Ebola! Ebola! Ebola! It’s everywhere! Except that it’s not. The inflammatory, wide-eyed news-ish coverage of it is everywhere, but in the US there have only been 8 cases and 1 fatality. Yes, you have the same chance of dying of Ebola as you do of dying from an exploding lava lamp. But buried in the hoopla (and actual useful information) is a good question… is our healthcare system prepared to deal with something like Ebola?
As Yves Smith points out in one of the articles below, an Ebola vaccine would sure come in handy about now, if not in the US then certainly in Africa. But we don’t have one. The problem isn’t scientific; it’s economic. Ebola has been known for years, but there hasn’t been enough profit in it for the pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine. When the first and only Ebola fatality first presented himself for treatment he spent 5 hours in an emergency room, potentially exposing everyone there, before being sent back out into the public with a 103° fever. The reasons for his release are still unclear, but a good guess might be that he didn’t have insurance.
Ebola has pointed out one of the basic assumptions about a healthcare system, one that our profit-driven system has ignored… healthcare isn’t just for the person who’s sick, it protects us all. Or it would, if we could get care to everyone who needs it. So this month’s Health Notes isn’t about your health, but the question of whether our healthcare delivery system is strong enough to cope with Ebola… or other new diseases we don’t even know about yet.
Can Our Commercialized Health Care System Contain Ebola?
Yves Smith on Naked Capitalism, October, 2014
How the U.S. Healthcare System Would Handle Ebola
Olga Khazan in The Atlantic, August, 2014
Want all the Ebola facts? This primer from CNN has a little bit of everything, with minimal panic.
If Ebola Batters Us, We Are Not Ready
Jeff Donn and Garance Burke, Associated Press, October 2014
Will There Be an Ebola Outbreak in America?
Dr. Mercola, Mercola.com- Includes info on Ebola, how it works, criticism of the CDC and government responses, and the little-known possibilities of ozone therapy. All from a natural-health perspective.
