Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Fourth Amendment;
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/264

(a) Promulgation and enforcement by Surgeon General
The Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession. For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the Surgeon General may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.
(b) Apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals
Regulations prescribed under this section shall not provide for the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals except for the purpose of preventing the introduction, transmission, or spread of such communicable diseases as may be specified from time to time in Executive orders of the President upon the recommendation of the Secretary, in consultation with the Surgeon General, [1] .
(c) Application of regulations to persons entering from foreign countries
Except as provided in subsection (d) of this section, regulations prescribed under this section, insofar as they provide for the apprehension, detention, examination, or conditional release of individuals, shall be applicable only to individuals coming into a State or possession from a foreign country or a possession.
(d) Apprehension and examination of persons reasonably believed to be infected
(1) Regulations prescribed under this section may provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage and
(A) to be moving or about to move from a State to another State; or
(B) to be a probable source of infection to individuals who, while infected with such disease in a qualifying stage, will be moving from a State to another State. Such regulations may provide that if upon examination any such individual is found to be infected, he may be detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary. For purposes of this subsection, the term “State” includes, in addition to the several States, only the District of Columbia.
(2) For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualifying stage”, with respect to a communicable disease, means that such disease—
(A) is in a communicable stage; or
(B) is in a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals.

Looks like the law is compatible with the 4th, and may also apply to those who are not yet contagious

Your analogy is still false. And you avoided my questions; So in your opinion when may civil rights be curtailed? Are there any circumstances in which you would approve?

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Does this mean none of us can discuss Obama's policies? I mean, he's a Nobel Prize winner.

 d-usa wrote:
The important thing is that we are all in agreement that if Obama says that guns can just start shooting people and start wars he knows what he is talking about since he got a Nobel.

And when Obama makes a guess that he can start to quarantine gun owners because even though they are not felons yet they might kill people in the future so it's constitutional to lock them up for the public safety out of an abundance of caution. And it would be "cute" of us to disagree with him because our credentials are not as good as a Harvard educated lawyer and professor of constitutional law and seasoned legislator.

 whembly wrote:
"I have a joke about E-bola"

Oh yea? What's that?

"You won't get it."

Slate wrote:

Spoiler:

Dangerous Rhetoric

Thomas Eric Duncan was the first person to die of Ebola in America; Craig Spencer is the first case of Ebola in New York City. With only a handful of cases in the United States, attention is rightly being paid to the measures being taken to prevent further spread of the deadly disease. But as we take all appropriate physical precautions, we should not forget that there is a different kind of danger. It lies in the way that we talk about Ebola and, most importantly, its victims. And there is a stark and troubling contrast in the way that people talked about Duncan and the way that they are talking about Spencer.

By all accounts, Duncan acquired Ebola by performing an act of nobility and grace: He assisted a pregnant woman who was badly ill. He said from the start that he did not think she had Ebola but that she was simply suffering from pregnancy complications. And so he therefore said on his health screening form upon departing Liberia for America that he had had no contact with anyone with the disease. Now, after his death, it is generally accepted that he was telling the truth as he understood it. But when he was first identified, the situation was very different.

On Oct. 2, the Liberian government announced that it might seek to prosecute him upon his return to Liberia “if it is determined that he made a false declaration.” The ambiguity of that “if” was immediately eviscerated by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, who proclaimed, “The fact that he knew and he left the country is unpardonable. … [He] put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk.” Headlines blared that “Ebola Patient in Dallas Lied on Screening Form,” with the qualification “Liberian Airport Official Says” relegated to an afterthought.

Once this accusation spread, the public, particularly in Dallas, began calling for action—and in fact began literally calling the office of the Dallas district attorney, as if reporting a crime rather than repeating a false allegation leveled against a dying man. The DA’s office subsequently announced, again in a story that hit virtually every major media outlet, that it was contemplating charging Duncan with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, for having “exposed the public to a deadly virus knowingly which would be criminal intent.” Concern had morphed into suspicion, then accusation, then prosecution, and finally conviction in the court of public opinion. Duncan had gone from being the victim of a deadly disease to being the wielder of a deadly weapon.

Even some of the seemingly boilerplate language used to describe Duncan was fraught with accusatory rhetoric. He was the man who, we read everywhere, “brought Ebola to America.” There is an insinuation of intentionality, one that is embedded in the very grammar of the phrase. And his identity was thereby changed from a man who suffers from a disease to the potential infector of an entire nation. As his role as “patient zero” was overstated, his role as individual sufferer was undervalued.

The phenomenon of seeing those infected with Ebola as carriers rather than as sufferers can result in some regrettable choices of words, with even worse conceptual connotations. On NPR, Rice University professor Bob Stein casually said that “our borders are being besieged with people who may have diseases like Ebola.” Worse, the Washington Post ran an op-ed after Duncan’s diagnosis declaring that “airports should be screening for Ebola the same way they screen for terrorists.” But there is a categorical distinction between those two entities. Terrorists are people, with intentions; Ebola is not. The person with the disease loses his definition as a human being while at the same time the disease is personified, endowed with a destructive will. The result is that the patient and the disease become essentially conflated.

The low point in insensitivity (we can only hope) was reached in a series of tweets by former South Carolina GOP executive director Todd Kincannon. He responded to an Associated Press story about Duncan by saying that “people with Ebola in the US need to be humanely put down immediately.” He cast Ebola victims as animals; they are not euthanized, they are “put down.” They may in fact be of even lower status than that: A crowdfunding site set up to help pay Duncan’s hospital bills raised only $50 in its first five days. On the same site, pets needing surgery regularly raise thousands of dollars.

While the language used about and toward Duncan was abhorrent, the contrast with the stories about Craig Spencer is striking. Virtually every headline is sure to refer to Spencer as “NYC Physician” or “New York Doctor.” USA Today ran a story proclaiming “N.Y. Doctor With Ebola ‘a Dedicated Humanitarian.’ ” Every article about him is quick to mention that he was in Guinea working with Doctors Without Borders.

No headlines accuse Spencer of “bringing” Ebola to New York City. There are no insinuations that he should not have entered the country when or how he did. (The strongest condemnation of Spencer may be a piece in the New Republic with the subtitle “Why Don’t Americans Just Stay Home When They’re Sick?”—which is ignorant and insensitive but not quite at the level of charging him with assault.) He is not depicted as a terrorist besieging our borders. No one has suggested that he should be put down.

There may be a number of ways to explain the difference in the rhetoric used for Duncan and Spencer. Duncan was the first person to be diagnosed in America—perhaps panic in the face of the novelty accounts for the strong language, which has since diminished as we have become accustomed to the idea of the disease in this country. Perhaps there was some sort of subconscious national realization that the way Duncan was talked about was simply inappropriate, such that we would not repeat those mistakes again with the next Ebola patient. Perhaps.

It is, however, hard not to think that Duncan and Spencer were talked about differently because of the ways in which they are different. The unemployed foreign black man was rhetorically positioned as a criminal, a terrorist, an animal. The wealthy, white American doctor is a humanitarian hero.
n Duncan’s last days, Jesse Jackson went to Dallas to check on Duncan’s medical care. There was a brief period when it was insinuated that Duncan may have received less than the best care possible, with race being a potential factor. But the relative merits of Duncan’s medical treatment are no longer in question. His rhetorical treatment, on the other hand, was undeniably less than satisfactory. And when it is held up against that of Spencer, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Duncan was treated differently because of who he was.

Historically, the dehumanization of people with illness has been used to legitimize any number of atrocities against vulnerable groups. The accusation that minority communities spread disease has been a staple of both anti-Semitic and homophobic discourse, from the Black Plague to the AIDS crisis. By recasting Ebola victims as Ebola collaborators, we provide a justification for neglecting, and even rejecting, the most vulnerable members of our community.

If we talk about those who suffer from Ebola differently depending on factors beyond their control—be they race, socio-economic status, or nationality—we create a hierarchy in which some lives are valued more highly than others. In the lopsided rhetoric about Ebola patients, we risk losing our humanity.

(CNN) -- As the world reels from its worst Ebola outbreak, the nation hardest hit is declaring a shortage of body bags, which are crucial to preventing the spread of the deadly virus.

Liberia, one of three countries most affected by the outbreak, said it has 4,900 body bags nationwide.

It needs 85,000 more in the next six months, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

A grim inventory of supplies shows body bags were not the only items lacking. Liberia is also experiencing a shortage of other supplies needed to fight the virus, including protective suits, face masks, gloves and goggles.

Liberia said it needs 2.4 million boxes of gloves in the next six months, but it has only 18,000 boxes. Each box has 100 pairs.

It also needs about 1.2 million hooded overalls within the same time frame, but it has only 165,000.

The numbers are the latest setback in Liberia's fight against Ebola, which has killed at least 2,458 people in the nation. This week, health workers in the nation went on strike to demand higher pay, leaving some clinics unattended.

Since the outbreak started in March, about 9,000 Ebola cases and 4,493 deaths have been reported, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. More than half of the deaths have been in Liberia.

And the numbers are expected to skyrocket.

There could be up to 10,000 new Ebola cases per week in the three hardest-hit nations by the end of the year, the World Health Organization said. It warned that things will get worse before they get better.

Liberia has some supplies arriving in the next week, but it says they are still insufficient. Items scheduled to arrive don't include body bags.

In addition to the three nations, a handful of Ebola cases have also been reported in Senegal, Nigeria, Spain and the United States

A six-month forecast of items Liberia predicts it will need to help fight Ebola.

Boxes of gloves
Available: 18,000
Needed: 2.4 million

Hooded overalls
Available: 165,000
Needed: 1.2 million

Face masks
Available: 309,000
Needed: 1.7 million

Goggles
Available: 57,000
Needed: 567,000

Rubber boots
Available: 2,200
Needed: 176,000

Mattresses
Available: 2,000
Needed: 5,000

Hand sprayers
Available: 420
Needed: 210,000

 Alpharius wrote:
What's the latest on the 'outbreak' in the USA?

Have there been any new cases yet?

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
Yep, we're already running drills and having mock patients present in our clinic/hospital.

We had one today, a real patient, that called and wanted to be screened for Ebola because they were recently on a cruise (Not that cruise) and it went to Mexico...and they heard that Ebola was in Mexico. Here comes flu season....

VICENZA, Italy — American troops continue to be quarantined after returning from missions to aid the Ebola crisis in Liberia and will be charged a day of leave for each day of “controlled monitoring,” Army officials confirmed Monday.

The move is in response to troops lounging around their barracks not doing anything but taking their own temperature, exercising basic sanitation protocols, and washing cigarette butts through chlorine washes.

According to the commander of U.S. Army forces in Africa, Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, quarantined troops have had good morale with internet access and phones, Williams told reporters, a situation that simply wasn’t an acceptable climate for soldiers to be monitored in.

“In order to reinforce traditional Army values we retroactively began to charge soldiers leave days while they are being monitored,” said Williams. “The Sergeant Major nearly had an aneurism when he found out they were sitting around all day not doing anything. They can’t just be having fun like it’s some kind of frat house hosting Halo tournaments, and daily pizza parties. We had to react appropriately.”

Reaction to the news has plummeted morale back to an acceptably low level, sources confirmed.

“I should have known it was too good to last,” said Spc. Shane Crooks. “I stayed awake for six straight days playing World of Warcraft like a boss. At least I was able to level up my Worgen Death Knight before they pulled the plug on my joy.”

“So wait, civilian nurses who actually put their hands on Ebola patients get to go home,” said Sgt. Alex Bronson. “In the meantime I enjoy having my temperature checked rectally twice a day despite the fact I was nowhere near infected areas. Go Army.”

Army leaders are perplexed their troops are not more positive about their generous 21-day quarantine leave block.

“Good soldiers would see this as an opportunity,” said Williams. “They should be using this time to get caught up on annual training briefs, computer based training requirements as well as field sanitation and graves registration.”

Ebola intensifies the struggle to cope with Lassa fever

The peak season for Lassa fever in West Africa is about to begin. The viral haemorrhagic fever has been largely forgotten in the Ebola crisis, and health workers are warning that they may not have the resources to deal with the disease if cases increase.

At first sight the symptoms of Lassa are identical to Ebola. There can be bleeding, vomiting and fever. But whereas Ebola is a new outbreak, Lassa is a constant presence. Every year it infects from 300,000 to 500,000 people, killing up to 20,000.

All of the countries worst hit by Ebola are home to Lassa fever. On Friday, Dr Geraldine O'Hara from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told the BBC that one of her colleagues had died of Lassa despite all efforts to save her.

Nigeria may also be seeing its first outbreak of the season. Only weeks after successfully containing Ebola, Nigerian media have reported an outbreak of Lassa in Oyo State.

Medical staff at Kenema Hospital, Sierra Leone
Lassa fever is transmitted by rats and can also spread from person-to-person
There is one main difference between an outbreak of Ebola and Lassa. A Lassa outbreak is caused by rats. The rodents carry the disease into homes and food stores, especially in the dry season running from November to April.

"We have had literally dozens of cases of Lassa fever already in the eastern part of Sierra Leone," said Prof Robert Garry of Tulane University which has researched Lassa in West Africa for a decade.

Once infected, Lassa can spread from person-to-person. Not everyone who catches it becomes seriously ill, but fatality rates have been known to be as high as 70%. It is less easily transmitted than Ebola, but nonetheless patients must still be treated in complete isolation.

Abandoned hospital
The containment of Lassa fever was a major focus in West Africa until Ebola arrived. It was in a Lassa laboratory that Sierra Leone's first Ebola case was identified.

Dr Sheik Umar Khan, head of the Lassa fever programme at Kenema Government Hospital, had spent a decade building a specialised treatment centre. He died of Ebola in September.

"We lost our head physician and six of our nurses and a lab technician," said Dr John Schieffelin from Tulane University, who worked at the hospital.

Kenema's Lassa ward had been overwhelmed with Ebola patients. "It is essentially abandoned except for the Ebola treatment area," said Dr Schieffelin.

Dr Sheik Umar Khan
Dr Khan was a leading doctor from Sierra Leone specialising in viral haemorrhagic fever
'Hidden disaster'
The remaining health workers in West Africa are already overstretched with Ebola. As cases of a second haemorrhagic fever begin to rise, some are worried that Lassa may go undiagnosed and untreated.

"Attention has completely shifted now from Lassa to Ebola. There are cases of Lassa fever being actually considered to be Ebola cases in many places," said Prof Christian Happi of Redeemer's University in Nigeria. "In that regard it is a very complicated situation for us, especially in Liberia and in Sierra Leone."

"This is a hidden disaster," said Dr Matthias Borchert in Liberia from the Charite University of Medicine in Berlin and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "The health system in Liberia has virtually come to a halt for anything but Ebola. Whether it is Lassa, malaria or complicated deliveries - it is difficult to find any treatment."

Medical staff take a blood sample from a suspected Ebola patient at the government hospital in Kenema in Sierra Leone
The drug Ribavirin can be used to treat Lassa but not Ebola
Lassa fever can be treated with a drug. Ribavirin is used to help patients recover but it is useless for Ebola and is only given once Lassa has been confirmed. Rapid tests are not widely available and without them only a laboratory can tell the difference between an Ebola patient and a Lassa patient. Delays in treatment can be fatal.

"Our Lassa project is severely compromised," said Dr Borchert. "Our anthropologist is affected by German foreign office warnings against all travel to Guinea and Sierra Leone that is not Ebola related.

"Our epidemiologist cannot carry out [surveys of blood serums] in the community and our rodent biologist has problems trapping rats because communities suspect that this is somehow Ebola-related and refuse access to houses."

Early warning
Work on Lassa fever can only resume once the Ebola crisis has been dealt with. "We need to get the Ebola outbreak shutdown", says Prof Garry.

He hopes that as international efforts improve there will be less pressure on Lassa medical teams. As most of the Ebola patients are moved to new treatment centres it will allow the old wards at hospitals such as Kenema to be decontaminated and rebuilt.

Early warning systems for haemorrhagic fevers can also be re-established and improved after the crisis. "I am sure that with the Ebola epidemic, countries are going to be more prepared, countries are going to be more alert," said Prof Happi.

A member of British Forces watches as the RFA Argus approaches Freetown in Sierra Leone
International help with Ebola will lessen the pressure on Lassa medical teams
But even when the Ebola outbreak is over, the disease will have an unsettling consequence for Lassa doctors.

"Going forward, forevermore, we will have to be on the alert for both diseases," said Prof Garry.

Before the crisis, when a patient walked into a clinic there was a clear set of symptoms to point to Lassa Fever.

Now it could be Ebola.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Well, it looks as though the army's got a few things figured out in regards to soldiers serving in Ebola zones:

VICENZA, Italy — American troops continue to be quarantined after returning from missions to aid the Ebola crisis in Liberia and will be charged a day of leave for each day of “controlled monitoring,” Army officials confirmed Monday.

The move is in response to troops lounging around their barracks not doing anything but taking their own temperature, exercising basic sanitation protocols, and washing cigarette butts through chlorine washes.

According to the commander of U.S. Army forces in Africa, Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, quarantined troops have had good morale with internet access and phones, Williams told reporters, a situation that simply wasn’t an acceptable climate for soldiers to be monitored in.

“In order to reinforce traditional Army values we retroactively began to charge soldiers leave days while they are being monitored,” said Williams. “The Sergeant Major nearly had an aneurism when he found out they were sitting around all day not doing anything. They can’t just be having fun like it’s some kind of frat house hosting Halo tournaments, and daily pizza parties. We had to react appropriately.”

Reaction to the news has plummeted morale back to an acceptably low level, sources confirmed.

“I should have known it was too good to last,” said Spc. Shane Crooks. “I stayed awake for six straight days playing World of Warcraft like a boss. At least I was able to level up my Worgen Death Knight before they pulled the plug on my joy.”

“So wait, civilian nurses who actually put their hands on Ebola patients get to go home,” said Sgt. Alex Bronson. “In the meantime I enjoy having my temperature checked rectally twice a day despite the fact I was nowhere near infected areas. Go Army.”

Army leaders are perplexed their troops are not more positive about their generous 21-day quarantine leave block.

“Good soldiers would see this as an opportunity,” said Williams. “They should be using this time to get caught up on annual training briefs, computer based training requirements as well as field sanitation and graves registration.”

source

The Washington Post wrote:You’re more likely to catch Ebola than to receive marijuana-laced Halloween candy

You're more likely to contract Ebola in the U.S. than you are to get marijuana-laced candy in your Halloween basket. Despite literally hundreds of wide-eyed press accounts last week of the "danger" of marijuana-infused Halloween candy, we are three days into November without a single instance of Halloween-related pot poisoning coming to light. None. Zero. Zilch.

On the other hand, two Americans have caught Ebola so far in the U.S.

Denver was Ground Zero in media reports of a marijuana candy epidemic last month after Denver police released a video warning trick-or-treaters of marijuana-infused candy. Yet according to the Associated Press, "Denver Police and the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center on Monday reported no cases of people slipping marijuana to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters."

In short, nobody has tried to poison kids with weed, because poisoning kids with weed would be a dumb and expensive thing to do.

To sum things up: nobody tried to poison kids with weed this year. Here's a handy chart if you're still confused.

Spoiler:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Well, it looks as though the army's got a few things figured out in regards to soldiers serving in Ebola zones:

VICENZA, Italy — American troops continue to be quarantined after returning from missions to aid the Ebola crisis in Liberia and will be charged a day of leave for each day of “controlled monitoring,” Army officials confirmed Monday.

The move is in response to troops lounging around their barracks not doing anything but taking their own temperature, exercising basic sanitation protocols, and washing cigarette butts through chlorine washes.

According to the commander of U.S. Army forces in Africa, Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, quarantined troops have had good morale with internet access and phones, Williams told reporters, a situation that simply wasn’t an acceptable climate for soldiers to be monitored in.

“In order to reinforce traditional Army values we retroactively began to charge soldiers leave days while they are being monitored,” said Williams. “The Sergeant Major nearly had an aneurism when he found out they were sitting around all day not doing anything. They can’t just be having fun like it’s some kind of frat house hosting Halo tournaments, and daily pizza parties. We had to react appropriately.”

Reaction to the news has plummeted morale back to an acceptably low level, sources confirmed.

“I should have known it was too good to last,” said Spc. Shane Crooks. “I stayed awake for six straight days playing World of Warcraft like a boss. At least I was able to level up my Worgen Death Knight before they pulled the plug on my joy.”

“So wait, civilian nurses who actually put their hands on Ebola patients get to go home,” said Sgt. Alex Bronson. “In the meantime I enjoy having my temperature checked rectally twice a day despite the fact I was nowhere near infected areas. Go Army.”

Army leaders are perplexed their troops are not more positive about their generous 21-day quarantine leave block.

“Good soldiers would see this as an opportunity,” said Williams. “They should be using this time to get caught up on annual training briefs, computer based training requirements as well as field sanitation and graves registration.”

source