In the podcast titled “Ebola is a Terrorist Threat,” which was featured on the Open Eyes channel, the host (Tim Vogt) discusses the current topic of Ebola and society’s fear that it may be a terrorist threat. He opens the conversation by stating that many people think that ISIS is using Ebola as a bioterror method against the United States. He explains that people believe that ISIS has purposely sent infected individuals across the border in order to spread the diseases to the United States. While he does not discount it as a possibility, he refers to the claims ad a rumor and openly states that he does not believe this to be true. Further in the podcast; however, he makes the bold claim that he believes it is actually the United States government who began the spread of the Ebola virus.
He states that our borders are open (referring to Texas, for example), but he does not think that ISIS is using Ebola as a biomedical weapon. Instead, he believes that ISIS has their “hands full” currently and is actually capitalizing on this rumor in order to ignite fear in people (because this is exactly what ISIS is all about). He makes a sarcastic comment, stating that if someone really wanted to use Ebola as a terrorist threat, they would send a couple of infected lobbyist to Congress, have them “shake a few hands” and then the United states would be “out of commission.
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"Open Eyes: Ebola is a Terrorist Threat".
He also discusses the misconception that people have about Ebola being airborne. Vogt says that there is a difference between “airborne” and “aerosol.” He explains that Ebola can be easily aerosolized, which mean that if someone sneezes cough, and projectile vomits, then the virus can be easily spread to another person. Conversely, airborne means that the virus is light enough that it will “hang in the air” for a period of time, long enough for another person to come into contact with it. Ebola is not an airborne virus, which means that it is heavy, so it gravitates to the ground quickly.
Vogt then proceeds to discuss a few questions that are related to the Ebola topic. He first seeks to answer why the United States holds the patent to the Ebola virus. Apparently, the Supreme Court ruled that “a living entity cannot be patented unless its genetic sequence has been changed somehow by the company trying to patent it.” For example, a company could not patent and oak tree, but if the company someone modified the genetic sequence of the tree, and then they could hold a patent on that new tree. Similarly, the Ebola virus cannot be patented unless it has been genetically modified because it is a living entity. Therefore, Vogt raises the question of why the United States holds a patent to the Ebola virus (because it means that they have genetically altered it). He raises the possibility that it could have been spread by the government and not by fruit bats. He states that who benefits the most from the Ebola outbreak are the pharmaceutical companies. He further points out the fact that even though Ebola has been known about since the 1970s, there was always claims that there is no cure and no vaccine; yet, as soon as this outbreak occurred (and there was an imminent threat to the West), many pharmaceutical companies came out with claims of vaccines and treatments (for this particular strand of Ebola).
Vogt also raises the possibility that other people (not ISIS) may be capitalizing on Ebola and possibly using it to their advantage. He talks about the mainstream media and how they continue to instill fear in the public, which he believes is being done on purpose. He believes that there are other “dark entities” that are responsible for this Ebola scare. He point out; however, that people themselves, who “give in” to the mass media and spread false rumors, pose the biggest problem. He describes the Ebola problem largely as a self-fulfilling prophesy in that way.
