Ebola is a lousy bioweapon. Fear is much more effective.

What about “suicide sneezers,” you may ask? Someone who deliberately infects herself with Ebola and then proceeds to pass it on to others?

That’s a losing game for the terrorist. Someone with Ebola isn’t infectious until she has symptoms, and even then, there is often only a small window for action before the disease takes hold. Many people who contract Ebola do so while caring for someone who is crippled by the affliction. A terrorist who wants to infect others isn’t likely to be functional enough to run around spreading the disease for very long—and even then, will find it hard to transmit the virus.

As for conspiracies about engineered Ebola, we know the virus appeared in 1976. The 1970s was also a time when genetic engineering was in its infancy—no one could’ve engineered a virus, even if he’d wanted to. Short of a time-traveling bioterrorist, that particular theory isn’t tenable.