Support Kaci Hickox

[nurse2033]

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.

[Cheyenne RN,BSHS]

It is part of our job as nurses, in my humble opinion, to help put fears to rest. This is a horrific frightening disease that we know little about. She should stop acting like a baby and use the quarantine time to reflect, rest, exercise and just "be". On the other hand, if it is affecting her financially, the nursing community, her employer, our government, should compensate her for the forced (but needed) quarantine. Why take a chance...(like the doctor did). This is far far worse than the flu in so many ways.

I have to disagree about our knowing very little about Ebola. It first presented itself in 1976 I believe and there are 5 subtypes of ebola. The material has been around for years.

[AngiereeRN, ADN, BSN]

Studies have shown that this Ebola outbreak has spread farther and infected more people because the virus itself has changed. . A study done by Harvard, Tulane, and the Broad Institute found 341 genetic changes that make this outbreak different. Five people involved in the study, died from Ebola themselves.To me, what that means is we don't know, scientifically, all there is to know about Ebola. Even the scientist who discovered it says it's following a different pattern than it has in the past.The MD and aide worker who contracted it said they had been following the same strict protocol as everyone else, yet they caught it. Why? How did a camera man, who shouldn't have come into contact with blood or body fluids, contract it? Obviously a disease, that has only ever affected a few countries, suddenly spreading worldwide means something is different this time. For that reason, self quarantine out of an abundance of caution, wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm talking strictly about nurses, like Kaci, who have been to West Africa and cared for Ebola patients there, where the disease is running rampant. I don't think they can legally hold her against her will, nor do I think they should, but I don't support what she's doing. It's not about fear, it's about being careful and cautious.

[~PedsRN~, BSN, RN]

It hasn't "spread worldwide" though. It's still pretty much in Africa. And in the time ebola has killed 5000 people there, AIDS has killed hundreds of thousands. Media = Fear.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

I think Kaci is wrong by not complying with the quarantine....and is giving nurses a bad rap.

Let me introduce another non-compliant mouthy uh, (what's a forum safe word?). . .

trouble-maker. . .

Margaret Sanger. She actually broke the law of the land, stood up for what she believed. Kaci is not breaking the law. The Governor's edict has not been tested by the courts. That's what she's looking for. I wouldn't be up for the fight, but I'm glad she is.

[wirehead]

"PEDSRN" I think you make a good point, but our nursing curriculum prepares us very well how to protect ourselves from those conditions you have mentioned. How much have we learned in US schools about Ebola?? I can't even recall it being mentioned in detail if at all during school. Even the CDC isn't well versed on the topic, remember green lighting the potentially infected nurse to board an airplane who was in fact infected!! Look at HIV in the beginning, it was thought to be primarily transmitted by homosexuals, now we know so much more about it, and how it's spread. I say until we gain a better understanding of this disease, Kaci should've quarantined herself for the 21 days period and erred on the side of caution. To those of you making this a politically correct issue, you need to get some thicker skin.

[wirehead]

Studies have shown that this Ebola outbreak has spread farther and infected more people because the virus itself has changed. .

Very well said Angieree, Ebola is an RNA virus and can quite easily mutate. It's very similar to the flu virus which is why we need a new flu shot each year. I don't think Ebola can mutate to the point of being airborne, but just how easily is it spread via bodily fluids? We just don't fully understand. I'm against the wide spread panic, but totally agree that we need to be careful and err on the side of caution. As nurses, we are only human, and one little breach in protocol while Kaci was treating Ebola infected patients could've potentially exposed her to the virus, the only sure way to know is to wait out the incubation period. It is her responsibility to ensure she doesn't become a vector of the disease.

[edmia, BSN, RN]

I am completely in support and glad she's vocal and challenging unscientific, fear based reactions. Go Kaci!

[macawake, MSN]

Studies have shown that this Ebola outbreak has spread farther and infected more people because the virus itself has changed.

The outbreak has spread farther and infected more people because the virus has changed?

Hogwash.

Please provide a link to the study that you claimed has shown causation between

the changes in the virus (which are very common for a RNA-virus) and how this outbreak has spread.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1369.full

I'm guessing that this is the study?

"As in every EVD outbreak, the 2014 EBOV variant carries a number of genetic changes distinct to this lineage; our data do not address whether these differences are related to the severity of the outbreak. However, the catalog of 395 mutations, including 50 fixed nonsynonymous changes with 8 at positions with high levels of conservation across ebolaviruses, provides a starting point for such studies."

If it is, it doesn't show that the mutations has affected how the virus is spread.

Perhaps it having (for the first time) reached three crowded cities (Conakry, Monrovia and Freetown) in three dirt-poor third-world countries (Guinea, Liberia

and Sierra Leone), is the reason that it’s affecting many people…

And by the way, it also reached Lagos (a city with more than 20 million inhabitants) in Nigeria, but they contained the outbreak and it has been declared Ebola-free by the WHO.

WHO | Nigeria is now free of Ebola virus transmission

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

I voted no.

[FLAlleycat]

Maine Medical Association is referring to Kaci Hickox as a "hero" and I couldn't agree more with them!

State health leaders criticize Maine CDC over Kaci Hickox quarantine - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

[trishmsn]

Off to work. I just wanted to say though that the division represented in the poll results is more than a little disturbing.

You find it "disturbing" that other professionals may have a different opinion than you???

I find THAT more than a little disturbing...

[elkpark]

You find it "disturbing" that other professionals may have a different opinion than you???

I find THAT more than a little disturbing...

Speaking only for myself, I don't find it disturbing that "other professionals may have a different opinion than (me)," but I do find it disturbing that so many "professionals" on the Ebola-related threads (including the poll on this thread) on this site appear to be responding and reacting out of fear rather than science.