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In recent months the media has been overrun with messages about the ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, and Dr. Anthony G. Beck has announced his opinion on the matter; the worst symptom of this disease is fear. At least this is what Dr. Beck says for the rest of the world, as he expresses that the worst damage is created through ignorance. Continue reading
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Nov 17, 2014 /prREACH/ -- Dr. Anthony G. Beck has announced his opinion on the ebola virus outbreak in West Africa in a recent post on Be Well Buzz where he suggests that the worst symptom that this disease presents to those outside of the African continent is fear. While the virus itself, is quite horrific, Dr. Beck has explained that the panic that it is causing across the globe is unwarranted. He says:
"To tell you the truth, it's not an Ebola epidemic. It's worse.... It's an epidemic of fear and misdirection! And this epidemic is caused by the belief that, in the case of Ebola, it's the virus that has the most potential for wide spread damage."
Although ebola symptoms are cause for worry, the disease itself is not, or so says Dr. Beck. He has made it clear that the chance of this disease being passed along is actually far less of a threat than that of the flu or even the measles. The reproductive number of an infectious virus or disease is read by the scientific community as R, with a virus of low to no reproduction being R naught. Dr. Beck states in his latest post that while the reproductive number for influenza which is passed through air and droplets is 1-3 and measles carries a number of a whopping 12-18, ebola's number is actually quite a lot lower at only R 1-2.
This leads the population to the real question that they should be asking, and Dr. Beck believes that question should be: what is ebola? Ebola or EBOV is a single strain of RNA causing symptoms such as hemorrhagic fever and the destruction of blood vessels, among other terrible problems. The disease was first discovered in the 1970's and has actually always been quite contained in a few areas within the continent of Africa. Dr. Beck has made it clear that he feels that the media is trying to create fear and panic in the North American population and within other global communities to keep their ratings high. Dr. Beck expresses this view:
"There is no need for panic or fear, much less a conflated idea that we somehow have to get the US government and military to rush in and save us all. No one in US general population has ever been infected, not one."
The virus is not spread the way that the cold, flu or measles travels, but must be made through physical contact with an infected person through the mouth, an open cut, or exchange of bodily fluids.
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