Along with the onslaught of news stories about Ebola have come the inevitable conspiracy theories, some half-baked and nonsensical and others thoroughly researched—laid out to reel in even reasonable folks.
In one corner of the Internet, we learn that President Obama created the Ebola virus—or Obama-Ebola—to “infect the DNA of Christians and to destroy Jesus so that a New Age of Liberal Darkness can rise in America.” Obamacare, we are told, is the cover organization to find the cure, and the virus will infect all Americans in the next month.
In another corner, we learn that Ebola doesn’t actually exist at all. The disease currently raging through West Africa was brought there by the Red Cross, who injected people with an illness so that American troops could be sent to steal Nigeria’s oil and Sierra Leone’s diamonds. Another explanation is simple: All the negativity and selfishness in the universe caused Ebola. Yet another tells us that two women who died from Ebola have risen from the dead and that the zombie apocalypse is beginning (nope, not true).
It would be impossible to catalogue every single crazy idea flitting about the Internet, but they do have something in common: They’re all attempts to regain control of a situation in which people feel helpless, as the research of cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky reveals. With no vaccine or cure for Ebola, the disease’s high death rate and uncertainty about whether or when they might encounter someone in the early symptomatic stages of the illness, people construct narratives that makes them feel better, as Maggie Koerth-Baker explains in the New York Times.
Although the ideas sound crazy, the people perpetuating them don’t have to be. “Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity for developing narratives,” Koerth-Baker writes, because we all have an amygdala, a part of the brain that compels us to constantly reassess “information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now.”
And with Ebola stories permeating the news right now, there’s a lot of information to reassess. Here’s just a handful of the crazy theories likely making it into your social media streams or being passed along in the bleachers at your kid’s soccer game.
The Ebola outbreak in west Africa has the internet conspiracy wingnuts going wild. Just say NO to this insanity. My favorite is the Zombie Apocalypse theory. Should a disease be political? No, probably not but this one already is. I suppose it can’t be helped.
I struggle to accept that sane people believe this kind of crap though. It’s a virus. Period. Meanwhile, I am not planning on reading The Stand any time soon. That novel scared the daylights out of me 30 years ago, without an epidemic looming on the horizon.
What crazy theories have you heard or read about?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Some unconscious juxtaposition with the title and the picture?
Two people have contracted ebola in the US – most likely from poor (most likely) or unfollowed procedures to protect themselves. The news hysteria is mostly just that – a 24 hour news cycle – ‘Breaking News’ ‘This Just In’ ‘Tune in at 10’, etc – Think back to MH 17 – 24hr for weeks because a plane was missing – we still do not know where it went. And it feeds into the fear mongerers back pockets – and gets many non knowledgeable people into a tizz. Remember the Duct Tape Alert – and we were going to run out.
Dispelling the hysteria and having a reasoned approach is in everyone’s best interest. Did we ban flights due to the polio outbreak in the Middle East last year? Or SARS in Asia? Do we need to be cautious – YES, but we also have to deal with the fact that there has only been 1 confirmed case of a person coming into the US with ebola and only two people who had direct contact with the patient. Even his fiancé and son has not contracted ebola.
@Pat.Herve
Whatever happened to all the coverage of the real danger…the entero virus? It suddenly became non-news after the a)the ebola outbreak and b) demands to know how it got here and how it spread so rapidly.
Bryan Fischer Says Shepard Smith Debunked Ebola Fears Because He’s A Gay Liberal
On his Fox News program yesterday, Shepard Smith blasted “the hysterical voices on the radio and the television” that are irresponsibly hyping fears of Ebola and causing panic.
Why would Smith do this? According to the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, it is because Smith is a gay “card-carrying liberal” who is seeking to provide cover for President Obama because Obama “supports the homosexual agenda.”
“Shepard Smith is a card-carrying liberal,” Fischer explained. “He has been outed as an active homosexual, so he’s down with the entire homosexual agenda. People think he’s on Fox so he’s conservative. Anything but.”
“Why would he want to support President Obama?” Fischer asked, before playing Smith’s segment on the Ebola panic. “Because President Obama supports the homosexual agenda”:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bryan-fischer-says-shepard-smith-debunked-ebola-fears-because-hes-gay-liberal
Sickening and disgusting
American Family association apparently is anything but pro- family with that kind of talk.
@Cargosquid
yeah, cargo – somehow the children coming across the border had the entero-virus in them – and somehow, the Latin American countries were able to get all these kids out of their own country before there was a local outbreak. Right. I guess that is how they handle their own outbreak – ship the kids out.
@Pat.Herve
Actually, they do have outbreaks down in Central America.
But then…. I didn’t mention that. I merely stated that questions were being asked about where it came from and how it spread so freaking quickly. I’m not saying where it came from. I’m asking why the CDC hasn’t commented on how it is spreading nationally, all at once.
@Cargosquid
The CDC has talked about it.
Please reference your source on the Central America outbreak. Of course you did not mention it, you simply imply it by leaving off the facts.
@Starryflights
I happened to tune in to Smith when he made his statement.
Was amazed to hear such strong words on FOX –
but not from Shepars Smith, because he is different from the others at FOX.
My favorite wingnut theroy is the virus scare is being pushed to keep people away from the polls on November 4th. This one just cracks me up!
Good one, Ray!
This Ebola outbreak should be handled by adopting risk mitigation strategies. While the risk of an outbreak in the US is probably low, the potential consequences could be devastating. Given that the virus appears to be mutating rapidly and that there are questions regarding just how these health workers got the disease, wouldn’t it be better to be safe rather than sorry? Airline travel is probably the single most effective way to transmit a disease on a world-wide basis.
Ebola prevention should be treated as a security posture in that the US should adopt layers of defenses. The first such layer would be a temporary ban on commercial flights between the U.S. and countries with a significant outbreak. A second layer would be to do a check/possible quarantine of identified high-risk people with passports from those countries coming on other flights. A third layer would be to identify travelers from the U.S. and elsewhere who have been to those countries in the last 60 days.
This would go a long way toward calming people’s fears, plus it takes prudent steps to reduce the chances of an epidemic in this country.
As long as there is a protocol for Americans to return, it sounds like a plan.
There are just too many unknowns with this disease.
I find the concept of pandemic to be horribly frightening. Let’s face it…my rational mind tells me that my chances of getting it are fairly slim. However, I do have a plan if there should be a national outbreak. There is a little extra food in the house. No one goes out and no one is allowed in. If someone here leaves, they aren’t allowed back. Pretty much how families survived the Plague 500 or so years ago.
My rational mind is kicking back in and telling me that this Stand-like situation would never get that far….
Bob Shieffer, as always, had a very good hour today. Worth listening to, if you can.
It’s funny that I keep seeing two different narratives coming from the left-leaning end of the spectrum, and they seem to be either that a) we would have a vaccine for that terrible Ebola if the Republicans hadn’t cut funding for it, so an outbreak would be all their fault, or b) that Ebola is nothing to worry about and anyone who thinks otherwise is just irrational and fearful, with a freakishly large amygdala that is typical of conservatives.
I can’t seem to reconcile these two.
I don’t think anyone here has said there is nothing to worry about. Perhaps I haven’t read carefully.
Emma,
I do not think anyone feels that ebola is nothing to worry about – But I do feel that it is being blown out of proportion by some media outlets and some people for political gain. For instance – those yelling to ban all the flights – but the fact is that there are very few (2 or 3 a day) direct flights from Africa to the US. Also, there has been only 1 confirmed case of a person coming from Africa with the disease – and he was not on a direct flight. So, putting the fear into perspective, Yes, it is something the US needs to prepare for, but we do not need to be closing schools, keeping kids home and locking our doors yet.
Also, Thomas Duncan’s fiancé and son – who were living with him while he was here in the US (and being misdiagnosed) have tested negative for ebola – proving once again, that it is a hard thing to catch.
I would love to know if his health insurance status (none) had anything to do with the care, or lack of it, that he received when he first went to the hospital. The care he eventually received will reach nearly a $1Million cost to the hospital. A very costly visit.
“Yes, it is something the US needs to prepare for, but we do not need to be closing schools, keeping kids home and locking our doors yet”
As a public-health nurse, I’m pretty sure I haven’t advocated any such thing on these pages.
You have not advocated that, Emma.
@Emma
agreed, You have not. But here is a faction of people out there that are encouraging it and instilling unnecessary fear in many people.
You cannot catch it through the air, they say. You cannot catch it from an Ebola victim unless that victim is presenting certain visible symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. If you have been in contact with an Ebola victim and do not present with the virus after 21 days, you are in the clear. If a health professional follows all the “protocols” correctly, they will not be contaminated. O.K. Thus sayeth our experts and authorities.
But I would add one other thing: Never be so brazen as to think that you have most certainly scoped out Mother Africa and can beat her. She can be formidable and unkind to both the overconfident and the naive. There is an adage which has been uttered by many disappointed foreigners in Africa for a long time now. That adage is WAWA: West Africa Wins Again.
Don’t panic. But don’t drop your guard.
Are you talking voodoo?
Please expound on your message.
Simple. No matter how much you plan or scheme to try to accomplish something, the chances are still very likely that Mother Africa will give you a slap upside the head and somehow frustrate your efforts. Often you cannot even understand what happened. You just throw up your hands, say WAWA, and go to Plan B or Plan C or Plan D etc., etc., etc.
Is it the environment, the people, culture or what?
Best to fight the disease in W Africa than have to fight it here – just as Bush and the neocons fought terrorism.
I think that 21 day window for symptoms is changing already- it may be extended.
I’m also hearing that regarding “airborne” transmission, it’s not as cut-and-dried as I had thought. Droplets carrying the disease MAY be transmitted through the air under certain conditions. Of course, one would need to be in close proximity to the infected person to be infected this way, since presumably once the droplets dried out they wouldn’t be problematic.
So you are saying sneezing could transmit the disease?
@middleman
Exactly, the author of the Hot Spot about Ebola made that point today – that when they say its not airborn what they mean is it does not travel like a dry pollen seed on the wind – they are NOT saying that it will not transmit by a sneeze.
@middleman
can you cite your source please?
Pat, if you mean the source for my “airborne” transmission comment (and I use quotes because this isn’t really what is normally considered airborne), here’s one: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola
If it was my 21 day comment, here’s one article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798389/is-21-days-isolation-new-study-suggests-ebola-patients-contagious-three-week-quarantine.html
@middleman
ok, so One Doctor (with a PHD in Environmental Engineering) says that the incubation period may be longer than 21 weeks –
@Pat.Herve
my bad – 21 days, not weeks.
This study from 2011 indicates that the number may be closer to 25 days: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766904/
I think the point is that we still don’t know as much about Ebola as we’d like to. We’ve concentrated more on battling weaponized virus’s and not so much on outbreaks where it just keeps on coming.
@middleman
thanks for that link.
The Post yesterday put up an informative chart suggesting that the incubation period, when one looks at the exposure of the two nurses to the first patient in Dallas, may be longer than 21 days. RE airborne transmission, what I’m reading is that you could certainly contract the disease from aerosolized bodily fluids released in a sneeze. However, the maximum range of particles in a good strong sneeze is about a metre, after which any virus falls to the ground, dries out and dies. So the “airborne” nuance is really a variation of having to contract the virus from contact with bodily fluids.
It certainly appears that the knowledge on this disease is in flux (as viri themselves generally are) and that one has to allow some degree of cushions on acting on that knowledge. However, it is beyond sheer nuttiness (of a sort that seems to surround us all the time in the political world) for politicians to be suddenly constructing their own epidemiological theories in order to get in front of cameras. If we have any faith in the science and medical establishments in this country, those guys should have the whip hand in policy formulation. The smart pols and good leaders will keep an eye on this, but have a big ears, small mouths approach.
I like that conclusion–big ears and small mouths.
The politicians giving their medical opinions really is fairly ridiculous.
I didn’t realize plural virus (the individuals) was viri. Great word.
The ones trying to minimize the risks are equally foolish.
@Moon-howler
What is even more funnier is all the experts that are coming out regarding ebola – how to handle it, how contagious it is, etc – yet if you ask them about climate change – all of a sudden, they are not scientists so they have no opinion.
Ebola is because of climate change. That’s one that I thought would be out there already. Didn’t think I’d have to make it up.
@Ed Myers
http://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-ebola-outbreak-globalization-infectious-disease-264163
Here ya go…..
Have you noticed that only one of the dozen or so people in our health care system that have Ebola have died? Several are cured. Pham seems likely to beat the disease too given that she isn’t dead yet. Most seem to be getting a plasma transfusion from those missionaries who beat the disease. Maybe they have made a small batch of Zmapp. The good news is that we don’t have near the mortality rate of West Africa. The more survivors the more health care workers we have that are immune and can treat Ebola patients with less fear of a “protocol” mistake.
Those who opposed allowing flights from Africa and the missionary flight in particular might want to re-evaluate their position. It seems that allowing our federal medical research community a chance to get a close look at the disease might have been better than a Katie bar the door mentality.
Then again I may be disillusionally optimistic.