Who remembers the movie Outbreak?

[Beaverhausen]

36. Yes, it was. And Ebola is nothing like the virus in that book

Last edited Mon Oct 13, 2014, 12:03 AM - Edit history (1)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/10/cnn-turns-to-outbreak-fiction-writer-for-ebola/201113

CNN Tonight turned to ophthalmologist and fiction writer Dr. Robin Cook to hype unsubstantiated fears about the transmission of the Ebola Virus and the CDC's grasp on the situation.

Presenting Cook as "The Man Who Wrote The Book On Ebola," host Don Lemon called Cook's 1987 fiction thriller Outbreak, which details an Ebola outbreak in the U.S.," prophetic." Lemon allowed Cook to speculate that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot adequately protect Americans from Ebola, and that despite the CDC's assertions to the contrary, the virus may live in the air or mutate into a form that can spread as an aerosol.

Cook's theories on the transmission of Ebola are out of step with nearly every expert from international health agencies and the CDC. As Vox reported, "basically every health agency in the world agrees" that Ebola cannot be transmitted through the air. The CDC definitively says: "Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, by food."

Medical experts further agree that it's highly unlikely Ebola could mutate into a form that alters its mode of transmission. That type of mutation would be unprecedented according to Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello, who wrote: "We have been studying viruses for over 100 years, and we've never seen a human virus change the way it is transmitted," and that "There is no reason to believe that Ebola virus is any different from any of the viruses that infect humans and have not changed the way that they are spread."