Support Kaci Hickox

Published

  1. Do you support Kaci Hickox?

    • 179
      Yes
    • 93
      No

272 members have participated

She is the nurse who returned from Africa and was placed in quarantine despite not being sick. I'm not going to give all the details here, they are readily available online. I support her position and hope you do too. She is not sick, she should not be quarentined.

Crazynut, there numerous research studies on humans with ebola, if you are saying there are not any human RCTs with ebola then that is correct and I would doubt there ever will be. There are decades of research on ebola, but like any other deadly contagious disease process there are never likely to be RCTs where one group is purposely exposed to the virus/disease.

LOL, no kidding! I'm thinking that might be seen as a little bit unethical. ;)

Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

Now that you have ruined Friday night tradition of roasted fruit bat my family will have to go back to eating pizza.

Just can't trust your local Market Basket to have Ebola-free bats anymore.

Sent from my iPhone.

Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
MMS: Error

this is the first time i read his full article. Wow! It is telling. He said some of the exact things i have said. Ebola is so scary because of how little we know about it. And its effects on the human body. He thought he was low risk. If it happened to him it could have easily happened to miss kaci! He even said he felt warm but his temp was 97. Temps can be deceiving!

He did not have ebola while in Guinea. He developed symptoms after returning to New York.

He did not transmit Ebola to anyone because her did call and get to the hospital as soon as he was symptomatic with a fever.

From your New England journal of Medicine article:

... Instead of being welcomed as respected humanitarians, my U.S. colleagues who have returned home from battling Ebola have been treated as pariahs.

I believe we send the wrong message by imposing a 21-day waiting period before they can transition from public health hazard to hero.

As a society, we recognize the need for some of our best-trained physicians and public health professionals to participate in a potentially fatal mission because failing to stop the epidemic at its source threatens everyone.

We should also have faith that these professionals will follow proven, science-based protocols and protect their loved ones by monitoring themselves. It worked for me, and it has worked for hundreds of my colleagues who have returned from this and past Ebola outbreaks without infecting anyone.

For many politicians, the current Ebola epidemic ended on November 4, 2014, the day of midterm elections (and, coincidentally, the day my fever broke).

For the U.S. media, it ended a week later, when I walked out of Bellevue Hospital and the country was officially Ebola-free. But the real Ebola epidemic still rages in West Africa.

The number of new cases is stabilizing in some areas and declining in others, but more than 23,000 people have been infected,5 and many are still dying from this disease.

When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we'll recognize that fear caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when we finally did. I know how real the fear of Ebola is, but we need to overcome it.

We all lose when we allow irrational fear, fueled in part by prime-time ratings and political expediency, to supersede pragmatic public health preparedness....

MMS: Error

Specializes in Anesthesia.
Now that you have ruined Friday night tradition of roasted fruit bat my family will have to go back to eating pizza.

Just can't trust your local Market Basket to have Ebola-free bats anymore.

Sent from my iPhone.

Just make sure it is really well done and you should be fine...

Now that you have ruined Friday night tradition of roasted fruit bat my family will have to go back to eating pizza.

Just can't trust your local Market Basket to have Ebola-free bats anymore.

Sent from my iPhone.

Market Basket, yeah!!!

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Each state has their own laws. Some more strict than others. CA is dealing with this right now over measles. It just really bothers me that my fellow nurses don't understand the importance of public health. That you think one persons civil rights are more important than the health and well being of an entire community. OP commented that it is shown that it is not contagious until person is symptomatic. But that doesn't totally exclude the possibility that an asymptatic person can be contagious. Look at HIV. A person can be infected and asymptomatic for decades! They can still spread the disease. Obviously the higher viral load the more contagious. Everyone is different. Each person has different reactions. Why take that chance with something as deadly as ebola? Kaci knew the risks when she went over there. It comes with the territory. She should have know she would have some sort of isolation. I mean did she really think she could go to hot zone area and then go back to work the next week??? I would not want her to be my nurse! We can argue this until we are blue. Public health > civil rights. So until there is new case law that sets precedent that will not change.

How dare you suggest that other posters on this thread don't understand the importance of public health while you are busy spreading nonsense about this situation. Your suggestion that Ebola might be spread by an asymptomatic person is ENTIRELY CONTRARY TO ALL REPUTABLE SCIENCE ON THE TOPIC. Ebola is NOTHING like HIV.

Why would Kaci have known that suddenly fear and irrationality would rule the day and require that she isolate when that was not necessary then and was not necessary at any time with her previous trips to care for these poor victims of Ebola? How could she know that fearful people would want to sacrifice her rights and freedoms to calm their self centered anxieties which had zero basis in science?

We can argue this until we are blue or until folks like you begin to understand the science and accept that Kaci was NOT representing a public health issue at all.

Specializes in allergy and asthma, urgent care.
Market Basket, yeah!!!

I'm going tonight after work. I hope the fruit bats are on sale so I can stock up....

How dare you suggest that other posters on this thread don't understand the importance of public health while you are busy spreading nonsense about this situation. Your suggestion that Ebola might be spread by an asymptomatic person is ENTIRELY CONTRARY TO ALL REPUTABLE SCIENCE ON THE TOPIC. Ebola is NOTHING like HIV.

Why would Kaci have known that suddenly fear and irrationality would rule the day and require that she isolate when that was not necessary then and was not necessary at any time with her previous trips to care for these poor victims of Ebola? How could she know that fearful people would want to sacrifice her rights and freedoms to calm their self centered anxieties which had zero basis in science?

We can argue this until we are blue or until folks like you begin to understand the science and accept that Kaci was NOT representing a public health issue at all.

LOVE!!!!!

+ Join the Discussion