Re: Why is this left out of the Ebola discussion in mass media?

This just shows your ignorance when comparing natural and organic to synthetic substances. They are not equivalent on a molecular level, one is a biological substance that the human body can recognize and the other is "a compound which is made artificially through chemical reactions." Which is viewed as a foreign substance to the biological systems of the human body.

Here a make-up company makes an excellent differentiation.
"What is a Practical View of Natural and Synthetic Substances?

Synthetic substances can best be understood as existing on a continuum (see Fig.1). Some chemical reactions occur naturally after minimal human input, such as enzymatic browning. This chemical reaction turns the surface of a cut apple brown in a few minutes because of a chemical reaction called enzymatic oxidative browning:

Phenolic enzymes (phenolases) join with tannins -à oxidation of phenols found in the apples-à melanines formed (brown or grey-black pigments)

Who would claim, however, that the resulting chemical changes transformed the cut apple slice into a synthetic food or that melanin, a pigment, is as synthetic as artificial pigments like acrylic? Contrast this with the creation of artificial sweeteners like Aspartame or saccharin. These substances are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, and are created through chemical reactions. They have no similar counterpart in nature and should be placed on the upper range of the synthetic continuum. Saccharin, for instance, is made from petroleum products and Aspartame is made by combining aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. Whether or not a chemical reaction has occurred, then, is not a reliable indicator to separate synthetics from natural substances since chemical reactions are part of the natural realm.

Human labour or skill is also not a differentiating factor between a synthetic or natural substance, simply because we can re-create and set-up conditions for naturally occurring reactions to take place. Baking cookies is an example of a product which does not exist in nature unless human labour and skill set up the conditions for a series of chemical reactions to occur in the oven to yield cookies. For instance, baking soda is one of the oldest leavening agents used in baking:

baking soda + acid (lactic acid found in milk, benzoic acid s from fruits, etc) ---water--> salt + carbonic acid
carbonic acid ----- dissociates --> water + carbon dioxide

This is an example of a chemical reaction which is technically synthetic because of the addition of human skill, but is clearly viewed as natural since it contributes to a product viewed as natural and because the final results of the reaction are naturally occurring substances.

In the cosmetics industry, hundreds of ingredients are used to impose various effects on the skin. These ingredients range from purely natural ingredients extracted from nature in their original condition, to purely synthetic ingredients which have been created from synthetics through a complex series of chemical reactions and have no connection to nature any longer. So how is a consumer to decide which ingredients are natural and which are synthetic?

Every chemical reaction has three parts, and each prompts a series of questions to help us decide:

reactants ----- + -------- catalyst/energy process ----------> products"
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