*new* 10Oct14 Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers or MSF in French)
blog entry about being unable to do more for a patient dying of Ebola
http://blogs.msf.org/en/staff/blogs/msf-ebola-blog/we-cannot-do-anything-for-her
In This Year Of Ebola, A Montana YMCA Is Its Brother's Keeper : Goats and Soda : NPR
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/09/24/350582517/in-this-year-of-ebola-a-montana-ymca-is-its-brothers-keeper
"Ebola, Emergency Medicine and Global Bioethics"
UC Center for Clinical and Translational Science & Technology
I am going to participate on a panel discussion at the University of Cincinnati, East (Medical) Campus. You are all invited to attend. "Ebola, Emergency Medicine and Global Bioethics" will convene on Monday October 13, 2014 from 2 to 4pm, on East Campus, Building S1.203&204. The confirmed panelists are (in alphabetic order):
- Bob Frenck ( Ebola and Vaccine Development)
- Mike Linke (International Regulatory Issues)
- Jason McMullan (Emergency Medicine)
- Monica Mitchell (Community Issues and Clinical Psychological Issues)
- Catherine Sherron (Thomas More - Ethical and Philosophical Issues)
- George Smulian (Infectious Disease and Epidemiological Issues)
Each Panelist will make a 10mn presentation, and then we will open it to the audience for Q&A.
Would you like to help me think about my part of the presentation? I will post some basic resources here for you to read and post questions. Please post other articles as you find them.
BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29264550
WHO
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
al-Jazeera
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/ebola-health-workersevacuationwestafricaspublichealth.html
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/commentisfree+society/ebola
As I looked through these articles, the thing that jumped out at me the most (ethics-wise, not statistically or biologically, although I was shocked to learn that the mortality rate is over 50%) was the post on The Guardian "Why are western health workers with Ebola flown out, but locals left to die?" This does seem like a very controversial thing that I had thought of when I kept hearing all of the news about the few American doctors that they have been following since their return to the United States and their recovery process. There are hundreds of people and health care workers dying in Africa and it seems like as one of the most powerful nations on the planet we should be able to do more to help control this, I know we certainly would if it was here in the United States! While this is a little different because it is not our country, it does still seem like we have a moral responsibility to do something about it since we have far more resources than most of the nations in Africa, and so far what the United States has done doesn't seem to be enough.
ReplyDeleteMaybe one thing you could address is some of the ethical and moral questions this outbreak has raised, specifically our government's response and how responsible we are for this, as it could eventually spread to other nations including ours if left unchecked for too long and if it continues to spread as rapidly as it has thus far.
The first case of ebola has now been reported in the use. CDC is holding a press conference at 530 pm today.
ReplyDeleteThis article was first published on August 28, but was reproduced this afternoon. The article makes an emphasis on the fact that a strong global health infrastructure is essential to preventing the spread of horrible diseases such as Ebola. The faster and more effectively we target a disease, the quicker it can be eradicated.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20141009-patient-zero-believed-to-be-sole-source-of-ebola-outbreak.ece