Ebola — They're Not Telling Us Everything, Pt 1: Purdue Researcher — Ebola Virus Could Spread By Air

David Sanders, an associate professor of biological
sciences at Purdue University. (Photo provided)

By Mikel Livingston
Echoing an oft-repeated mantra these days concerning the spread of Ebola, a medical expert testified at a congressional hearing last month that it's "incredibly unlikely" the virus will mutate to become airborne.

"A virus that doesn't replicate, doesn't mutate," Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health, the federal government's top medical research agency, told members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs subcommittee Sept. 17.

Not quite, countered a Purdue University medical researcher.

David Sanders, an associate professor of biological sciences, said that to discount the virus' potential to become airborne is dangerous.

"I don't want people to get worried right now, but for people to say there's zero chance is simply incorrect," Sanders said. "It's not something to be dismissed."

[...]

[Sanders] says its medically inaccurate and disingenuous... to dismiss research showing that Ebola could actually mutate to become airborne.

"I can't put a number on it, but I can tell you it's a non-zero number," Sanders said of the odds of Ebola spreading through the air. "The longer it persists, the more cases there are, the more likely it is."

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