There’s been rumors and conspiracy theories that the first Ebola case in the US and the mysterious respiratory illness affecting children--enterovirus D68--are “biological warfare.”
An article on conservative blogger Allen B. West’s site posits just that. “We need to analyze and assess if there is a connection between this respiratory illness — and ensuing paralysis — with the recent dispersion of illegal alien children to the area,” he writes.
“Someone needs to look at the correlation — if none exists, fine, but if there is one, then we have a self-inflicted wound upon our children courtesy of the Obama administration’s focus on politics and not our domestic security — health security. Mystery illness affecting our children and Ebola contact tracing — could be considered biological warfare,” West adds.
Meanwhile, another writer says that the emergence of Ebola has prompted the emergence of the manufacture of an experimental vaccine, which conspiracy website Infowars suggests there’s a collusion between the US and pharmaceutical companies.
“The most fascinating aspect of the Ebola vaccine manufacturing process is how quickly they have brought it to the trials phase. It is virtually impossible for vaccine manufacturers to produce and deliver these drugs in the timeline they have proposed. It typically takes several years from the point of initial vaccine development to human clinical trials, a process which the manufacturers claim is being done in weeks and months. The only way it would have been possible was through years of planning and procurement,” writes Dave Mihalovic with Prevent Disease.
He adds: “However, there is no possible way they can assess the safety and serious adverse events associated with these vaccines in such a short time period of time.”
And a few days ago, a professor in Liberia--one of the three West African countries heavily impacted by the virus--is telling residents there that the US is behind the outbreak.
“And now, in what may plant further seeds of mistrust and suspicion, a major Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, has published an article by a Liberian-born faculty member of a U.S. university implying the epidemic is the result of bioterrorism experiments conducted by the United States Department of Defense, among others,” the Washington Post writes.
The Post reported that the professor, Delaware State University associate professor Cyril Broderick, got his research from a few conspiracy websites.
The Economist reported that there’s a “fear that the government wants to sell the blood of Ebola patients, or that it will remove patients’ limbs for ritual purposes. Others think health workers will inject them with Ebola; or that the ubiquitous chlorine disinfectant spray will give them the disease; or simply the virus is an invention to help the government bring in donations.”
And meanwhile, a local newspaper in Liberia is spreading what appear to be legends or rumors that two Ebola victims have been “resurrected” or have risen from the dead.
