Ebola

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Artificial antibodies (vaccines) offer less protection than evolved.

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I really suggest you read up on the immune system. Vaccines are not antibodies. They present antigens -- characteristic proteins found on pathogens -- to the immune system, and thereby teach the body to generate antibodies against those antigens. You retain immunity against infection because you have cells (memory B cells) that are genetically wired to produce a particular antibody for that virus. Immunity from infection is often stronger and longer-lasting than immunity from a vaccine, especially if the vaccine presents only a small number of antigens (in contrast to a live-virus vaccine, which uses a weakened form of the virus itself to trigger the immune system).Rather than vaccinating, you can also directly give antibodies to someone who has been exposed to a virus, as a short-term way to prime their immune system. That's why convalescent serum is being given to Ebola patients (natural antibodies from recovered Ebola patients), and that's what ZMapp is (artificially generated antibodies against Ebola). But this does not give long-lasting immunity.

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A look at other studies shows a discussion of an exponential decline over time, which I would expect absent any (re)infection, but a retained arsenal against future infection.

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Please point to one of those studies that shows long-term immune capability resulting from maternal antibodies.

Good summary of the state of the outbreak from the Economist.

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Of course. But you should wonder why they eat disease-ridden bushmeat.

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With things like AIDS and earlier outbreaks of Ebola, why are people still engaging in this risky behavior?

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Sorry, but this is ridiculous for multiple reasons. First, people eat bushmeat because they're hungry. They want to survive. So they eat what's available. It's really not very complicated.Second, bushmeat isn't any more disease-ridden than wild game elsewhere in the world. In the US, you can get rabies, hantavirus, trichinosis, plague and tularemia from wild game. American hunters are also exposed to all kinds of nasty disease just by being in the woods, including Lyme disease, EEE and West Nile. And American hunters are rarely flirting with starvation -- so why do they keep engaging in this risky behavior?Third, the risk to those who hunt or eat bushmeat is actually quite low. There have only been a few tens of known transmissions of Ebola and a handful for HIV, spread over decades and hundreds of millions of people.

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Of course now I expect you to present me with the infection rates in the U.S. from wild game.

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No, no, you go first. I wouldn't want to distract from your presentation of the data showing that Africa has higher infection rates in wild game than other regions, and that those infection rates pose a greater threat than malnutrition to the individuals involved.

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Don't forget to mention any diseases that became human-human transmissible and have spread across the globe creating regional epidemics and killing large numbers of people.

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Why would I want to mention those? You were asking why people eat bushmeat. Very few people pay a lot of attention to distant consequences of their actions. That goes for Africans eating bats and Americans driving cars.

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You will also have to show me the relevant laws regarding bushmeat and demonstrate how they are similar to the laws in U.S. states regarding game.

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Huh?

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Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just the (un)luck of the draw for these poor African folk. Or perhaps cultural failings really do play a significant role in the acquisition and spread of these diseases along with the inability to stop them.

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Maybe you're right, and eating whatever is available when you're hungry is a cultural failing. Or maybe you're trying to find a simplistic answer that fits comfortably with prior beliefs about people and culture.Look, eating when you're hungry isn't a cultural failing. No doubt the for it takes in West Africa results in part from cultural factors, but so does every other human behavior. Humans hunt bats, they drive cars, they smoke cigarettes, they carry handguns, they cut funding for public health readiness, they jump out of airplanes. They do lots of things that carry risk for themselves and for others, and they all involve cultural practices and values. I've seen nothing to indicate that, given the actual situation most Guineans find themselves in, eating bushmeat was irrational. But you don't seem interested in discussing what their actual options were, or what the tradeoffs might be. You just seem to want to find a reason to dismiss the epidemic as their fault.

You want us to believe that there is a big difference between hunting game in the US and bushmeat consumption in West Africa. If you didn't want to support this claim, then you shouldn't have made it.

Here's a piece on bushmeat and Ebola that has a reasonable, balanced view of the subject, and provides some relevant facts.

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It doesn't seem to me that it offers any more information than we already have in the discussion.

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It offers links to evidence on the amount of bushmeat consumed and its importance to people living at the edge of subsistence, and provides a clear statement of why simply banning the practice will have no effect and why effectively ending it is extremely difficult.Anyhow, if you have any practical ideas about how to build effective state institutions in West Africa, develop better, sustainable agriculture there and (re)construct their health care and public health systems, have it.