Nina Pham Is Going Home

Dr. Hollman weighs in on Ebola:  It's been around since the 1970s.  Africa puts the genie back in the bottle but somehow it pops back out.  Why?

Bushmeat consumption.

By the way, as an official member of the Redneck community (Texas Delegation) I consume bushmeat (small game), so let's not play that particular culture card, please.  I cast no aspersion on my fellow humans in West Africa but it is in West Africa that Ebola comes roaring back after it has been extinguished at great cost.  Why?  They get back to consuming certain animals that carry the virus but have no symptoms of it, thus passing back into the human population where it spreads like wildfire.  It partially extinguishes itself by killing humans so quickly.  Ebola's shelf life is short on surfaces, so it dies off quick.  But then it comes back a few years later.  Why? Bushmeat.

So I don't think the medical community can take too much credit for its demise until they concoct a cure, a shot.  All they are doing on both continents is hydrating, isolating and bleaching the contaminated areas.  There is no cure.

West Africans must stop eating those animals that carry Ebola but don't die - after this outbreak is over, or this little critter is going to morph, by more effective transmission or carrier, into something we can't suppress.

Again, Ebola would not reappear if humans stopped handling, cleaning and eating the carriers of this disease.  Humans cannot carry the disease because we show symptoms then die.

But we can develop Typhoid Marys if we don't change our behavior now.

As a postscript:

I'd rather eat Bushmeat and die a horrible Ebolian death, then eaten by Gambonian dogs before I yield to Lacto Ovo.  But that's just me.

Hansen's Disease (Leprosy) can and is transmitted from dead Armadillo to the Redneck.

As the Symbologist of Redneckitry food customs and keeper of the Roadkill Recipe book (yes, there is one), there are several carriers of local renown.  Hansen's is but one.  But hey!  Show a little love.

I can only hope that - in Liberalism's zeal to extend tolerance and brotherhood even at their own peril to folks of limited resources and bizarre customs found in West Africa . . . 

that they will find in their hearts to extend such kindness to West Texans, should Hansen's Disease take out 100,000 Americans.

Otherwise Liberals would be correctly labeled as Cosmopolitan Critics - friends of every country save their own.

@redneckhash

EXTRA!  New York New & Jersey Invoke Quarantines!; Grim-Faced Govs Say They Are In Control!

Yet but another demonstration of the commitment level regarding the chicken and the pig to breakfast.

Once the Yanks have a little skin in the game, suddenly everyone is a Republican (ha!).

Here in Dallas, we think New York and New Jersey obviously need our input on quarantines and the veracity of the CDC.

After all, what's the problem?  The President bravely hugged Nurse Pham!

now THAT's leadership.

Wonderful for her.  She should get a hero's welcome.  After all, she did volunteer to care for Mr. Duncan.

PS:  I don't think that she should have to pay one single dime for any of her care.  After all, this was the direct result of her work at Presbyterian.

@holmantx It's a shame, holmantx, that in a comment otherwIse so full of good sense that you just had to surrender in to you base political instincts at the end. 

Just once, one presumably reasonable person here to another presumably reasonable person: Set the "liberal"- "conservative" paradigm aside. Just for a day or two. Widen your vision. Try thinking about the world in different and broader terms. Outside the box, as some say. Imagine for a couple hours that the right might be wrong about a thing or two, as wrong as the left. That neither has a monopoly on wisdom.That both may be, in fact, very mistaken a good deal of the time.  That truth is biger than partisan politics.

It's scary, because you lose that easy platform from which to view everything. You begin, from time ti time, to double guess your own judgment. You end up occasionally learning something from a unexpected source. You open yourself to surprise.

That's not to say you won't hold many pf the same basic values. But you'll see them in a broader perspective. And you'll see how may of those values encompass ideas you might not have entertained before.

Unless, of course, you are a finished product, blessed with all the wisdom you can ever possibly absorb. But I don't think you are, and I'll bet deep down you don't either.

@Amazed

Duncan was Patient Zero.

1st in America.

Lighten up.

@ChrisYu I was just thinking that Bentley will be a bigger celebrity than her.

@ChrisYu

Shoulda asked for a Bentley...

@ChrisYu

I think we should throw him a bone on this.

@bmarvel @holmantx

A redaction - there is no "m' in Gabonian.

I apologize.

@TheCredibleHulk @ChrisYu

His security team code-named him 'Bushmeat'.

@bvckvs @ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul 

This is an on the job situation.  Her insurance should not be used at all.  Her employer should be picking up all of the costs, including the consequential costs of isolation for her pet and any of her personal belongings that were destroyed due to their potential contamination.  Her roommate should also be covered.

@ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul @bvckvs 

"According to Wendell Watson, public relations director at Texas Health Presbyterian, the cost of Pham's treatment is being covered by the hospital. But other expenses, such as replacement costs for clothing and furniture, will not be"

As mentioned in the article her friends set up an online place to make donations, they have reached their goal amount ($70K) and any further donations will be sent to Doctors Without Borders

http://www.gofundme.com/ninaphamdallas

@bvckvs

Her employer and her insurance provider are one and the same

no, you're completely wrong.

THR employees are covered by United Healthcare, other insurers for dental and vision.