People seem to take some advice from celebrities. I think of Jenny McCarthy and the whole immunization and autism link. What a disservice she has done and what a following she has. Makes me ill to think that people are listening to her vs educated physicians/nurses/health care professionals.

I would much rather hear from the people (not all actors or musicians) in the Crush Ebola Now Fund PSA then to hear the ideas of people like Donald Trump or Glenn Beck.

ML

Here is a link that might be useful: Crush Ebola Now

Maddielee, thanks for posting that link. That was powerful. I can't imagine anyone being upset/offended/put-off/reacting negatively to Hollywood actors doing public service announcements. We see them in commercials, hear them in voice-overs; why not a PSA? This ability to communicate and connect with an audience is what has made them famous.

Loved your link, AnnieDeighnaugh.

It seems that even some of the news channels are realizing that they've been stoking the panic too much:

NBC

CNN

I try to avoid seeing any commercials.
I mostly watch stuff that's on the DVR, so I speed right through the annoying junk.

The Hollywood PSAs I've seen in the past are so scripted and robotic that the participating celebrities come across like Stepford people.

Thanks Maddie, I'm the same way. Gray, why can't you imagine that some people don't want to hear from celebrities? They're not experts, so why am I to believe anything that comes out of their mouth regarding such a serious topic? They are the last people I want to hear from about Ebola of all things.

Oakley, celebrities have the 'gift' to convey thoughts/ideas/facts of the 'experts' better then many of the 'experts'.

And, the masses are more apt to watch and learn from someone they enjoy hearing then someone who may be the most knowledgable of a subject but can't speak well enough to hold the interest of the audience.

ML

Lets face it, the general public holds celebrities up on a pedestal and it's just good marketing strategy to use them to convey a message.

I would rather see a celebrity in a thoughtful PSA about Ebola Than an acne or reverse mortgage commercial.

The potential problem is when the general public confuses "celebrity" with "expertise". If they are conveying the opinions of experts, fine, if they are voicing their own ill-informed, biased opinions, maybe not so much. No one would take seriously the opinion of a member of the general public who maybe barely has a high school education about anything that requires some in-depth knowledge, yet people do this with celebrities all the time.

Oak, you are mixing content with delivery. The content of a PSA is written (hopefully) by experts. The delivery is by the actor. I would rather listen to James Earl Jones than Anthony Fauci.

Anyone remember Surgeon General C. Everett Koop? That man could command a room. In contrast, a later S.G., Joycelyn Elders, was ineffective in promoting sex education because she didn't communicate well.

The delivery of the message is no less important than the message itself.

Is it so much to expect people in leadership positions to have both knowledge about what they speak and the ability to speak it?

Annie, who are you referring to as being in a leadership position? I hope you don't mean the celebrities.

Gray, I understand why they're doing it, I just don't agree with having big ego'd celebrities *telling me* how to think. And that's exactly how it comes across.

I think we need a health care professional, someone like Dr. Oz who has a lot of fans do the PSA. His name just popped into my head.

Nancy Snyderman would have been good to use. :)

If you watched the 90 something second PSA, you would see that the celebrities in it were speaking facts.

And not in a way that makes you think that they are the people who came up with the data.

Edited to say: I just went back and watched the PSA again. When does anyone in it tell you (Oakley) what to think? When the celebrities say that people have survived? Is that telling you what to think? I really am interested in what is bothering you about the PSA?
ML

This post was edited by maddielee on Sat, Oct 18, 14 at 15:47

Using celebrities is one of the 7 types of 'propaganda' used to spread messages and advertising. It's been going on forever and it's very effective (the airport moving sidewalk aside!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Advertising methods

This post was edited by pesky1 on Sat, Oct 18, 14 at 15:55

"Is it so much to expect people in leadership positions to have both knowledge about what they speak and the ability to speak it?"

Yes, in certain fields it probably is. I don't think certain types of specialists or scientists need to be particularly dynamic or telegenic.

I personally wouldn't care if the discoverer of an important vaccine could string three words together or tie his or her own shoes. There are lots of people who are genius at a few particular tasks that are otherwise socially inept. Unfortunately that doesn't have a lot of value in our society and people who are less talented but more charismatic often get more attention.

We had a president for eight years that was not the most dynamic public speaker. Not making any kind of politcal statement with that remark, just stating the fact. The CDC head sounds like a complete robot, and sure, James Earl Jones would be more pleasing to my ears, but that doesn't make me tune him (CDC guy) out, if I am interested in what he has to say.

As for celebs, I enjoy the films they make but don't really pay much attention to what comes out of their mouths otherwise...and I've never bought a product that I can recall because it was pitched to me by a certain celeb, either. But, I guess people do and that's why they get paid to endorse or lend their voices to commercials, etc.

I'm now wondering if people think it's is a problem when celebrities do telethons for other organizations?

The PSA (?) in question is actually an awareness message hoping people will donate to the Ebola Survival Find. From the website:

"The Ebola Survival Fund will support a coalition of community-based organizations working in Liberia and Sierra Leone in order to complement the efforts of the larger-scale programs being implemented by international organizations. All programming funded by the Ebola Survival Fund will support existing national plans in both Liberia and Sierra Leone in coordination with the United Nations Ebola response effort in order to fill key gaps in communities in rural areas. The Ebola Survival Fund is grateful to UNICEF for its support.

The principles that guide the implementation of the organizations receiving support from the Ebola Survival Fund are:

) It is critical that we link the emergency response to Ebola to efforts to strengthen health systems.
) Ebola does not need to be a death sentence. The virus has not yet come into contact with modern medicine in West Africa. But when protocols for the provision of high quality âÂÂsupportive careâ are followed, the case fatality rate for Ebola may be lower than 20 percent.
) Ebola Treatment Units need to be linked to community-based care and community health workers need compensation.
) New tools are urgently needed for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Ebola.

ML

We still don't have a president who is a dynamic speaker.

This post was edited by funnygirl on Sat, Oct 18, 14 at 16:37

Here is a nice little article on the first nurse, Nina Pham. I sure hope she makes it and is reunited with her cute little pup.

They destroyed many of her personal belongings. Once again, if its's so tough to catch, why was that necessary? The virus can't be alive weeks later on dry surfaces, right?

Here is a link that might be useful: nurse

This post was edited by coll_123 on Sat, Oct 18, 14 at 16:42

I would think that after weeks her belongings wouldn't carry any of the virus. I think that part of the problem is we are told one thing but then actions of those in charge seem to belie certain statements. I'm not criticizing that her belongings were destroyed, I just wonder why it was necessary?

I think there are just too many unknowns so we need to use utmost precautions every step of the way. That's probably why belongings were destroyed.

I wonder how her dog is? I hope they take good care of him and that he doesn't develop the virus also.

It seems like Bentley the spaniel is being well taken care of

Here is a link that might be useful: Bentley in quarantine

Well Oakley, I and others have been saying the same thing, and we're not famous/actors. But yes, people are more inclined to listen to someone they feel they know, and that is one of the deceptions about fame.

I think we need a health care professional, someone like Dr. Oz who has a lot of fans do the PSA. His name just popped into my head.

After all the "miracle cures" he cites on his show, he is probably the last doctor I would trust.

And I'm sure that there are some actors with huge egos, but I don't believe that they deserve to be stereotyped that way. Especially since I don't personally know any. They are simply people, who with talent and/or hard work, have a job that puts them in the public eye. The skills that make them believable on screen make them good at communicating a message. As they say, "don't shoot the messenger"!

Pal,
Yes, in certain fields it probably is. I don't think certain types of specialists or scientists need to be particularly dynamic or telegenic.

I personally wouldn't care if the discoverer of an important vaccine could string three words together or tie his or her own shoes. There are lots of people who are genius at a few particular tasks that are otherwise socially inept.

I don't disagree at all that there may be people who are geniuses at what they do, but couldn't present their way out of a paper bag. And I agree that certainly business and other professions don't value these folks enough by creating specific career paths for them so they can succeed by doing what they do best. No argument there.

But, those folks are also not the ones who find themselves in leadership positions which require both that they know what they are talking about it and express it well. Mind you, a leader need not be the researcher on the front line isolating ebola antibodies....but s/he does need to have enough experience, enough mental capacity to capture concepts and information from the experts to speak intelligently about the topic. IMO, it is not too much to ask.

My fear is that the corrupting influence of money and other issues has so turned off people of integrity and capability to pursuing time in public office that we are left with mediocre talent, unable to educate, calm and lead the populace through the ebola challenge.

Oakley, I would think my comments make it clear that I am not talking about celebrities. Reminds me of the old ad line, "I am not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

"....but s/he does need to have enough experience, enough mental capacity to capture concepts and information from the experts to speak intelligently about the topic."

Unfortunately I think this is a rare combination in the pure sciences and other highly technical fields, partly because a lot of scientists and mathematicians, and other esoteric tech-types are not wired to be socially dynamic. (I can think of three brilliant (math, science, tech) people I know right off the bat: Asberger, out-and out Autism and bipolar disorder, and a woman who has severe speech problems that are not physical, they're psychological.) On top of this, in my profession the actual scientists are no longer coming from a population where English is their first language. The more technical the meeting the more likely you are going to be deciphering the English as well as the topic.

And people who are socially dynamic and charismatic would be bored out of their minds even being involved in work like that, for the most part. This isn't a politically-based crisis, it's a virus.

(And in reality, it's been a crises for some time but it wasn't even a blip on the American consciousness for the most part because it wasn't happening on our shores).

Thanks for clarifying Annie, I wasn't sure what you meant.

Dr. Oz was someone I just threw out there. I don't watch his show but I figured he has a lot of fans.

If the PSA helps, that's fine by me. But I'm at the age though where I'm tired of Hollywood being the mouth piece for everything.

Pal, I understand what you are saying, but we aren't talking about finding a cure for ebola...we are talking about finding a treatment for "ebola panic" if you will.

I'm sure there are brilliant minds who are doing the research and the hard work to find a cure or a treatment or a vaccine who will probably never appear on TV and their ability to speak to the masses is not essential. And why waste their time with being a spokesperson?

But there are people in the field of science who are smart, knowledgable and experienced who are also great communicators. Where are those people who can present a good case to the public and be willing to take the time and put up with the necessary repetition to get the message of the truth of this disease out there?

It would seem that the government has the microphone, the bully pulpit, but no one good enough to put behind it. I'm sure the universities and private sector have the people good enough, but they haven't got the microphone.

I'm looking for the Michio Kaku or the Neil deGrasse Tyson, not Albert Einstein, for the role of public spokesperson who can seriously and credibly deliver the facts in such a way that it will not only assuage the public but be worthwhile for even the rabid media to repeat to help get the message out.

As long as the various spokespeople are on point and are cohesive in the message,I don't care who delivers....

Let Dr Oz or Dr Phil give the PSA to their audiences
Justin Timberlake to MTV
Heck even Andy Cohan on Brovo if you will.
Messengers must connect with their particular audience.
Especially the younger audience who are not watching CNN or Frontline et al.
There would be many who would not care what a theoretical physicist or a astrophysics has to say.

The problem: There is little message to get out...WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

>WE JUST DON'T KNOW.

Hmm, well, I would say we know plenty.

We know that despite all the hysteria there has been nothing at all unusual about the ebola here. Not one of the people Mr. Duncan was in contact with before he was admitted to the hospital got ebola. They are all cleared.

We know the lab tech on the cruise ship didn't get ebola.

We know that so far nobody else has shown any signs of having gotten the disease in the US.

We know that so far everything that has happened has been just the way scientists said it would go, with only people in direct contact with the poor man at and just before his death getting the disease.

Please don't confuse all this monitoring and so on, which has been on such a grand scale largely to placate public hysteria, with not knowing how ebola is transmitted.

writersblock, that is true, but I will once again point out the cases of Nancy Writebol, Kent Brantley and the NBC cameraman. None of whom can explain how they did contract it. Dr Brantley is certain he didn't get it in the isolation unit, where the sick patients were. Nancy Writebol doesn't know, and I don't think was ever in direct contact with a someone showing symptoms of the disease, and the cameraman helped clean out a car of someone who had the disease- what, had it been very recently been vomited in? Do we know that?

I do not believe there is any cause for hysteria at all, here in this country, but don't agree that we know all the important things with 100 percent certainty, either.

Also, another confounding thing- I read today that the coast guard flew out the the cruise ship to pick up a sample of the health workers blood for testing. If the person wasn't even showing symptoms or having an elevated temperature why was that even necessary? One more example of mixed messages in the handling of this whole situation.

First of all, the technician requested to go into isolation and be tested. It wasn't ordered; it was what the techician wanted.

Nancy Writebol's job was helping people remove the protective gear for the doctors and nurses in the clinic in Africa and disinfecting it. She wasn't a desk worker or something else far away from all infection.

As others have pointed out here before, just because someone can't remember the particular instance when they did a thing is not the same as saying, "Why, I have no idea how this could have happened."

This is from an interview with nancy writebol:

Q: Any idea how you became infected?

N.W.: I donâÂÂt know how I became infected and how I contracted it. There are some thoughts about how I might have gotten it. Nobody is really sure, least of all me. I never felt like I was unsafe and I never felt like I walked into a situation where I was being exposed. I was on the low-risk side of things. I never was in the crisis or the Ebola center. I was always on the outside. I made sure doctors and nurses were dressed properly before they went in, and I decontaminated them before they went out. We kept a close check on each other about whether people felt safe.

We had an employee who was doing the same job that I was doing. He got sick and I didnâÂÂt know he was sick. He didnâÂÂt tell anybody. He actually thought he had typhoid. The day that I started having symptoms, at least a fever, was the last day I saw him. He did have Ebola. He did not survive.

I never remember touching him, although itâÂÂs possible he could have picked up a sprayer to decontaminate someone, and I could have picked up the sprayer. Or we touched the same thing. I never touched him.

Q: You were educated about Ebola transmission?

N.W.: Oh my goodness, yes.

Q: Did you have sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE)?

N.W.: Yes, we did. It was my responsibility to make sure they were dressed properly in PPEs before they ever went into the isolation. I didnâÂÂt want any of our doctors or nurses getting infected. I mean, I saw people dying of Ebola. We had PPEs and followed every single protocol that [Doctors Without Borders (MSF)] had in their manual��"and we had been trained by MSF.

Q: Were you wearing PPE in your job, disinfecting doctors and nurses?

N.W.: No, I was wearing gloves and a disposable apron. There were times I had a mask on. I was behind a line where I did the disinfecting. They were on one side of a line and I was on the other side. I never crossed those lines. We just donâÂÂt even have a clue what happened.

IâÂÂve often wondered if I was back there now, having been through the experience, what would I do differently. The only thing is I took temperatures of family members who would come to see patients. I never had to turn anybody away because they had a temperature, but itâÂÂs possible I might have come in contact with somebody on the outside who had Ebola and maybe shook a hand? Although we werenâÂÂt really shaking hands with anybody. Most people had a fear of even us. They felt like to be involved with Ebola, you had it.

I'm sorry, what was meant is that we just don't know what we don't know..
It seems that there are so many questions that people want answers to that can not be addressed.

There has never been a reported case of transmission from a dog-
yet a dog was "put-down".
Why was the Phams items destroyed if dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours ?
Why does hazmat clean-up crews have better protection suits then the nurses with the patients ?
Onus is on the nurses who contracted Ebola for "breach of protocol"..?. Really? Yet they can't report what the breach was ?
Maybe we have become more at ease after the what later was discovered to be an "over-reaction" to how AIDS was transmitted.

"Also, another confounding thing- I read today that the coast guard flew out the the cruise ship to pick up a sample of the health workers blood for testing. If the person wasn't even showing symptoms or having an elevated temperature why was that even necessary? One more example of mixed messages in the handling of this whole situation."

Because it was the passenger who said she wasn't having symptoms. If the blood test came back showing she did have ebola, more alerts would have had to been given to the passengers before they disembarked the ship. (if they had even been allowed to get off the boat.)

ML

If Ebola was so easily, or rather conclusively, identified with a blood test.....
Why would self or even mandatory isolation be necessary ?

I found the following on the Mayo Clinic site. It doesn't answer the quarantine question,

"Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers are difficult to diagnose because early signs and symptoms resemble those of other diseases, such as typhoid and malaria. If doctors suspect you have Ebola or Marburg viruses, they use blood tests to quickly identify the virus, including:

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors the United States for conditions such as Ebola infection, and its labs can test for the Ebola virus. Mayo Clinic does not test for the Ebola and Marburg viruses.

I understand using the blood test to confirm Ebola
But what the CDC did was test a non-symptomatic person.

None of whom can explain how they did contract it. Dr Brantley is certain he didn't get it in the isolation unit, where the sick patients were.

I don't understand what the big mystery is here. There is no way Brantley or anyone else would know the exact moment of contraction. How many times have you had a cold? Do you know who gave it to you? Maybe, maybe not. Do you know the exact moment the germ bugs entered your body? Of course not!

Here's the other thing: The public knows diddly squat about Ebola. That doesn't mean that it's some kind of new disease that the experts don't know much about. Ebola has been studied since the 70s. Scientists actually know quite a lot about how it works. Why all this conspiratorial rhetoric?

Questions = Conspiracy ???

Did I miss something ?

"I understand using the blood test to confirm Ebola
But what the CDC did was test a non-symptomatic person."

Because she (the lab tech) said she had no symptoms. Can we (and the CDC) trust what someone says? Especially when they are on a cruise ship, where nasty things seem to spread rapidly.

ML

"
I don't understand what the big mystery is here. There is no way Brantley or anyone else would know the exact moment of contraction. How many times have you had a cold? Do you know who gave it to you? Maybe, maybe not. Do you know the exact moment the germ bugs entered your body? Of course not!"

The difference is these healthcare workers were knowingly treating people with EBOLA..quite a bit more serious than the common cold. AND these are skilled workers who have all said they were very, very conscious of the risk the entire time and took all necessary precautions. They were not just casually going about their jobs and had an " oops " moment.

Forboystoo, I agree - asking questions does not equate " hysteria " or " conspiracy" in my mind.

If the projected numbers of cases in Africa does indeed skyrocket over the next months, we can certainly expect more cases to travel here. I think one projection was a million cases in africa by next year.

ETA- this was was reported on the CDC site last month:

By September 30, 2014, CDC estimates that there will be approximately 8,000 cases, or as high as 21,000 cases if corrections for underreporting are made.
Without additional interventions or changes in community behavior, CDC estimates that by January 20, 2015, there will be a total of approximately 550,000 Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone or 1.4 million if corrections for underreporting are made.
Cases in Liberia are currently doubling every 15-20 days, and those in Sierra Leone and Guinea are doubling every 30-40 days.
Halting the epidemic requires that approximately 70% of Ebola cases be cared for in Ebola Treatment Units or, if they are at capacity, at home or in a community setting in which there is a reduced risk of disease transmission and safe burials are provided.

This post was edited by coll_123 on Sun, Oct 19, 14 at 17:51

The difference is these healthcare workers were knowingly treating people with EBOLA..quite a bit more serious than the common cold. AND these are skilled workers who have all said they were very, very conscious of the risk the entire time and took all necessary precautions. They were not just casually going about their jobs and had an " oops " moment.

Ever add up a column of numbers and find you had the wrong total? It's not that you weren't being careful, and it's not that you weren't trying to get the right answer the first time....it IS that you are human and humans tend to be 4 sigma which means prone to error...6,210 errors per million opportunities. And the problem is that when you are in contact with patients with late stage ebola or their body emissions, it is highly contagious so a single slip may mean you get it...a slipped zipper, a loose mask, a pin hole in a glove, an unconscious nose rub or scratch... You may be following protocol to the best of your ability, but your ability is that of a human.

Keep in mind that this is not the first ebola outbreak, and that prior outbreaks have been contained and halted using the protocols in place. It will work this time too.

I don't listen to stars promoting anything. One of the good things about remote control.

Maddielee~
Then why not blood test everyone ?
Did they blood test Nancy S and her crew when they went to a restaurant ?
Ebola can not be detected in a persons blood with NO symptoms .
Taking the temps at gateways seems to be OK for the average traveler.

It's sad that it took Duncan coming to America ,and yes to die,to open up channels.

I see so many correlation with HIV.

It will be contained, eventually, but the past outbreaks were not at unprecedented levels. Prior outbreaks had cases in the dozens or at most, hundreds. As I mentioned above the CDC has stated this one has potential to reach 1 million+ by January 2015. 1.4 million vs a few hundred from previous outbreaks. That isn't cause for concern? I have to imagine its easier to contain a few hundred cases than tens of thousands. I hope the CDC is very wrong about those figures.

Again, being careful adding up numbers in a column, risking getting a cold by not washing your hands after going to the mall...its apples to oranges IMO. This is a virus that has a high likelihood of causing death- quickly, and horribly, if you contract it, no matter how healthy you are going in. The healthworkers bravely signing on to treat people in Africa, and even in the Dallas case, know this full well....and *they* believe they were careful enough to not get sick in the process of doing their jobs. But somehow, they did.

I am guessing they are monitoring Nancy Snyderman - you do know she never went into a restaurant don't you?

The difference is that the lab tech is someone on a cruise ship who is known to have been exposed to the blood of an ebola death victim. Cruise ship. death victim.

Nancy Snyderman is a doctor, who we only know was in a crew of people, one who is sick.

CRUISE SHIP/ DEAD PERSON equals the media telling us that her blood was tested before the boat docked.

ML

coll-123, the 1.4 million is the highest estimate of the worst case scenario. The lowest of the worst case scenario is 500,000 or about 1/3 of the above. The lowest estimate in the best case scenario is 11,000, and the highest estimate of the best case is 27,000. The reality is most likely going to be somewhere in between, but could reasonably be expected to be far below 1.4 million. So while an outlier estimate may serve a purpose for planning functions, it is not an outcome with high expectations or confidence.

How about some good news....43 people exposed to Duncan are disease free including his fiancee. The CDC has changed protocols to now ensure no hair or skin exposure at all. There have been no new cases reported in the US in the last 5 days.

Hopefully the ebola panic has started to ebb too. It is ridiculous.

An elementary school teacher in Maine was put on 21 days' leave - the incubation period for Ebola -- because she went to Dallas for an education conference. While there, she stayed at a hotel about 10 miles from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where a patient died of the disease.

What's really rich is CNN has a piece on ebola panic...yes the same folks who helped feed it in the first place.

If you look at the early numbers of what the predictions of new cases of AIDS were going to be, they were predicting millions of Americans would have AIDS at the turn of the twenty-first century. This is because all identified HIV+ patients at that time developed AIDS and the numbers of new cases were exploding. They didn't understand the disease yet. It's hard to predict numbers when there is an explosive outbreak. It's not likely to continue on such a rapid course, but one doesn't know for sure. Of course Ebola isn't a newly recognized disease like HIB was but the same principles will probably still apply.

(HIV is not as new as people think it is though, They tested some archived blood and tissue samples of people who died of immune failure and Kaposi's and there were apparently individual isolated cases back into the sixties.)

I saw the story about the Maine teacher today on the news-amazing! Evidently, "some parents had concerns".

"What's really rich is CNN has a piece on ebola panic...yes the same folks who helped feed it in the first place."

CNN has become THE go to network for "disaster porn". Remember the missing Malaysian flight? Now, every 15 minutes they throw up big bold letters that say BREAKING NEWS, accompanied by some dramatic music. Only, it's rarely any kind of bombshell about anything, though I fall for it every time. I watch a lot of CNN because I can't stand the extreme political biased "news" on FOX or MSNBC...they cancel each other out for me.

More good news- Nina Pham's condition has been upgraded.