The country's top medical official who has vowed to stop Ebola "in its tracks" in the U.S., conceded today that it's "not impossible" that others will contract the disease.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said an extensive tracking process is underway in the wake of the first Ebola diagnosis in the United States, with special focus on the patient's family and health staff.

"We have a seven-person team in Dallas working with the local health department and the hospital, and we will be identifying everyone who may have come in contact with him and then monitoring them for 21 days," Frieden said.

The city of Dallas, which has activated its Emergency Operations Center on "Level 2: High Readiness," said, "We are currently evaluating 12-18 people that the patient confirmed to have the Ebola virus was in contact with."

In addition, the three ambulance crew members that brought the patient to the hospital were tested for Ebola. The tests were negative, but the crew members were sent home and will be monitored for the next three weeks, the city said in a statement.

Frieden believes the disease will be "stopped in its tracks" in this country.

The unidentified man's safety, along with the well-being of the medical people treating him, is a primary focus, Frieden said.

A former Food and Drug Administration chief scientist and top infectious disease specialist said that several people were exposed to the Ebola virus by the unidentified patient in Dallas, America's first case, and it's likely that many more will be infected.

Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, now a professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, said while the nation shouldn't panic, it's best to prepare for the worst.

"It is quite appropriate to be concerned on many fronts," he said in a statement provided to Secrets. "First, it is a tragedy for the patient and family and, as well, a stress to contacts, health care workers and the community at large. Second, it appears several people were exposed before the individual was placed in isolation, and it is quite possible that one or more of his contacts will be infected," he added.

What's more, he conceded that it was "only a matter of time" that the swift-killing African virus arrived in the U.S.

Liberia, the West African nation hardest it by Ebola, has begun a frightening descent into economic hell. That's the import of three recent reports from international organizations that seem to bear out the worst-case scenarios of months ago: that people would abandon the fields and factories, that food and fuel would become scarce and unaffordable, and that the government's already meagre capacity to help, along with the nation's prospects for a better future, would be severely compromised. They are no longer scenarios. They are real. While these trends have been noted anecdotally, the cumulative toll is horrific. The basic necessities of survival in Liberia - food, transportation, work, money, help from the government - are rapidly being depleted, according to recent reports by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.


The FAO says that food is in increasingly short supply. Fields in some regions have been abandoned in part because people perceive Ebola may be coming from them or from the water used to irrigate them. "People are terrified by how fast the disease is spreading," Alexis Bonte, FAO Representative in Liberia, said in a statement. "Neighbors, friends and family members are dying within just a few days of exhibiting shocking symptoms, the causes of which are not fully understood by many local communities. This leads them to speculate that water, food or even crops could be responsible. Panic ensues, causing farmers to abandon their fields for weeks." - Washington Post

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday that the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the US.

On Monday, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas admitted a patient into strict isolation to be evaluated for potential Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), based on the patient's symptoms and recent travel history, according to a statement by the hospital.

By Tuesday afternoon, the CDC had received preliminary blood test results back, confirming that the patient was indeed infected with the potentially deadly virus.

The patient had recently traveled to Liberia, leaving the West African country on September 19 and arriving in the US on the following day. The patient had no Ebola symptoms when leaving Liberia or entering the United States, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a press conference.

Today, I could not turn the shower faucet to the right any further. Victory.

My first experience with cold showers was excited but short lived. Joel Runyon had a blog post and YouTube video discussing cold showers and how to begin. I was pumped and I gave it a try. I tried it, I yelped, I nearly peed myself, and then I stopped for a while.

It was too uncomfortable. I didn't want to replace hot, enjoyable showers with frigid, painful experiences. Despite all of the health benefits, I now know that being uncomfortable is exactly what cold showers are all about.

If health isn't high on your priority list, getting used to discomfort on a daily basis should be. By subjecting myself to discomfort now, I increase the likelihood I can stay the course in other areas of my life that are more important. Best of all, there are plenty of health benefits associated with cold shower therapy.

In 1987, when I was writing my first book, AIDS INC., I decided to look into vaccines as a cause of immune-system suppression.

I had never dug below the surface of that subject before.

Of course, the authorities and experts have been forever telling people how effective and safe vaccines are. They issue their remarks with great assurance.

Here are just a few of my findings, from 1987. They paint a different historical record.

Sierra Leone's largest newspaper, the Awareness Times, is reporting with alarm that at least 1,028 Ebola patients appear to be missing in the country, as official Ministry of Health statistics account for a smaller number of combined victims and survivors of the disease than the total number of registered cases.

The Awareness Times report notes that the Ministry of Health has confirmed 2,000 cases of Ebola in the country. Its official statistics note that 540 have died, while 432 are classified as survivors. That leaves 1,042 unaccounted for cases.

The report follows up on a New York Times piece in which a Western diplomat is quoted as saying that official statistics in Sierra Leone are highly untrustworthy. According to the Times, those numbers are believed to be "largely inaccurate," rendering them borderline useless. Said the diplomat: "Even a 2-year-old child can look at them and see they don't add up." The Times notes that Sierra Leone has responded to the crisis largely by quarantining large areas-- nearly all 14 districts in Sierra Leone are at least partially quarantined, and it is believed that between one and two million people are being kept locked down due to this measure.

The Awareness Times did the math to prove the inaccuracy of the numbers, and the response they received from the Ministry of Health did little to assuage the concern that the government has little control over the situation. In a statement highlighting the convoluted relationships between press and state in Sierra Leone, Dr. Sylvia Blyden-- both Special Executive Assistant to President Ernest Koroma and founder of the Awareness Times-- issued a statement to her own newspaper:

"The fact is that a few of these unaccounted-for numbers are currently admitted in Ebola centers but I can categorically state today that the vast majority of the [over] 1,000 patients are already DEAD and lying in their graves. Yes, they are dead and buried! Hundreds of them! :-( May their souls rest in peace."

She goes on to blame the erroneous numbers on "a flight of common sense" on the part of the government, and adds that many of those unaccounted for are those who did not die in medical facilities, but rather died in their homes, and may continue to remain in their homes undisturbed given the fear of touching the body of a person with Ebola.

The number of California parents not vaccinating their kindergartners has doubled since 2007 (5 percent) to 11 percent in 2014.

Public health experts claim that the failure to vaccinate is the reason why measles have made a comeback in California after being eradicated.

California law says that kindergartners have to be vaccinated against "measles, whooping cough, polio, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, chicken pox, diphtheria and tetanus," notes The Los Angeles Times, but parents who object to immunizations based on their deeply-held, sincere, personal beliefs can get exemptions for their kids, which places those kids and other people's children in danger.

For decades, high vaccination numbers have prevented children from suffering diseases of the past, but the refusal of many parents to vaccinate is slowly moving California back to the Stone Age.

A Dallas hospital says it is isolating a patient who is showing signs of having the Ebola virus.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas said in a statement Monday night that the patient's symptoms and travel history suggest the patient may have Ebola, the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa.

The hospital expects to receive preliminary test results Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Presbyterian Hospital says it's taking measures to keep its doctors, staff and patients safe.

Several hundred US kids are being treated for Enterovirus 68 - a respiratory illness that can cause children to become paralyzed. Outbreaks of the virus have been detected in most of the fifty states.

So far, the virus has infected 443 children in 40 states, and the District of Columbia, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Abbreviated as EV-D68, the virus was first identified 50 years ago. However, it has rarely been tested for until cases started appearing in the US Midwest and Southwest this year.

EV-D68 causes symptoms similar to the common cold but progresses into wheezing, breathing problems and paralysis.

There is no drug yet for the current strain of the virus, so treatment is focused on helping patients to breathe.