Here's how unbalanced the Ebola panic has become.

In San Diego, a woman died yesterday of an infectious disease, a disease that kills very quickly. It spreads through direct contact and is more contagious than Ebola. Approximately 80 people were exposed to this disease before she was hospitalized. It is often fatal and kills 500 Americans every year. And even if it does not kill you, it can result in limb amputation, epilepsy, cognitive damage, paralysis, deafness or blindness.

And yet - no mention on CNN. No mention on MSNBC, FOX, CBS or ABC websites. No demands that the surgeon general or the director of the CDC resign. No calls for a travel ban. No hand-wringing on online forums about how "the public has lost their confidence in the CDC over meningitis." No overheated rhetoric over "how are you going to explain the incompetence of the CDC to HER family? What if it's YOUR daughter next?"

Odd how irrational this Ebola panic has become.

 

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What two threads on Ebola not enough?

 

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This is actually a thread describing a meningitis epidemic. The fact that you missed that sorta proves my point here.

Update - Health and Human Services has just announced that up to 400 students have been exposed to this deadly disease.

 

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Then why is the topic, How Unbanced the Ebola Panic Has Become"?

 

Because it is an example of how people are panicking over Ebola while ignoring a threat that we've had for years, which is more contagious, which kills more people in the US and which we can often not cure. This sort of irrational selective fear will result in more, not fewer, deaths.

 

Ebola threads are contagious.

 

Fear of Ebola is not irrational, since it has the potential to be a far larger epidemic. Sure, it's small now in the US, but look at Africa. It's very difficult to contain and it's expanding exponentially.

 

Well that and the fact that one has a fatality rate of 10% and the other has a fatality rate of 90%. One is treatable, the other is not.

 

Hmm. Yet this woman is dead and all the infected healthcare workers who came back from Africa are alive. Odd.

But no matter; that doesn't fit the current story, so ignore it. You may now return to your regularly scheduled panic.

 

Lol there is a difference Between 10% chance of survival and 90% percent chance of survival and that plus the bungling is why people are far more worried about Ebola.

What I find most distressing is the amazing incompetence now on display.

 

Secretary of State John Kerry said Ebola has the potential to a scourge like HIV and Polio that we will be fighting for decades.

That is another reason people should be very concerned. If we act swiftly and competently we have an opportunity to contain it. If not, if it gets a foothold, we will be fighting it for decades. It will become a pandemic.

 

The CDC claims between 30,000 & 40,000 people in the USA die from the flu each year. The current Ebola outbreak has infected less than 14,000 people & killed less than 5500 of those.

 

Well that is not really a fair comparison. Flu has been around for eons. Ebola is just getting started. And two, your numbers are significantly off. The CDC doesn't know how many flu related deaths there are each year. It only estimates how many flu "related" deaths there are each year. Over the 30 year period between 1976 and 2006 the CDC estimated flu "related" deaths to be from a low of 3,000 to a high of 49,000. That is a pretty significant range. That is about 100 deaths to 1,600 deaths per year in which flu was a contributing factor. As the CDC points out, flu is rarely listed as the cause of death on death certificates. There are usually other factors at work like heart disease or weakened immune systems which cause people to succumb to flu.

"from the 1976-1977 season to the 2006-2007 flu season, flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people" - CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm

 

Ebola has been around for 38 years.

Yep. So take the minimum of 3000 a year and compare it to the total number of US Ebola deaths over the past 38 years - 1. In the same time at least 11,400 people died of the flu.

 

So how does that compare to eons?

You need to read that again. That wasn't per year. That was in total over a 30 year period. As I previously wrote, that equates to 100 to 1,600 per year. That is far from 3,000 and farther still from 49,000. And those are estimates because flu is rarely listed as the cause of death on death certificates for the reason listed in the referenced CDC article. Because flu deaths in the US are rarely the only contributing factor. Ebola kills all on its own. It isn't a contributing factor. It is squarely the cause of death. It kills the healthy as well as the weak. Current flu strains tend to only kill the already weakened as a contributing factor. That is why flu is rarely listed on death certificates in the US.

 

Of course, it is a fair comparison. They are not MY numbers. Other factors are usually at work with the flu, Ebola & nearly any disease or injury.

 

Well whose numbers are they? They are not the CDC's numbers. And the CDC is supposed to be the authority. I suspect you or someone took the CDC number, turned 30 years into one year and added a zero to the lower range number to get your number. The bottom line is your numbers are grossly overstated. They are wrong.

 

I just told you they are not my numbers. What the heck is your problem.

 

And I asked you whose numbers are they?

 

Your bad attitude erases everything else.