Thank you for this timely reminder as to the selectivity of what "crises" the western media chooses to focus on. Equally important in my view is what the media fails to discuss, and the Ebola outbreak is one of many such examples.

Why, for example, does the CDC in Atlanta hold a patent on the Ebola virus, and has done so for the past five years? The Patent Number is 20120251502A1. There are reports that the virus was developed in the biowarfare labs at Fort Dettrick among other places, and then "tested" in West Africa. These are certainly questions worth asking and the western media is conspicuously silent.

It is also curious that the major American response to the outbreak in West Africa is to send thousands of special forces troops, none of whom, as best one can ascertain, have any expertise in virus control. Perhaps again the real motives are somewhat different from the publicised ones.

The CDC holds a patent on the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is not the strain going around at the moment. The reason the CDC applied for the patent was to forestall for-profit organisations patenting the gene sequence as Myriad Genetics did with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Since the US Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that a patent could not be held solely on a gene sequence isolated from nature, the rationale for the CDC patent no longer exists. Indeed the Supreme Court ruling would invalidate the CDC patent.

The Western media is conspicuously silent about this, because it is a non-story. Only conspiracy theorists are interested in it.

The whole concept that Ebola virus is a man-made virus is ludicrous. The virus is endemic in fruit bat populations in Africa where it is largely asymptomatic http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/abs/438575a.html suggesting it has been present in fruit bats for thousands of generations.

The various forms of Ebola virus are also quite divergent, differing by up to 35% of the nucleotides http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1000212#ppat-1000212-g001.

James do you wanna know who really killed Kennedy?

Prof Francis Andrew Boyle is a lawyer who drafts the law for international agreements. In the clip below he reveals that Ebola has been genetically engineered with flu which he nick names Cobola.

Prof Boyle Drafted the legislation that makes it illegal to weaponise disease to kill humans. George Bush senior signed this into law in the early 1990's.Over 100 yrs ago Mayer Armchel Rothschild said," Give me control over a nations money and I care not who makes the laws."

http://www.infowars.com/bio-weapons-expert-ebola-outbreak-is-a-bio-weapon-release/

It is not just the disease that is the threat. The fear can kill far more. Just imagine our cities with people too fearful of riding on public transport to work. Our cities will not function.

Thanks Arjay,
I was about to mention the exact thing in regards to Prof Francis Boyle that you did.
So I'll have to take it one step further and post the link to the video and interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DOLQ6MN9g&list=UUvsye7V9psc-APX6wV1twLg

This articles topic 'Ebola is not the only, or most dangerous, challenge we face' is absolutely correct.
Because if you accept an experts opinion that Ebola is a bio-weapons release, then you have to ask why?
So I'll give you two more articles to look at.

http://fortune.com/2010/06/16/the-600-billion-challenge/
http://www.wnd.com/2009/05/99105/

In this current article Peter Curson has spoken about the threat of mosquito-borne infectious disease and the numbers are concerning, but after viewing the information contained in the links I've just added, I find the information in this following link even more concerning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmfbv-m7BlA

He speaks about 'inventing new vaccines and getting them out to all the children that need them.' and of 'cutting the number who die every year from about 9million to about half of that'.
But in the very next sentence he say the benefits include 'reducing the population growth'.

How does cutting the number of children who die every year (In an area of the world where Peter Curson in his last article mentioned 'youth-bulge') equate to reducing population growth?

Please note the mindset of James O'Neill.

The Centre for Disease Control in the USA is an organisation dedicated to the identification of unknown human pathogens, and researching ways to counter these viruses and bacterium. The CDC was instrumental in eradicating smallpox, once the terror of the entire world. It came within an ace of destroying Malaria, the greatest remaining killer pathogen in existence. It routinely sends young and incredibly brave medical researchers into remote parts of the world to identify outbreaks of unknown diseases, collect samples, and identify the vectors. it was the CDC which first identified the Ebola virus, as well as Lassa Fever, the Marburg virus, and was only just beaten by the French Pasteur Institute in identifying AIDS. As such, it is an organisation to be praised to the rooftops. But if you have a total hatred of the USA like James, then even a sainted US organisation dedicated to preventing a new plague pandemic can be construed in your tiny and slightly potty mind to be something insidious.

I am sure that James did not come up with that all by himself. He probably read in some lefty publication somewhere that the CDC had patented the Ebola virus and his tiny mind made a few connections.

US government organisation---bad.
Ebola virus---bad
patenting the Ebola virus--bad.

Therefore, those wretched Americans are up to no good! The yanks must be up to no good because the Americans are always up to no good.

The world seems so simple to James. All he has to do is blame the USA for everything and he thinks that this displays his supposedly superior intelligence. I hope you learned something about your intelligence level on this one, James.

Thank you Agronamist for telling us the real reason why the CDC patented the virus. That is beyond James who chooses to go with his prejudices before he turns on his brain. If you think you are smart, James, start thinking smart. Read the book "The Coming Plague" and apologise to the CDC.

http://www.infowars.com/bio-weapons-expert-ebola-outbreak-is-a-bio-weapon-release/ Lego it is not all Americans that want to reduce the planets pop by 90%.These people exist throughout the West and not just in the USA.LEGO,you are in denial again.

This self hating agenda has been propagated through the environmental movement. It is a common attitude now that humans are a blight on our planet and numbers must be drastically reduced.

As Prof Boyle says in this clip ,if you weaponise disease ,you must have the vaccine before releasing it. The problem with weaponising viruses is they mutate quickly and you need different vaccines. This new weaponised Ebola may even get out of their control.

The other point made on this clip is that would you trust the CDC's vaccines if they have patents on Ebola? They used to put Thermisol ( mercury)in vaccines as a preservative.

They are telling us on MSM that there are only 10,000 cases but the reality seems to be 10 times this number.

Armchair Critic, 2 of you links are not working. Highlight the link and hit 'control C' to grab it, then 'control V' to put it on this page.

I posted this about Ebola on OLO on 7/10/2014.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6591

Lego, you are the last person to talk about a "mindset". Did you actually read my comment? It asked some questions that I and many others think are worth asking. The answers may or may not assist, but that is the nature of free inquiry. There is obviously scope for differing interpretations of the answers, but again that is normal.

You persist in claiming I have a "hatred" of America. That is simply bizarre. I disagree with many policies that the US government pursues, but I am hardly unique in that. Many of the strongest critics are Americans themselves. Only the deluded accuse them of hating their own country. I also disagree with many of the Australian government's policies. In your peculiar world view I am not therefore part of Abbott's "team Australia" and therefore a "hater".

I know that I am wasting my time with you, but would it be possible, now and again, that you address the issues rather than continually venting your ignorance and bile in personal attacks on people who raise issues you either don't like, don't understand, or simply disagree with?

The link between vaccines for some of these nasty diseases and population might be through improved child survival. Many people believe, although this is disputed, that poor Third World families have more children than they really want as insurance against childhood deaths. Once people can be confident that nearly all of their children are going to live, they are likely to have fewer of them.

Even if the CDC were as nefarious as James O'Neill or Arjay think, you wonder why they would bother developing pathogens, when Nature is doing such a great job on its own. Just take huge numbers of malnourished people crammed together in Third World cities, where they are forced to live in filthy conditions with inadequate health care. A perfect environment for the mutation and spread of nasty pathogens. Add immune-suppressed people in the developed world and lots of international travel and trade. Now wait for a global pandemic.

Now that we can sequence genomes, it is easy for scientists to see how diverse a pathogen is, how long ago it might have jumped from animals, and how it is spreading from patterns of mutations. See for example the article on the Ebola genome on p. 1369 in the Sept. 12 issue of Science. It would be very hard for the germ warfare people to fake a natural epidemic under these circumstances, not to mention the dangers of it killing the "wrong" people due to widespread travel and trade. It is LEGO who is talking sense on this issue.

Hi everyone,
Arjay, It seems that secure hyper text transfer protocol web addresses (https://) aren't recognised by this website as hyperlinks. The webmaster for the site needs to update it and add https:// to what it recognises as hyperlinks. Youtube is https:// and you need to copy and paste these links into the address bar manually. I'm fairly sure the first youtube link I added in my comment yesterday went to the same video which is contained in the article you posted. The second went to a video in which Bill Gates apparently wants to force vaccinnate people through genetically modified mosquitos, but there isnt a lot of info in that video on that issue and I couldnt find any others to better confirm it.

Lego, I didnt find anything wrong with James O'Neill's points and questions. (But don't think I'm having a go at you either because I think all of us are entitled to say whatever we think, even if sometimes whats said seems a little different to the general concesus.) I myself think the US Government resembles a terrorist organisation because they arm, train and fund terrorist organisations.

http://rt.com/op-edge/190784-isis-un-threat-obama-coalition/

They also work to overthrow governments, many of them democratically elected.

http://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list

Our government has also supported and helped the US to achieve its goals.

I don't begrudge the average American Joe.
They may have unwittingly chosen leaders who have done things that weren't necessary in their best interests but I dont believe that things are really all that different right here in Australia. Take what happened to Gough Whitlam for example or our unwavering support for the US and Israel.

James O'Neill, did you follow up the answers that I provided to your questions? Were they satisfactory?

As to the notion of whether increasing vaccination against diseases in the Third World would reduce population growth, there is a very strong correlation between quality of health systems, affluence and number of children per woman. Here is the comparison between GDP per capita and fertility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox#mediaviewer/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg and a comparison between number of children per woman and infant mortality rate http://pages.uwc.edu/keith.montgomery/Demotrans/demtra15.gif .

Of course the two items themselves are intertwined. Better health care means more lifelong productivity means more affluence.

So yes vaccination programs are quite likely to reduce the population growth rate by allowing more, healthier children to reach adulthood, who will then have many fewer children each than would otherwise be the case.

Well I gotta give credit where credits due. Nice Work Agronomist.
Thanks for helping make sense of a difficult issue, and sorry for going slightly off topic regarding the authors main points that Ebola is not the only, or most dangerous, challenge we face. I'm not sure I agree completely though, because I'd rather have a disease I can recover from than one that is likely to kill me, even if I am at a greater risk of catching the lesser disease, so I'm not surprised that the scare from Ebola is more talked about. Also news coverage these days seems to be less about local news and more about global news. But here's an article I found though that relates to the topic.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-16/mosqitoes-to-invade-north-queensland-in-bid-to-eradicate-dengue/5525226

I could get to hate greenies. If this growth of mosquito born diseases is true, I would have every right to hate them.

I was in Rabaul area from 74 to 76, just after self government. I have said elsewhere PNG was no where near ready for self government, when they idiot Whitlam set it in train.

Now Rabaul was a great town, well run by the colonial administration, with many locals on staff & growing in competence. It was virtually mosquito free due to a fogging program. I ran the Tutt Bryant spare parts department a couple of times for them.

Row upon row of industrial shelving housed parts for almost half the worlds cars & machinery. It was a good instillation, until self government failed to maintain the fogging program.

The second time I ran the place, there were mosquito coils burning at each end of each row, but you still only went out there with long pants, & a long sleeve shirt, such were the mozzies.

In many other places, previously malaria free areas were reverting to malaria & dengue ridden wastelands. This was the result of green ratbaggery stopping the fogging programs that had been so successful in improving life for all.

I left the area, partly due to advice that another dose of dengue would have very serious results, if it didn't kill me outright.

Yes I could easily hate greenies. If ever I was going to bother hating anyone, it most definitely would be greenies.

When insurance companies start having Ebola exclusions,you know they have done their serious risk assessments. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/insurance-now-has-ebola-exclusions-2014-10

Last week CNN were reporting 10,000 cases in Africa with 4000 deaths. Now we hear a possible 200,000 cases worldwide with 10,000 deaths. They were saying numbers are doubling every month.If there are 200,000 cases, were are all in deep trouble.

Some good news..
Australia Closes Borders to Ebola affected Countries
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-shuts-borders-to-ebolaaffected-countries-20141027-11ciut.html#ixzz3HRoUE29U

Hullo Agronomist. Thank you for your response. It did not actually address the main concern, which is, as Boyle and many others have pointed out, that the virus has been genetically manipulated to become a bioweapon. Regardless of whether the patent remain valid, it begs the question of why would they genetically manipulate the virus in the first place. It is, as you point out, seen in fruit bats, but that is only one version. The US (and no doubt others) have also weaponised anthrax which again raises some obvious questions.

As to your comments on the wider population question it is not a matter that I raised in either of my comments. As a former demographer I would claim some expertise on the question, but it is not something that can be discussed with much utility within OLO's word limits. As a general proposition however, I would support health measures that decrease morbidity and mortality. The short term outcome would be a population increase in those countries, but as the demographic transition experience of Europe and later elsewhere shows, there is a consequential effect on birth rates. The bigger problem in my view is one of widely disparate levels of development and the grossly unequal distribution of wealth. The issues are, in short, inextricably linked.

James O'Neill, the claim by Boyle and others as stated by you here is clearly impossible.

Ebola would be a useless bioweapon. The only mode of transmission is close contact with a sufferer who is showing symptoms of the disease. It lasts only a short time on surfaces and cannot be transmitted through the air - except perhaps on particles of vomit - and certainly no distance through the air.

As such it will be orders of magnitude greater risk to those handling the virus compared with those on the receiving end.

The only practical way of creating an epidemic would be to fire large numbers of fruit bats at people.