Mother Abigal may have been a scientist with the CDC and first started posting about Ebola in 2003 and then other pandemics. She had real-time information on virus outbreaks and is believed to be the first person to post about them on a “regular” website (Freerepublic). She may have retired around 2019 (from the interview iirc).
She used FreeRepublic because her simple home computer with poor internet connection was easy to use on FR and she ran into issues trying to post on the various medical blogs with advertisements, etc.
The following link has all of her posts on FR.
https://freerepublic.com/tag/by:motherabigail/index?brevity=brief
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The following is a good James Oscars post (the interviewing in the title link) about MA:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788553/posts
Excerpt:
THE TRANSFORMATION
This is the way the world ends Not with a bang, but a whimper T. S. Eliot
It was the Ides of March, late in the night - on the hottest conservative forum on the Internet - that she appeared.
In an obscure section of that web site she posted a cryptically titled thread, made a comment about Ebola, a comment about God and then posted an advisory about a “worldwide health threat.”...
19. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF SARS? ONE VIRUS, TWO VIRUSES WORKING IN CONCERT, OR A DETERMINANT UNKNOWN...
20. Killer-flu a ‘white terror’: Expert, “It is the worst medical disaster I have ever seen....
- and over the next eleven days guided both lay and professionals, transformed the web site, crushed the paradigm and changed the way we interface with breaking news forever....
It became apparent quite early that this was not to be the normal flu talk. This is an early post:
“Doug had an interesting observation in picking a Morbillivirus as a likely agent.
Hendra and Nipah are both zoonotic and it might well be a mutant of the Paramyxoviridae family. Symptoms are right....
52 posted on 03/17/2003 10:49:23 PM PST by Mother Abigail”
And so it began.
Why was this different? Because local MD’s discovered ProMed, because an army of netizens began searching every corner of our world for information, because citizens of other countries began translating information that would normally be missed - because the whole was larger than the sum of the parts.
One poster who tried to write about Mother Abigail soon after the incident, and was quickly banned, called it SARS Central.
Sounds right to me.
She hijacked a web site, created a forum for the “in depth” discussion of Virology, Taxonomy and Microbiology. But interactive.
And it is that interactivity that opened the flood gates. Now it was possible to monitor breaking news in a far off land, have experts opine on that news, react to their opinions and post information of your own.
NBC Nightly News was never going to be the same.
The “Flu Blog” was born.
DENOUEMENT
Eleven days. From March the 15th to March the 26 she posted, wrote and guided. Then with the same grace and dignity that marked every word she ever wrote - she said goodby.
“It appears I have worked myself out of a job.”
Many of you are now posting threads on SARS, and the information seems to be flowing in an accurate and timely manner.
So I will take this opportunity to thank all the posters for their hard work and diligence.
NOTE: I have tried to answer all the e-mails, except of course, the many that asked for personal information. Hope I was of some help
Stay Strong, Come and see me and - bring all your nice friends.......
20 posted on 03/26/2003 8:12:57 PM PST by Mother Abigail”
Some help indeed....
Mother Abigail had become, in the wink of an eye, the focal point for much praise and some derision. Then she was gone.
A year or so later she began posting, from time to time, on various web sites - always modest - never speaking of those days again.
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She continued posting off and on at FR with regards to viruses, etc. Her last posts on FR were in 2012 regarding Ebola.
Fascinating. Great info. Thanks for sharing.