not having had direct contact with patients, believes that he caught it in the very act of decontamination -- splashback from spraying a car.

This morning, airline workers at LaGuardia went on strike over being sent in to clean out blood and vomit from airplanes, with minimal protective gear.

(5)  Republicans naturally have been seizing on this, perceiving an issue.   Indeed there is an issue, though they approach it in their by now familiar way, making up lies about ebola-ISIL brigades already at the border with Mexico.   It’s a good thing they are fuming, since the CDC/DHS are both still stonewalling;  but as a party they offer nothing, since, scientifically, they are the party of aggressive incompetence:  witness the many, many missteps in Texas.

However, some friends of mine are committing the fallacy of discounting the dangers of America’s current lax approach, simply because the Tea Party types are attempting to adopt the issue of their own;  as though it were all no more than a Faux News smokescreen.   A good corrective to this is to sample the public response in Europe, where Obama is not an issue.  The point of the examples below  is not to justify the public response, but (a) to help Americans be aware of how this is playing out in Europe, and (b) to counter the suggestion that the whole issue is just an invention of the Teabaggers.

First, Spain.  

* Remarkably, the tone of public opinion has been unexpectedly hostile, both to the now gravely ill nurse’s aide, and to the decision to repatriate the infected Spanish missionary-priest.   The inhospitable attitude towards the priest, their own compatriot, contrasts with the relative mildness of the Liberian who managed to infiltrate the US under false pretenses.   Also, the nurse’s-aide may not be the brightest bulb (aides often aren’t;  she is not an R.N.), and may have infected herself by (as she says) touching her face with her glove while "doffing" (disrobing):  but please!  The particular situation she faced was unprecedented,  and perfection  in such cases  is impossible.  And now a Spanish doctor has likewise quarantined himself:  he says that the sleeves on his moon-suit were too short.  (Having seen that Freetown video, I can well believe it.)

* As for Spanish commentary on sites reporting the Melilla story (which, admit it, you never heard of until just now), it is unprintable:  harder than the hardest of hard lines you are likely to hear in the United States.

Next, France. 

* This morning, some parents are boycotting the local school owing to the return of a pupil from ebola-wracked Guinea.

* The teflon/happytalk French health minister today dismissed the need for further protective measures, with the curious reasoning that “there are no cases of ebola in France”. (Que l’on sache, one wishes to add.)  As though on cue, no sooner had she issued this unsettling reassurance, then a possible case was announced:

9 October 2014 Un bâtiment de la DDASS [direction départementale des Affaires sanitaires et sociales] de Cergy-Pontoise, en banlieue parisienne, a été bouclé ce soir après le malaise dans ces locaux d'une personne qui pourrait être d'origine guinéenne et présentant des symptômes grippaux semblables à ceux du virus Ebola, a-t-on appris de sources concordantes.

Un lecteur ironise:

Ce n'est pas possible. Mme Touraine nous a garantie qu'il y avait aucun danger. Nous aurait on menti ?

Another comments, more ominously:

      Le camp des Saints version 2014.

(For an explanation of the reference, click here / ici.)

[Update, 13 Oct 2014]  Mounting pushback:

Doctors and nurses pray before entering the Ebola ward at JFK Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. After a doctor at the hospital contracted the virus, some employees quit and the facility stopped accepting patients.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/liberia-already-had-only-a-few-dozen-of-its-own-doctors-then-came-ebola/2014/10/11/dcf87c5c-50ac-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html

The French ministre de la santé, Marisol Touraine, has been as bad as the CDC director Thomas Frieden, showing the same opacity and blithe dismissal.  Most recently, under pressure, she has said she is “considering” clamping down on direct flights from Conakry.  Well, not actually clamping down -- not actually banning the flights;  but anyhow taking the passengers’ temperature after they arrive in France and it’s too late.

The workers aren’t buying it.

Le syndicat national des professionnels infirmiers dénonce lundi l’ « omerta » des pouvoirs publics sur Ebola.

http://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/social/0203853766757-france-un-syndicat-dinfirmiers-denonce-lomerta-sur-ebola-1053003.php

Frieden’s recent foot-in-the-mouth statements were particularly egregious.   Naturally, health-care workers are “bristling” that he (seemingly) blamed the nurse -- e.g.

This healthcare worker risked their life and according to the hospital they worked for she was wearing the required PPE. Why would any healthcare worker want to care for these or any other infectious patient when the CDC will blame the healthcare worker for their contraction of the disease. Why take care of these patients and potentially die? Would you want your legacy to your children to be “breach of protocol”

Actually, his verbiage was so vague that it was unclear whom or what he was blaming;  but really it was worse than that.   If breach there was, by all means lay it out, so that the same mistake won’t be repeated.   But he did not follow through with any details at all;  and apparently, he was talking out of his fundament:  they still don’t know what went wrong.   (As another reader commented, “A breach in protocol … or a protocol that’s broken?”)  Thus, quite apart from any, let us say, lack of bedside manner, the CDC chief’s approach is intellectually quite worrisome as well.

Pushback from a physician:

Officials had previously never made it clear that the 48 people being evaluated did not include those treating him after his admission to the hospital.

Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville, said he was shocked that none of those monitored by officials were hospital workers caring for Mr. Duncan after he was put in isolation. Dr. McCormick worked for the C.D.C. in 1976, when he helped investigate the first epidemic of Ebola in central Africa.

“You know that once this guy is really ill and he’s hospitalized, there’s going to be a lot of contact, manipulation of blood specimens, cleaning up if he’s vomiting or if he’s got diarrhea,” Dr. McCormick said. “You certainly can’t assume that because he’s hospitalized and in this unit that everything is fine and everything that goes on will be without any risk. I mean that’s just ludicrous to think that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/us/dallas-nurse-ebola-patient.html

Acronym note:

Although usually referred to as “CDC”, the full and official name of the agency is “CDCP”:  Center for Disease Control  and … Propagation?

(or is it "Conservation and Propagation" ?)

[Update 31 October 2014]  A reader’s comment, more cogent than the original article:

Suzanne

Brooklyn, NY

At the risk of sounding like I am from the Dark Ages or being identified with a denier of climate change, I would like to point out 3 contradictions in all of this. I am sure there are more.

It seems like the same people who think that politicians shouldn't be making medical decisions are fine with a judge making medical decisions, as long as the decision falls to their side. Shouldn't their position STILL be that the decision should be in the hands of the doctors, not judges??

I also still do not see why it should matter whether a human being is a "hero" or not in making the judgment whether that human should be quarantined (I'm not sure what the "science" says on this, but I would bet that viruses are not too concerned with distinguishing their altruistic hosts from non-altruistic ones). I have heard Obama and other health experts making this argument, saying "we shouldn't punish our heroes," when the moral qualities of the person really should have nothing to do with that decision.

Finally, would the outcome have been different if instead of riding her bike in remote Maine, the nurse was taking the subway or working closely with children or people with impaired immunity? Shouldn't the law take all situations into account (the law needs to suit the general situation and not be tailored to each individual situation). Looking back, how should the New York doctor have behaved?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/us/ebola-maine-nurse-kaci-hickox.html?&target=comments&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&modref=HPCommentsRefer&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news#commentsContainer

And:   Liberal Canada just relocated its mislaid man-card, and is issuing no more visas to travelers from the infected countries.

[Update 20 April 2015]

Signs Ebola Spreads in Sex Prompt a C.D.C. Warning

They were acting on evidence suggesting that a Liberian man who recovered from Ebola might have transmitted the virus to his female partner many months later. Ebola genetic material was found in a semen sample the man provided 175 days after he developed symptoms, 74 days longer than ever before found in a survivor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/world/africa/signs-ebola-spreads-in-sex-prompt-a-cdc-warning.html


[Update November 2019]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/world/africa/ebola-congo.html

And the beat goes on.

Ebola tourism

Medical tourism -- motivated often by economics, sometimes by quality of care -- has been one of the top health-stories of the past decade.   This morning I was going to post a note about an impending variant on this, called “Ebola tourism”, since the early news reports from Dallas were dominated by smileyface happytalk from the likes of the CDC;  however, by now people have wised up, and that is no longer necessary.   Still, for a glimpse of the dynamics of media-vs-the-people, check out the following remarkably clueless WaPo article, by Abby Phillip:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/01/why-hasnt-the-u-s-closed-its-airports-to-travelers-from-ebola-ravaged-countries/

then read the readers’ tart and observant comments.

Just a word, then, on the media aspects.

(1)  I subscribed to WaPo ever since moving to the area, then watched it deteriorate from year to year, and finally let the subscription lapse.  But occasionally I consult their website, for the readers’ comments.  These seem to be only lightly censored.  Often they are nothing but content-free Obama-bashing, but sometimes, as in articles relating to federal employment, the commentors are very well informed;  and in the present case, although almost none of the readers had any special expertise, still  they easily overleaped the very low bar offered by the article.

(2) As regards the information released by the government, there were curious parallels between the Dallas Ebola case and that of the White House intruder.  Both cases featured lies and/or stonewalling, of a sort that could not possibly hold good for more than a day or two.    In Dallas, the number of persons who might have been put at risk by Patient Zero  was initially reported  at around a half dozen; then eighteen; then eighty (numbers easy to confuse, to be sure);  and, as of current writing, around a hundred (unless someone innocently confused “100” with such other zero-rich numbers as “1000” or “10000”).  Additionally, the Texan spokesman at first refused to reveal the nationality of Patient Zero (thus telling us all we need to know), or to reveal his itinerary (the airlines later came clean).

One mealy-mouthed CDC spokesperson (reminiscent of the White-House assaults whitewashers) stated:

"The ill person did not exhibit symptoms of Ebola during the flights from West Africa and CDC does not recommend that people on the same commercial airline flights undergo monitoring, as Ebola is only contagious if the person is experiencing active symptoms."

And how, pray, do they know that? -- that he did not sweat (body fluid), nor throw up or have diarrhea in the john (either on one of the planes, or at one of the airports)?  They don’t;  and worse, given their proven predilection for cover-up, it is by no means a given that, if they had contrary information in their possession, they would share it.

Coming soon to a hospital near U !

(3)  Since the beginning of this slowly swelling crisis, the bien-pensant media coverage has worn two faces.

(a) As regards the threat to Africa:  This is the most deadly event since Noah’s Flood!  Man every resource -- send doctors, send nurses, send troops, spare no expense! This should be the #1 priority of the West!

(b) As regards the threat to the West:  Nothing to worry about;  way overblown; nothing to see here, move along.

As one reader commented, re an article revealing that now an NBC cameraman has been infected:

Was the journalist working as a cameraman handling bodily fluids of Ebola patients? I don't know about you folks but I am beginning to doubt that Ebola is as difficult to contract as we've been told. There are just too many bodies piling up for transmission to be as difficult as they want us to believe.

(4)  Saudi Arabia banned people in affected African countries  from attending the current hajj.  Several African counties likewise imposed travel bans against their west African sisters.  The USA has not had the courage to do so -- its will perhaps sapped by decades of spineless refusal to seal our borders against illegal immigrants.   (And don’t just blame Obama -- Dubya was even worse.)

If the Dallas outbreak were to spin out of control, then  just as with the case of the White House intruder (and sniper, and elevator-rider), it may wind up having a salutory effect, as the public finally says, Enough!

(5)  The US itself is actually not especially vulnerable to travelers bringing in Ebola:  there are no direct flights from Liberia;  the journey of the traveler to Dallas had several legs, and he could have been stopped at any one.

The flight information for the Ebola patient diagnosed in Texas will not be released by health officials because "It's just not necessary," a spokesperson at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told ABC News.

Flights from the airport in the Liberian capital of Monrovia fly to only six destinations -- four in West and Central Africa, one flight to Morocco and one flight to Brussels, Belgium. There are no direct flights into the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport from any of those six destinations, meaning that man had to make at least one more change

http://abcnews.go.com/US/cdc-release-ebola-patients-flight-information/story?id=25890108

As it happens, his first stop was Brussels.   Had he been stopped there, he would have become Belgium’s problem:  and even less than the US does the EU have the guts to send home those who slip across their borders from abroad.  (There would even be a certain poetic justice to that, since “Brussels” is synonymous with European Union bien-pensance.)

So, now suppose that Belgium gets its man-card, and bans flights from the affected countries of West Africa.  Well, all the infected person has to do is to fly to one of the other five African destinations.   So suppose Belgium were to ban all flights from Africa.   At that point, America could largely rest easy, protected as it is by a whole ocean;  but Europe would still be in peril.  After all, many thousands of Africans enter Europe illegally every year.  Indeed, in response to pressure from the politically-correct, Italy effectively set up a trans-Mediterranean maritime “taxi service”, paid for by the smiling Italian taxpayers.   All you have to do is to make it into something that floats, then send out a distress signal (with no cumbersome temperature-checks on the Maghreb side);  the misnamed Italian “Guardia”  Costiera will rush to pick you up;  in-cruise peanuts served free of charge.  (That doesn’t mean they’ll take care of you once you hit Italy;  but they will helpfully point out the quickest route to France, and perhaps even give you a free ticket.  Once there, French taxpayers joyfully welcome the new arrivals, in anticipation of shuffling them on further to Angleterre.  But the Brits, burned by the bombings, haven’t been so welcoming of late;  and so the human cargo in Calais, sits and stews.)

Note:  That self-inflicted ferry-service is ironically named Mare Nostrum;  a more accurate title would be Mare Vestrum.   You can read about it here:

Cruori spumantem

So, if Ebola Tourism does become the next big thing, Europe will likely be ravaged long before we are.

[Update 6 Oct 2014]  France is beginning to realize its unusually high vulnerability:

http://www.lesechos.fr/monde/europe/0203832788384-le-risque-quebola-atteigne-la-france-est-eleve-1050056.php

Since, however, the current Socialist government has shown no inclination to defend the nation against various foreign plagues, it will probably do nothing now.

  

[Update 7 October 2014]  And now this, from Le Figaro:

l'Hexagone est le deuxième pays le plus à risque d'avoir un cas importé de la maladie, derrière le Ghana.

Ghana!

[Update 9 October 2014]   Likewise vulnerable is Spain, via their enclave of Melilla in Morocco.   For reasons of political correctness, Spain has refrained from erecting an adequate barrier, so that the one they have is often scaled or knocked down.  Just yesterday, over three hundred sub-Saharans assaulted the enclave at several points simultaneously (apparently coordinated by traffickers) -- some over the wall, some coming into the port on a float.   All this in the hope (which in the past has repeatedly been fulfilled) of being sent on their merry way to Spain, courtesy of the taxpayer, legality be damned, and with all the diseases they might be carrying.  Melilla itself lacks appropriate specialized hospital facilities, and has requested them, in the face of the continued refusal on the part of the Spanish government  to defend the enclave, or to allow it to defend itself.  (Indeed, just a few days ago, yet another bisounours European commission delivered a tut-tut report against the Melillian (and Moroccan) authorities  for insufficient TLC towards the invaders.

(6)  There has been some speculation that al-Qaeda or (more likely) ISIL, might dispatch ebola-infected operatives to the West.  Indeed, given their predilection for suicide ops, an istishhâdi might even deliberately court infection -- just as some have strapped on the belt, or allowed themselves to be shtupped up the keister with explosives.   Further, AQ has for years been interested in, and sometimes actively working on, poisons and pathogens -- particularly ricin, which is, however not contagious.  For certain, the current band of decapitators would have no moral qualms about such an attack.

ISIL favors maximal effect from minimalist means -- like that Tweet from Syria that set all Australia on its ear.   They could even implement such an attack (since they have a hankering for the picturesque) as a kind of “I Love You” Bug v. 2.0 : simply go around hugging and kissing every American you meet, posing for selfies.  (Les Roms in Paris have a similar scam: sidling up to tourists with a sob story about how oppressed they are, while a confederate steals your cellphone, wallet, and passport.)   Or they could imitate the mindless followers of that Indian guru in Oregon, who went around spraying pathogens on salad-bars:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

If so, that would not be the first time an alien cult had launched a bioattack in CONUS.

(7)  Just as defending against a missile once it has been launched, is much dicier than taking it out while it is still on the ground,  so too, we need to consider protecting ourselves via action closer to the source -- before the effects have radiated beyond reach.

The international transportation system has also proved to have porous screening procedures. In an indication that current safety procedures are relying heavily on the honesty of travelers and the diligence of airport workers, the chairman of the Liberian national airport authority… said Thursday that Mr. Duncan had been deceptive about his exposure to the virus when he flew out of Roberts International Airport in Monrovia on Sept. 19.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/dallas-ebola-case-thomas-duncan-contacts.html

Well, perhaps the Roberts International Airport  needs to become a bit less international for a while.

Several commentors have sighed online  that there is nothing the US can do about the Monrovia airport.   On the contrary, we could shut it down in a heartbeat, if the Liberian government refuses to do so.   In fact, we already have boots on the ground who could do it, with more on the way:

The United States has made the largest contribution and is sending 3,000 troops to Liberia to assist with healthcare logistics. It is the biggest military operation for America in Africa since withdrawing forces from Somalia in 1993.

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-troops-help-liberia-combat-ebola-/2465887.html

 

I’m not saying we necessarily should do that;  merely, that this whimpering that “there’s nothing that can be done” is pitiful.

(8)  Just happened upon this comment from an alert reader:

What is more scary, Ebola or the cdc. As we have seen so many times lately they are just another incompetent govt body now or soon will be. Are they not the same ones that allowed the prez. to ride a elevator with a three time convicted gun holding criminal.

That is true;  the President was visiting CDC in Atlanta when that contractor was allowed into the elevator.

So, the Secret-Service Scandals story and the Dallas Ebola Scandal  intersect at an additional node.

[Update 4 October 2014]  Political correctness can kill:

Federal officials flatly rejected the idea of expanding the screening of passengers arriving from West Africa, and said they would not support calls for a ban on travel to the United States from countries being ravaged by the disease.

[Update 5 October 2014]  After previous assurances that the Dallas health authorities had quarantined everyone who’d been in close contact with Patient Zero after he became fully symptomatic,  this just in:

Authorities in Dallas are looking for a man who had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola in a Dallas hospital.

"We have our Dallas County Sheriff's Department and Dallas Police Department teams on the ground," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a statement. "We are working to locate the individual and get him to a comfortable, compassionate place where we can monitor him and care for his every need for the full incubation period."

The Dallas Morning News reports the man, who may be homeless, was in the ambulance that took Duncan to the hospital.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/05/353889266/authorities-in-dallas-looking-for-man-who-had-contact-with-ebola-patient

The only reason I cite that, is because it is so exactly like the sort of plot twist that the TV show “24” used to pull repeatedly out of a hat, so that the plot could go chugging forward for a full 24 episodes (as it did, back in the Golden Age) even after some situation had seemingly been resolved.  It always seemed contrived; sometimes such incidents do happen.

(You can almost film the sequel in your own head:  Cut to a dazed-looking hobo, shuffling along skid row.   A sidewalk-sitter invites him to share some Ripple.  As he puts the bottle to his lips, we notice that sweat is breaking out on this forehead, some of it dripping on to the bottle, which he hands back to his host, who takes a long swig…)

Cinematic footnote:  A similar fantasy has already been very well filmed.   The movie is called “12 Monkeys”.

L'Armée des douze singes 

Update 6 October 2014]  Slowly, slowly, they are coming around.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/06/epidemiologist-stop-the-flights-now/

[Update 7 October 2014]  The qualms that some leading scientists have about po-faced CDC happytalk  is finally being allowed to make it into the mainstream media.  An abundance of testimony here:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#navtype=outfit

[Update 8 October 2014] Draw your own conclusions:

(1) In Madrid, una auxiliar de enfermería (“nurse’s aide”, which the American press continues to misreport as a “nurse”) contracted ebola from a dying patient, though she had only been in his room twice -- the second time, after his death.   The details of how she got it (apparently touching her face with a glove) don’t matter in this connection;  what matters is that she was a health professional, with many years experience in the field, and working at a premier Spanish hospital, with intense media attention on the case.   In short, conditions where you would be on your best behavior.

(2)  The U.S. is sending thousands of soldiers into harm’s way in West Africa.  With few exceptions, these guys are not health workers by training, let alone with years of experience in the field.

Your assignment:  Consider the implications of these two facts.

.