Tag Archives: virus

Dot Earth Blog: Why Americans Should Fear Fear of Ebola More than the Virus

by Myrna Posted on October 24, 2014

Two vital efforts to tamp down unfounded fears of Ebola contagion. Originally posted here: Dot Earth Blog: Why Americans Should Fear Fear of Ebola More than the Virus ; ; ;

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Dot Earth Blog: Why Americans Should Fear Fear of Ebola More than the Virus

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People Are Trying to Sell Cinnamon Bark as an Ebola Cure

by ShayneMagee Posted on October 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Marion Nestle reports that several supplement manufacturers are selling vitamins that promise to prevent or treat Ebola. The claims caught the attention of the FDA, which has issued warning letters to three of the manufacturers: Natural Solutions Foundation, Young Living, and DoTERRA International LLC. The agency lists specific claims it finds worrisome; for example, on a Young Living consultant’s website, “Ebola Virus can not live in the presence of cinnamon bark.”

Here’s a screenshot from Natural Solutions Foundations’ website:

An article on the Natural Solutions site talks about “the intentional introduction of Ebola into the United States by what will appear to be ISIS terrorists.” It continues, “And it will happen soon, since we know from Dr. Rima’s research that Ebola can become an airborne disease in temperate climates, such as North America’s coming winter.” It urges readers to prepare by stocking up on supplements that contain nanoparticles of silver: “The only protection we have against this new level of tyranny is making sure we do not get sick!!! The best way to do that is to make sure that EVERYONE you can reach has Nano Silver and knows how to use it.”

Another supposed natural Ebola cure making the rounds: Vitamin C. Nestle found this gem on an alternative health information site called NaturalHealth365, which claims that a giant dose of vitamin C can cure Ebola (though it doesn’t actually sell Vitamin C):

NaturalHealth365

It’s not terribly surprising that supplement manufacturers have seized on Ebola. A new Harvard School of Public Health poll has found that 38 percent of Americans (up from 25 percent a few months ago) “are now concerned that they or someone in their immediate family may get sick with Ebola over the next year.” That’s quite a market.

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People Are Trying to Sell Cinnamon Bark as an Ebola Cure

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A Quarter of Americans Think They or Their Families Will Get Ebola

by CarissaNnc Posted on August 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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No one has contracted Ebola in the United States, or is very likely to. And no one should be surprised that Donald Trump is tweeting this anyway:

What’s more surprising is that many Americans share fears like those that underlie Trump’s tweet. According to a Harvard School of Public Health/SSRS poll, 68 percent of the US population believes Ebola spreads “easily.” Four in 10 are worried there will be a large outbreak in the United States. And a quarter of Americans are afraid the virus will infect them or someone in their families.

That’s partly a consequence of media distortion, says Gillian SteelFisher, a member of the Harvard research team that conducted the poll. “Ebola’s a terrible disease, and the impact it’s having on West Africa is horrible to observe,” she says. “And the news here is going to capture parts of that but not all of it.” When news reports focus on the gruesome effects of Ebola without explaining why it’s been able to spread so fast in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, it’s easy for Americans to believe they’re in danger too. “They’re feeling a very personal and direct threat,” SteelFisher says.

SteelFisher wants the public to hear from health officials who can explain what disease containment resources the United States has and how they differ from West Africa’s. Simple factors like the availability of rubber gloves, which are scarce in Liberia, would make Ebola much easier to control here.

SteelFisher also thinks people might be confused about how Ebola is transmitted. Those who are more familiar with diseases like the flu, or who’ve seen virus disaster films like 2011’s Contagion, might assume Ebola can spread through the air. But in the case of this virus, you can’t get sick without exposure to an infected person’s bodily fluids.

Though some Americans may be overestimating the risk of an Ebola outbreak, more than a few also have a mistakenly rosy view of the treatment plan for people who are infected. A third of those polled said there was “an effective medicine to treat people who have gotten sick with Ebola.” In fact, no such drug has been approved for humans. The drug Zmapp, which was used to treat a pair of American missionaries who caught Ebola in West Africa, is still being tested.

“You don’t want them to be glib,” says SteelFisher. “At the same time, you don’t want people to be panicking here.”

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A Quarter of Americans Think They or Their Families Will Get Ebola

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New Drugs and Vaccines Can’t Stop This Ebola Outbreak

by Louise6qy Posted on August 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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With the death toll in the worst Ebola outbreak in history exceeding 1,000, pharmaceutical companies and health authorities are sprinting to develop new drugs and vaccines. On Monday, drug maker GlaxoSmithKline announced that it would start clinical trials of an Ebola vaccine ahead of schedule. And on Tuesday, the World Health Organization ruled that the use of experimental drugs to treat Ebola patients is ethical so long as the patients give their consent. But for now, there are no proven drugs to treat Ebola, and experts doubt that any new drug or vaccine could beat back the current outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.

“The drugs are not going to stop the outbreak, period,” says Robert Garry, a virology researcher at Tulane University. One problem, he says, is the meager supply of drugs and vaccines. ZMapp, an experimental drug, has already begun human trials. But Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the company developing ZMapp with the help of the US Army, did not expect to start human tests this early, and it has only about a dozen doses. It has already sent two of those doses to Liberia.

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New Drugs and Vaccines Can’t Stop This Ebola Outbreak

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As Earth Warms, West Nile Spreads

by Myrna Posted on May 9, 2014

The virus took the U.S. by surprise. Thanks to climate change, it’s here to stay. Wikimedia Commons The day that everything changed was a broiling Thursday in July—95 degrees, the kind of dry heat that Sacramento Valley residents are used to. If you have to work outside, you do it before noon, swathed in long sleeves and pants to keep the sun at bay and the mosquitoes from eating you alive. On this day, however, my grandmother, an active and spritely woman even at 80, never made it outside to the garden. She mentioned at breakfast that she wasn’t feeling well, and my grandfather suggested that she take a nap in the sunroom. When he finally woke her up at 4 p.m., she still felt ill and feverish. The nearest emergency room is more than an hour’s drive from their 20-acre farm in rural northern California, but they decided to make the trip. The doctors performed a CAT scan, gave my grandmother some Tylenol, and sent her home. When my grandparents finally got back at around 11 p.m., my grandfather tried to convince my grandmother to eat something; she said that she could manage a piece of toast. A few days later he found the toast, one bite taken out of it, abandoned in the microwave. To keep reading, click here. View original: As Earth Warms, West Nile Spreads Related Articles7 Scary Facts About How Global Warming Is Scorching the United StatesThe Animals of ChernobylWATCH: These Reefs Are Beautiful—But Most of the Coral Is Dead

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As Earth Warms, West Nile Spreads

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This New Charger Checks To See If Your Phone’s Been Hacked

by DenaeTina858 Posted on October 4, 2013

Photo: closari

The increasing ubiquity of smartphones has made these little computers an appealing target for hackers. Most phones operate on one of the two main mobile operating systems—Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android—and Android’s open nature, along with the ease with which it lets you download off-market software, has made it hackers’ favored target.

This isn’t a huge problem, if you’re careful. But, if you are downloading a lot of software outside of the official channels, you may be opening the door to your phone’s innards to malware. Quartz:

About 15% of the apps flagged by Verify Apps are commercial spyware, a diverse set of monitoring apps that range from tracking internet behavior to improve advertising to the very malicious keyloggers that collect personal information entered by the user and report it to the malware creator.

Many software hacks and bugs rely on code that prevents the computer’s built-in security from detecting the problem, either by tricking the anti-virus software into thinking the hack is harmless or by somehow masking it from view. To combat this kind of attack, says MIT Technology Review, the company Kaprica Security has designed a mobile charger that will scan your phone for malware while juicing its battery. Tech Review:

For the user, the charger is simple: plug it into the wall, and plug the phone into the charger. The charger then conducts a quick preliminary scan of the phone; if all is in order, it shows a green light.

If you leave the phone plugged into the charger, it will reboot at a time you’ve preconfigured—3 a.m., for instance—and start a more thorough process that sends the phone’s operating-system files to the charger for an analysis that takes about four minutes.

…If a problem is detected, the charger will alert you with a red light, and—depending on the user’s preferences—the charger can automatically repair the phone by using a previous “good” version of the operating system it has already stored.

The idea behind the charger is that, being independent of the phone, the charger wouldn’t be fooled by the tricks meant to confuse the phone’s protections.

That being said, we can’t help but be a little bit nervous about a company with a name like Kaprica Security. What if the charger is actually just paving the way for the Cylon invasion?

More from Smithsonian.com:

Smartphone as Doctor
When a Smartphone Becomes a Wallet
Your Smartphone Could Someday Warn You That Earthquake Waves Are About to Hit

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This New Charger Checks To See If Your Phone’s Been Hacked

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Camels Linked to Spread of Fatal Virus

by Myrna Posted on September 11, 2013

The animals are the most likely intermediary in the transmission from bats to humans of the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. View post: Camels Linked to Spread of Fatal Virus Related Articles Dot Earth Blog: From the Fire Hose: Warming Slowdown, Deep-Ocean Waves, Canadian Crude Inferno Dot Earth Blog: First Hurricane Brews After Silent First Half to the Atlantic Storm Season Economic Scene: Counting the Cost of Fixing the Future

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Camels Linked to Spread of Fatal Virus

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Rampaging pig virus may raise pork prices

by Leon Russell Posted on June 20, 2013

Rampaging pig virus may raise pork prices

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Vulnerable little factory-reared piggies.

A stomach virus that kills most of the piglets it infects is tearing across America, reaching farms in at least 13 states just a month after it was first detected here.

The disease threatens to trim back the nation’s pork supplies at a time when the price of the meat is already rising following last year’s drought.

Scientists say a strain of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), which shares 99.4 percent of its genes with a strain that recently killed more than 1 million piglets in China, is harmless to humans and other animals. But you wouldn’t want to be a baby pig that contracted the disease.

From Reuters:

While the virus has not tended to kill older pigs, mortality among very young pigs infected in U.S. farms is commonly 50 percent, and can be as high [as] 100 percent, say veterinarians and scientists who are studying the outbreak. …

When and how PEDV arrived in the United States remains a mystery. The total number of pig deaths from the outbreak is not known, and the uncertainty is fueling fears among traders, meat processors and farmers about the potential impact on pork supplies later in the year.

The outbreak comes as U.S. hog and wholesale pork prices in the large hog-raising states of Iowa and Minnesota have surged to nearly two-year highs. Supermarkets are racing to fill meat cases for the summer grilling season even as supplies tighten, analysts said. Hog supplies were already tight after last summer’s historic drought drove up feed-grain costs, which prompted a higher-than-normal slaughter rate last summer.

The first U.S. case of PEDV was reported on May 17. But researchers at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and other diagnostic labs have since discovered that PEDV arrived as early as April 16, according to the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.

Farmers and county fair goers should be extra hygienic around swine, experts say. From PorkNetwork:

PED typically is spread through the feces of infected swine or contaminated trailers, equipment, boots, clothing and hands. The way it is spread makes it a particular concern now because a number of states will be holding fairs soon, according to [swine specialist David Newman of North Dakota State University].

He says everyone involved in pig handling, including hog operation employees and owners, and those transporting pigs, need to take steps to avoid spreading the virus.

Ew. Time to experiment with veganism?

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Rampaging pig virus may raise pork prices

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