Let’s say you have ebola.
There’s at least a 50% chance that you’re going to die a horrible domino effect of shutting down organ systems as you hemhorrage from every orifice you own (sorryboutit). And there’s no official known cure yet. Whatchya gonna do? Well, the answer for a couple missionaries visiting over in Africa was to bring it back home. To be fair here, though, I can honestly say I’m not certain which I’d rather have a religious zealot bring to my door:
Their dogma – or ebola.
(Yep. I choose bloody goop demise.)
While I’ve been working that hypothetical ultimatum out in my mind, a new vaccine has been researched – with the focus on our apey cousins and, of course, lab rats. What they’ve brewed up thus far is a viral particle based vaccine. Unlike other vaccines, we can’t just shove bits of attenuated ebola into our bodies because of the potential for it to replicate. Since this thing’s so brutal, there’s no “safe amount”. Thus, they instead came up with a “virus-like particle” that had no chance of Trojan horsing us. This sounded good. It also looked good in ape application. Both macaques, chimps, and mice gave the thumbs up of not getting dead after injected with it and exposed to ebola.
Indeed, the potion’s progress looks so promising, it’s meant to go to trial in September.
Obviously, the tinfoil hat part of me is going all Keanu-meme stoner logic, wondering – what if they concocted this story about welcoming home infected missionaries ridden with a cureless disease to monger fear? I mean, every few months Ebola trends just enough to terrify us before being supplanted with Sapphic Vanilla Ice. And now that Africa’s coming to America – not in the cute comedy kinda way, but in a they’re-coming-to-get-you-Barbara kinda way – the only solution to prevent catching it is right on time: hot off the press from Groom Lake to your veins (or subcu., whatever) and going for first trials in a month.
Then, the other part of me (that’s no more sane than the other) wonders, that’s great and all – but why’d they bring the sickos back here in the first place? Why not say eff you and the hearse you rode in on – let Jesus take the wheel of it? Can we still just throw them to the lions?
Sigh.
So many questions and so little time to answer them before we all drown in sanguine agony and go to hell for not accepting one human dude who was cool but not god as our golden ticket to the magical Wonka factory in the sky.
