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23 travelers being monitored for Ebola after trip to Africa, Washington officials say. Washington was considered ground zero for COVID-19 in the U.S., and now 23 travelers from the state are being monitored for another deadly contagious virus: Ebola. The travelers recently returned from the West African countries of Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo — where there are outbreaks of the deadly virus — according to a news release from the state's Department of Health. The risk of Ebola coming to the United States remains "extremely low," according to a news release last month from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention. Ohio health officials monitoring 44 residents for exposure to Ebola in Africa. Health officials are monitoring 44 Ohioans who may have had exposure to Ebola after returning from areas of Africa with active outbreaks. [...] The World Health Organization has confirmed the first confirmed cases of Ebola since the outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 that killed more than 11,000 people. On Feb. 14, WHO declared an Ebola outbreak in Guinea after three fatal Ebola cases were confirmed in the the rural community of Gouéké in N'Zerekore prefecture. Guinea was one of the three hardest-hit countries during the last outbreak, the largest since Ebola was first discovered in 1976. The virus emerged in Guinea and ultimately infected more than 28,000 people in that country and in Sierra Leone and Liberia before the emergency was lifted in March 2016. Remember When Obama Scolded Cuomo Over Ebola? "More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing," said Barack Obama during an online commencement address to graduates of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in mid-May. Obama was referring to the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 business. Obama's claim then, and has been ever since, that the Trump administration has been encouraging Americans to do "what feels good, what's convenient, what's easy" rather than imposing a draconian nationwide lockdown. In fall 2014, however, it was Obama who was scolding America's governors, Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo most notably, for being too restrictive in their handling of the Ebola outbreak. Not surprisingly, the media took Obama's side. During his famously "scandal-free" eight years, just about every move Obama made was the right one. Democrat or not, if he tangled with Obama, even Cuomo was wrong. Ebola 'no longer incurable' as Congo trial finds drugs boost survival. Scientists are a step closer to being able to cure the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever after two experimental drugs showed survival rates of as much as 90% in a clinical trial in Congo. Bolivia: Ebola virus kills doctors, infects others. The South American country has received international support to identify the disease, allegedly caused by a virus that would have infected at least five other people. Bolivia has activated its sanitary protocols after several people fell ill in that country due to a still unknown disease. At least five suspected cases of infection are reported for what is presumed to be a virus, which caused the death of a doctor a little less than a month ago. Texas Medical Professional: Migrants Quarantined with Unknown Disease. A medical professional on the border in Texas told Big League Politics that the crisis is reaching fever pitch, with three individuals now quarantined at a privately-owned hospital in El Paso with an unknown disease. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not even been able to identify the disease the three migrants have, as the military guards the quarantine area. "There were some Congolese people caught crossing the border, it was suspected they had Ebola. In one facility there are three patients being held because they don't know what they have. The CDC have been here to assess them. They are isolated, they only have certain specialists who can see them," the medical professional tells Big League Politics. "We've had an outbreak of mumps over here." "What scares me is what happens if we someone come over here with Ebola. We only need one person, and there's a pandemic." Porous border could hinder efforts to stem spread of Ebola. Eastern Congo has battled the Ebola outbreak since last August and last week the disease spread to Uganda, where two people died of the hemorrhagic fever. "This border is very porous," said James Mwanga, a Ugandan police officer in charge of the Mpondwe border post. U.S. Cities Overwhelmed With Numbers of Illegal Migrants Arriving From Ebola-Stricken Countries. Some U.S. cities are becoming overwhelmed with the number of illegal African migrants arriving from Ebola-stricken countries, with Portland Maine complaining that they are beyond capacity. Large groups of migrants are arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been hit by one of the biggest ebola outbreaks in history, with 2,000 recorded cases in the last 10 months. Ebola cases explode in Congo. In Congo, the ebola epidemic is back. Axios has a disturbing chart showing a sharp arc upward based on Congolese government data. Total cases have gone to from virtually nothing last August to 2,031 now — and the data suggest that the trend has not peaked. That's news, because right now, Congolese migrants have begun crossing our unguarded southern border in large numbers. Congo Ebola deaths surpass 1,000 as attacks on treatment centres go on. The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in Congo rose above 1,000 on Friday, with attacks on treatment centres continuing to hamper efforts to control the "intense transmission" of the second-worst epidemic of the virus on record. 1 dead after attack on hospital in Ebola outbreak, UN says. The World Health Organization's director-general says "a dear colleague" is dead after an attack on a hospital at the epicenter of a deadly Ebola outbreak. Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has killed nearly 700 people is spreading at its fastest rate yet. The deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading faster than ever, health officials have warned. Data shows 73 people were struck down with the killer virus last week — the highest weekly toll since the start of the outbreak last August. And more cases are being diagnosed outside of areas where health workers are, suggesting officials are losing control of the battle to contain it. 1 in 4 people near Congo's Ebola outbreak believe virus isn't real, new study says. A quarter of people interviewed in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo last year during the ongoing Ebola outbreak believed the deadly virus wasn't real, according to a new study. A survey was conducted last September, one month after the country declared its 10th outbreak of the Ebola virus disease. Researchers interviewed 961 adults in the cities of Beni and Butembo in the North Kivu province, which is at the epicenter of the active outbreak. More than 25 percent of respondents said they believed rumors Ebola doesn't exist. Attacks against Congo's Ebola treatment centers threaten gains. Attacks on Ebola treatment centers in eastern Congo threaten to reverse the gains being made against the current outbreak of the deadly virus, the director-general of the World Health Organization said Thursday [3/14/2019] as a fourth assault on a health center was reported. Nearly 100 children dead as world's 2nd-largest Ebola outbreak surpasses 800 cases. The second-largest, second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has claimed the lives of nearly 100 children. At least 97 children, 65 of whom were younger than 5 years old, have died from Ebola virus disease in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since the outbreak was declared there Aug. 1, according to a press release from Save the Children, a charity supporting the fight against the current epidemic. U.S. urged to send experts to Congo as Ebola crisis worsens. Global health experts are urging the Trump administration to allow U.S. government disease specialists — "some of the world's most experienced" — to return to northeastern Congo to help fight the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, and the worst ever for Congo. The U.S. experts have been sidelined for weeks, ordered away from the region because of State Department security concerns. Two top medical journals this week have published commentaries calling on the U.S. to change its mind and send them back where they are sorely needed. Ebola in Congo now infecting newborn babies, UN says. The World Health Organization says a worrying number of the newest Ebola cases amid Congo's ongoing outbreak are in patients not usually known to catch the disease: babies. Congo ministry says Ebola outbreak worst in nation's history. Congo's latest Ebola outbreak is the worst in the country's recorded history with 319 confirmed and probable cases, the health ministry said [11/9/2018]. Possibly related: Congo rebels kill 13, abduct children at Ebola treatment center. Congolese rebels killed 13 civilians and abducted a dozen children in an attack at the center of the latest deadly Ebola outbreak, Congo's military said Sunday [10/21/2018], as the violence threatened to again force the suspension of crucial virus containment efforts. Ebola experts pulled from Congo amid ongoing outbreak. Personnel from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who have been stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help control the ongoing Ebola outbreak have been pulled back from the worst impacted areas due to safety concerns, a US government official familiar with the situation told CNN Monday [10/15/2018]. "They are not in any hot spots," the official said. Since this most recent outbreak began on August 1, there have been 211 cases of Ebola, including 135 deaths as of Sunday [10/14/2018], WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic confirmed. Congo Ebola Outbreak Nears 'Tipping Point' as Death Toll Hits 125. An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is threatening to spiral out of control as overstretched health workers contend with armed rebels and a distrustful local population. Authorities have recorded 200 total cases and 125 deaths since the outbreak began Aug. 1 in the northeastern part of the country, according to World Health Organization figures released Friday [10/12/2018]. Congo approves more experimental Ebola treatments as cases rise. Democratic Republic of Congo has approved four more experimental treatments against the deadly Ebola virus, the health ministry said as it raced to contain an outbreak in its violence-torn east. New Ebola outbreak declared in the Congo, this time in a war zone. The World Health Organization is responding to another outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just a week after a previous outbreak was officially declared over. Health officials contain Ebola's spread in the Congo. Health officials have finished tracking down every person in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who was at risk for becoming infected with Ebola, the World Health Organization announced Friday [7/6/2018]. Medical teams in the Congo followed up with more than 20,000 people as of June 27 to make sure they safely made it out of the 21-day incubation period without developing symptoms of the illness, which can be deadly. DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city. The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control. Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga confirmed a case in Mbandaka, a city of a million about 130 km (80 miles) from where the first cases were confirmed. The city is a major transportation hub with routes to the capital Kinshasa. At least 44 people are thought to have been infected with ebola and 23 deaths are being investigated. New Ebola outbreak causes fatalities as disease enters 'new phase'. A new case of the deadly virus Ebola has been detected in city of Mbandaka in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a city in the north-west of the country with a population of around 1 million people. The country's Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga stated late on Wednesday [5/16/2018] that the nation's Ebola outbreak had now entered a "new phase". The latest outbreak is believed to have killed 23 people so far in the country. New Ebola Outbreak Strikes the Congo. An Ebola outbreak has been declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo after 17 people have succumbed to the virus. Ebola survivors in Liberia demand prosecutions for fraud and corruption that cost lives. Faith Sayeh blamed the Red Cross for the death of her husband and two children during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that claimed thousands of lives [in Monrovia]. "I lost my husband and two sons because there were no health workers to give them treatment," the teary-eyed widow said. "It pains me a lot that people were dying every day not because there was no money but because the money that was meant to hire more health workers went to individuals' pockets." Red Cross: $6 million for Ebola fight stolen through fraud. Fraud by Red Cross workers and others wasted more than $6 million meant to fight the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the organization confirmed Saturday [11/4/2017]. Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, officials scramble to control virus' spread. Global health officials are monitoring a possible resurgence of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo amid reports of an outbreak of the feared contagion near the country's northern border. Public health officials in the DRC have reported at least 43 cases of suspected Ebola and four deaths. While only two of the cases have been positively confirmed in a laboratory to be Ebola, experts at the World Health Organization and the United States' Center for Disease Control and Prevention are closely monitoring the situation and teams are already in the isolated region in an attempt to contain the outbreak. Ebola death toll in remote Congo likely has risen to 4, WHO says. A fourth person has likely died from Ebola in remote northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo during the most recent outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday [5/21/2017]. The overall number of cases is now at 37 from 29. Trump Ends Obama's African Ebola Amnesty. In a refreshing move, the Trump administration is eliminating one of Barack Obama's many outrageous amnesty initiatives, this one involving illegal immigrants from African countries affected by the Ebola virus a few years ago. The Ebola amnesty scandal got buried in the hoopla of the administration's broad executive order protecting millions of illegal alien Mexicans and Central Americans, but it was just as alarming. Launched in 2014, the Ebola reprieve was issued separately — and quietly — via a Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian program that's supposed to be short-term. Under the plan, the administration designated Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone for TPS for 18 months. That's how it always starts — for a short period of time then it grows into years. Before you know it, illegal aliens who benefit from TPS for humanitarian reasons are legal residents enjoying all the generous perks — free education, food stamps, medical care etc. — that Uncle Sam has to offer. Why Do Leftists Hate America? Remember when leftists cheered Obama for allowing people from Ebola-infected countries into the U.S.? Finally, pressure from the American people forced Obama to invoke a commonsense travel ban. Still, leftists accused Americans of being racist [villains] for desiring to keep the deadly disease out of our country. Why? U.S. Illegally Dispensed $60 Mil to Combat African Ebola Crisis, Money Keeps Flowing. In its crusade to tackle the Ebola crisis in Africa the Obama administration violated its own laws by frantically doling out tens of millions of dollars to leftist groups that claimed they could help control the virus from spreading in the continent's western region. Congress dedicated a breathtaking $2.5 billion to deal with Africa's Ebola crisis but the funds came with rules to keep the allocation process in check and they were repeatedly violated, according to a federal audit made public this month. At least $60 million was fraudulently dispersed to nongovernmental organizations and other efforts without the proper steps to assure the American taxpayer funds were going to valid groups and causes. British Ebola nurse 'concealed temperature' on return from Sierra Leone: media. A Scottish nurse who contracted then recovered from Ebola is facing disciplinary action over allegations she concealed her temperature on her return from Sierra Leone, according to charges from a nursing watchdog seen by British media. Pauline Cafferkey, 39, contracted Ebola in December 2014 when she was working in a treatment facility in Sierra Leone at the height of the epidemic which swept through West Africa. Why Hasn't Disease Wiped out the Human Race? "You'll tell us when you're worried, right?" That was the question posed to me countless times at the height of the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak. As an infectious disease physician, I was interviewed on outlets such as CNN, NPR, and Fox News about the dangers of the virus, and the answer I gave was always the same: "Ebola is a deadly, scary disease, but it is not that contagious. It will not find the U.S. or other industrialized nations hospitable." In other words, no, I wasn't worried — and not because I have a rosy outlook on infectious diseases. I'm well-aware of the damage these diseases are causing around the world: HIV, malaria, tuberculosis; the influenza pandemic that took the world by surprise in 2009; the anti-vaccine movement bumping cases of measles to an all-time post-vaccine-era high; antibiotic-resistant bacteria threatening to collapse the entire structure of modern medicine — all these, like Ebola, are continuously placing an enormous number of lives at risk. Is Ebola Hiding in the Eyes of Survivors? Ian Crozier was treating Ebola patients in Kenema, Sierra Leone, when he contracted the virus in September 2014. Often considered the sickest person to ever survive Ebola, Crozier was evacuated to Emory University hospital, where he spent 40 days in an isolation unit, much of it in a coma. After he was released, the virus left him with severe joint and back pain, hearing and memory loss, and extreme fatigue. IG: During Outbreak, DHS Admitted 'Diplomats, UN Workers, U.S. Gov't Employees' from Ebola-Affected Countries Without Screening. A recent oversight report by the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) inspector general found that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, "Diplomats, United Nations workers, U.S. Government employees, or other dignitaries were not thoroughly scrutinized or were incorrectly assumed to be exempt from Ebola screening" by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The DHS Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Audit Division confirmed to CNSNews.com via email that some of these dignitaries "were allowed back into the US from Ebola-affected countries without screening." Medical officials in Liberia monitor 153 people after Ebola re-emerges. Liberia has placed 153 people under surveillance for Ebola after three new cases emerged in the West African nation this past week, months after it had twice before been declared free of the disease. World Health Organizations (WHO) investigators were working to unlock the mystery of how a new cluster of cases emerged in Monrovia because there was no evidence yet of the usual factors, such as contact with a person suffering from Ebola, handling remains of an Ebola victim or traveling to a region where the virus is prevalent, said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for WHO. Bad Government Thrives on Our Irrational Fears. [Scroll down] I got into an argument about that with the hosts of the Fox show "Outnumbered," which pits one man against four women in debate. The "Outnumbered" hosts are not the usual silly socialist media alarmists. They often report on the harm big government does. But last summer, with government warning about Ebola being an "incredibly transmissible" disease and media shrieking, "Are hospitals ready?" all four women were alarmed. They wanted government to do something. Quarantine? Ban flights from Africa? Hire more doctors? Government must do something! [...] I told the TV hosts that I believed more Americans would be killed by deer than Ebola. They laughed at me, but I was serious, and in fact, that year only one American died from Ebola, but almost 200 were killed by deer (most from their cars colliding with deer). Nurse quarantined over Ebola fears sues Gov. Chris Christie. The health care worker who sharply criticized being quarantined at a New Jersey hospital last year because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa said in a lawsuit filed Thursday [10/22/2015] that Gov. Chris Christie and the state health department illegally held her against her will. So much for using a transfusion from an Ebola survivor as a treatment. Texas hospital wasn't prepared to handle patients with Ebola virus, report say. The Texas hospital that treated the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola was not adequately prepared for a patient with the deadly virus and stumbled because of communication failures, an independent review released Friday [9/4/2015] found. Remember Ebola? For several weeks last fall, America was on high-alert as the largest outbreak in the history of Ebola hit West Africa, leading to four cases of infection here in the States. [...] The head of the CDC, Thomas Frieden, insisted that Ebola couldn't come to America. And it did. Frieden then insisted that Ebola could not possibly spread in America. And it did. Frieden then dissembled, in a serial manner, about quarantines, travel bans, and the disease's modes of transmission. Update: The Ebola Gamble: How Public Health Authorities Put Reassurance Before Protection. here was a peculiar moment during a news segment last fall, at the height of the Ebola scare in the United States, between the nation's two most recognizable medical figures. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's household-name medical correspondent, was standing next to Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in front of CDC headquarters in Atlanta on October 1. Frieden assures Gupta that if one of them had Ebola, the other would be at no risk of infection: "It's not like the flu, not like the common cold. It requires direct physical contact." A CNN anchor interjects: "But if he sneezes on you, it's a different story." Ebola Could Be Back. Just about a year ago, an outbreak of the deadly disease started jumping borders. Just about everybody freaked out. Only a handful of cases made it to American shores. And, mostly what people worried about sounded more like the stuff out of a Hollywood movie. Still, there were legitimate concerns. What was scarier was a White House response that was slow and wrong-headed. Not much of a confidence builder for folks worried about mass death. Connecticut city paid $30G to settle Ebola fears lawsuit over 7-year-old girl. The insurance carrier for a Connecticut city paid $30,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of a third-grader who was barred from school for several days because of Ebola fears. How we beat the Ebola epidemic. Last year, a devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed thousands. Today, the disease is under control. Front-line doctors blame UN for delayed Ebola response. The medical organization that sounded the first alarm about the deadly outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa last year has once again blasted the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) for refusing to recognize the epidemic's magnitude, downplaying its rapid spread, and failing to take the lead in the battle against the disease even after it was well under way. Emails reveal WHO delayed declaring Ebola emergency due to political considerations. WHO has acknowledged acting too slowly to control the Ebola epidemic. 10 Americans [who were] Possibly Exposed to Ebola [are] Returning to [the] US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is bringing back 10 additional Americans from Sierra Leone who were possibly exposed to Ebola. None of the 10 people are sick, the CDC said today [3/14/2015], but they all had contact with an American who tested positive for Ebola and was admitted to the National Institutes of Health earlier this week. Dr. Nancy Snyderman Out at NBC News. NBC News chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman is leaving the network. Snyderman announced today [3/12/2015] that she is leaving NBC News to take a faculty position at a medical school. Snyderman made headlines last year when she violated her quarantine after possible exposure to Ebola. She apologized on the "Today" show after a prolonged absence from the network. Free of Ebola but not fear. The 26-year-old nurse says she has nightmares, body aches and insomnia as a result of contracting the disease from a patient she cared for last fall at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. She says the hospital and its parent company, Texas Health Resources, failed her and her colleagues who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States diagnosed with Ebola. Most Surprising Allegations in Ebola Nurse Nina Pham's Lawsuit. The Dallas nurse who survived Ebola after catching it from her patient last fall may have smiled for the cameras during the harrowing ordeal, but now she's saying the hospital put its reputation above her needs. Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, caught Ebola from her patient, Liberian native Thomas Eric Duncan, who later died from the disease. Although Pham became the face of the hospital's public relations campaign after the hospital turned into "a ghost town," she sued its parent company, Texas Health Resources, today [3/2/2015] in Dallas. She did not specify the damages she's seeking. PolitiFact's Lie of the Year of 2014 falls apart only two months later. In October, the columnist George Will directly contradicted the president and a variety of federal health officials when he insisted that the African hemorrhagic fever Ebola could spread via fluids expectorated as a result of a cough or a sneeze. The president's honor had been called into question, an offense that Rudy Giuliani recently discovered the press simply cannot countenance. Even despite the fact that a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poster backed up Will's warning, PolitiFact dubbed his and other alleged exaggerations of the threat posed by Ebola as their LOTY. Crowds attack Ebola facility, health workers in Guinea. Crowds destroyed an Ebola facility and attacked health workers in central Guinea on rumors that the Red Cross was planning to disinfect a school, a government spokesman said on Saturday [2/14/2015]. Red Cross teams in Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the organization said this week, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease. Dr. Nancy "I Want Soup" Snyderman Lectures Us About Public Health. As you probably recall, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, chief medical editor for NBC News, traveled to Liberia last year, where she was in contact with a freelance photographer who had been exposed to Ebola. When she returned to New Jersey, she was quarantined for 21 days... well, that is, until she was spotted outside a restaurant, getting herself some soup. As Ebola fades, questions arise over billions in US aid. Aid officials say a surge of international support since last fall has helped contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but as U.S.-built clinics sit dormant amid a fading health crisis, the question remains: what happens to the billions of dollars' worth of U.S. resources committed to the region? Less than half [of] $2.9 [billion in] Ebola money reached affected countries — UN study. Almost $2.9 [billion] (£1.92 [billion]) was pledged by the end of 2014 in donations to fight west Africa's Ebola epidemic, yet only about 40% had actually reached affected countries, researchers have said. A study by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that tracked international donations showed barely $1.09 [billion] had reached the worst affected countries by the end of last year, they said. U.S.-built Ebola treatment centers in Liberia are nearly empty as outbreak fades. Near the hillside shelter where dozens of men and women died of Ebola, a row of green U.S. military tents sit atop a vast expanse of imported gravel. The generators hum; chlorinated water churns in brand-new containers; surveillance cameras send a live feed to a large-screen television. There's only one thing missing from this state-of-the-art Ebola treatment center: Ebola patients. The CDC's Severe Case of Mission Confusion. With flu raging through 46 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking center stage, advising the public and physicians. How much can you believe? Until last year, polls showed the CDC was the most trusted federal agency. But then the CDC bungled its response to Ebola. That was a wake up call, because the CDC has been fumbling its most important jobs for several years. The agency has a severe case of mission confusion. UK Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey 'in critical condition'. A British nurse who was diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone is now in a critical condition, the London hospital treating her has said. The Royal Free Hospital said it was "sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days". Ms Cafferkey, from South Lanarkshire, was given an experimental anti-viral drug and blood from disease survivors. Source of Ebola Outbreak in West Africa Might Be Bats, Study Says. The toddler in Guinea who is thought to have been the first case in the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa may have caught the virus from bats in a hollow tree near his village, scientists said Tuesday [12/30/2014]. A study, led by scientists from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and published online by the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, could not prove the link because the tree in Meliandou, a village of 31 houses in the Guéckédou district, burned in late March and the bats inside were immolated or flew off. The CDC At A Glance. The Ebola crisis shined the spotlight on the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency is being criticized for mishandling the Ebola crisis but the CDC has been plagued with problems for years and its incompetence has been tied to its expanding mission. [...] For example, the CDC has programs addressing, chronic diseases such as obesity, environmental health, occupational health and of course infectious disease. The CDC is also involved in behavioral issues including domestic violence, teen dating and bulling. The agency also conducted studies on gun violence and alcohol. CDC reports potential Ebola exposure in Atlanta lab. Researchers studying Ebola in a highly secure laboratory mistakenly allowed potentially lethal samples of the virus to be handled in a much less secure laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, agency officials said Wednesday [12/24/2014]. One technician in the second laboratory may have been exposed to the virus and about a dozen other people have been assessed after entering the facility unaware that potentially hazardous samples of Ebola had been handled there. The great Ebola lie — Outbreak hyped for funding & media attention. The current Ebola outbreak is "the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times," Ian Smith, the World Health Organization's executive director, announced at a mid-October press conference. [...] You've been lied to, folks. For months. In fact, the Ebola epidemic peaked a full month before those press conferences, in mid-September. Says who? The WHO. In its data, which is available to anybody with Internet access. It peaked at the same time the WHO was demanding a billion dollars to prevent the epidemic from getting far worse — and before President Obama pledged $1.26 billion and sent in the troops and the European Union pledged another $1.26 billion. In fact, before almost any outside intervention. PolitiFact's liars of the year: The politicians who played the Ebola fear card. In the weeks that followed [Thomas Eric] Duncan's death, state and local governments reacted — and sometimes overreacted. Several schools barred teachers and children who had visited African countries that were nowhere near the epidemic. In Maine, a teacher was put on leave because she had visited Dallas. And then election-year politics kicked in. American doctor feared to have Ebola to be flown home from West Africa to specialist center. An American health care worker who may have been infected with Ebola has been flown [12/4/2014] to a specialist center in the United States to be tested. The patient, who had been aiding efforts in west Africa, will be monitored at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Mission accomplished! Care for Dallas Ebola patient's dog topped $27K. Since the Ebola crisis first touched down in the U.S., the public has asked what the price tag is for such an emergency response. On Wednesday, Dallas officials publicly revealed it cost the city a total $155,000 to respond to the health crisis of Ebola patients 0 through 2. Dr Nancy Snyderman returns to NBC. NBC News medical correspondent Dr Nancy Snyderman will be back on the network on Wednesday after being shelved for more than a month following a violation of her quarantine for possible Ebola exposure. A network executive said on Tuesday that Snyderman, 62, will report on a medical issue for the Today show and NBC's Nightly News. The story won't be about Ebola. There was some question about whether the veteran medical journalist would ever return to NBC News. The Case for Panic. Not only do I disagree with the constant stream of soothing and complacent rhetoric from Dr. Zeke's friends in government and media. I also believe it is entirely rational to fear the possibility of a major Ebola outbreak, of a threat to the president and his family, of jihadists crossing the border, of a large-scale European or Asian war, of nuclear proliferation, of terrorists detonating a weapon of mass destruction. These dangers are real, and pressing, and though the probability of their occurrence is not high, it is amplified by the staggering incompetence and failure and misplaced priorities of the U.S. government. It is not Ebola I am afraid of. It is our government's ability to deal with Ebola. Here's a suggestion: Stop importing diseases from Africa! White House, Congress Raided Hundreds of Millions from Anti-Bioterrorism Fund. Congress and the Obama White House looked for billions of dollars a few years ago to offset the costs of a legal settlement with black farmers and American Indians, to increase education aid to the states and to develop a vaccine for swine flu. To get those billions, they looked to the same coffer: Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion fund created specifically to prepare America for a bioterrorist attack and develop treatments for deadly viruses such as Ebola. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., warned that the BioShield fund was not supposed to be raided as a source of "Monopoly money for politicians." Millions Promised for Ebola Not Adding Up. [Scroll down] While China has pledged $122 million to the fight, it has thus far only disbursed 7 percent of that number. Of the $265 million pledged by EU Institutions, just 17 percent have reached the epidemic's hot zone. Even private institutions, which most likely have less bureaucratic hurdles to deal with, have been slow to pull the trigger. The Silicon Valley Community Fund has thus far sent 0 percent of the 25 million pledged. At the Google/Larry Page Family Foundation, it's the identical equation. Who Will Pay Ebola Patients' Medical Bills in the U.S.? The arrival of Ebola in the United States this year led to an unprecedented medical response involving experimental drugs, round-the-clock care, and layers upon layers of protective gear. And none of it has been cheap. Nine people have been treated for the virus in the U.S. since August. Seven recovered. The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, which treated one of them, estimates treatment for patients diagnosed with Ebola costs $50,000 a day. Officials at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which cared for two patients, put the daily cost at $30,000, and the total at $1.16 million for a single patient. Most patients have been hospitalized for more than two weeks. Testimony: U.S. Must Be 'Extraordinarily Careful' About Letting Ebola Come Here. "While the media coverage is already decreasing and people maybe feel like that Ebola has peaked, we do not think it has," Ken Isaacs, a vice president of Samaritan's Purse, a told Congress on Tuesday [11/18/2014]. Isaacs said while much has been learned about Ebola, the virus is "sneaky," and it continues to surprise the experts. "And I think that we, as a society, cannot make assumptions that we know what it is and what it will do. I think that we need to be extraordinarily careful about letting it come on to this shore." Brooklyn Woman On Ebola Monitoring List Drops Dead Bleeding From "Face, Mouth, Nose". Just a week after Dr. Craig Spencer was declared 'Ebola-free', The Daily Mail reports a woman, who had arrived from Guinea 18 days ago (and was on the NYC Ebola monitoring list), dropped dead in a Brooklyn hair salon this afternoon [11/18/2014]. FDNY sent their Special Operations and Hazmat units but she was declared dead at the scene. Witnesses said she was bleeding from the "face, nose, mouth, everything." The Editor says... The Truth About Obama's "Temporary" Ebola Amnesty. The same administration that refused to enact travel bans from Ebola-plagued West African nations to protect Americans is now granting "temporary protected status" (TPS) to West Africans on American soil so they don't have to go back. It's not really about public health, of course. It's about political pandering and electoral engineering. Here's the dirty open secret: There's nothing "temporary" about TPS benefits. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the program has become an endless, interminable residency plan for unlawful border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation evaders from around the world. Obama Indemnifies Gov't Contractors From Damages Arising from Importing Ebola to US. President Barack Obama issued a memorandum Thursday protects federal contractors hired to address the Ebola outbreak in West Africa against lawsuits for importing Ebola into the United States. The president's directive gives the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) the authority to indemnify companies from lawsuits related to "contracts performed in Africa in support of USAID's response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa where the contractor, its employees, or subcontractors will have significant exposure to Ebola." Aid agencies 'exploiting Ebola orphans to fund lavish lifestyle in luxury $800-a-night hotels'. Western aid agencies are using the plight of Africa's Ebola orphans to fund a lavish lifestyle in $800-a-night hotels and leaving the children to fend for themselves, according to Liberia's development chief. Children who were forced to watch their parents die and were then shunned by their community are being ignored while useless facilities are being built, according to Julia Duncan-Cassell, Liberia's minister in charge of saving the orphans. 12 Deaths now linked to Enterovirus-D68. As Ebola continues to rage in Africa, one key person seems to be missing in action: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar. [...] However, at least Ebola did attract some mainstream media coverage. That differs from Enterovirus-D68, which has swept through the country and has sent hundreds of American children into emergency rooms with respiratory distress. There has been very limited, local coverage. One of the few who took up the story is Sharryl Attkisson, who now reports that 12 deaths have now been linked to this pathogen. Stop calling me 'the Ebola nurse': Kaci Hickox. I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie's private prison in Newark. I am now past the incubation period — meaning that I will not develop symptoms of Ebola. I never had Ebola, so please stop calling me "the Ebola Nurse" — now! GOP senator asks hearing witnesses what 'Ebola czar' has been doing — and gets answers straight from a Dilbert cartoon. White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain may have become an accidental folk hero to fans of crushing bureaucracy everywhere on Wednesday [11/12/2014], when a U.S. senator asked high-ranking Obama administration officials to describe his work. The vague answers sounded like something plucked out of a Dilbert cartoon. 'Even though the President has named a so-called Ebola "czar" to coordinate our response,' Senate Appropriations Committee ranking Republican Richard Shelby complained, 'all reports indicate that he has no actual authority to direct government agencies here.' Sierra Leone health workers go on strike. Hundreds of health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone. The staff are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly $100 (£63) "hazard payment". A few are still assisting at the clinic. Family of first US Ebola victim reaches 'resolution' with hospital. The family of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola in Dallas, has reached a "resolution" with the hospital that treated him, according to reports. Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan's family has settled with Dallas hospital. After Duncan died, talk of legal action came almost immediately. On Oct. 10, a family representative said Duncan's kin would "probably" file suit. [...] Even the NIH piled on Texas Presbyterian. "Clearly there was a misstep early on when he wasn't diagnosed immediately," said Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Speaking about Duncan, he did add: "I just can't believe that he was deliberately treated in a less well way than others." Ebola emergency is worse than it seems. The World Health Organization tally shows over 5,800 infections and 2,800 deaths. Now, the Centers for Disease Control believes infections will rise to 21,000 by the end of this month and 1.4 million by January 20th. "1.4 million is ... unimaginable, but I keep thinking, 'In December, what if there were 100,000 cases? In December there won't be 100,000 beds in all of these systems,'" Ken Isaacs, vice president of Samaritan's Purse, poses. "So something has to happen to interrupt the transmission rate of the disease." The ministry believes that every person infected with the virus infects another three to five people. The Editor says... 18,000 Kaiser nurses plan strike over Ebola unpreparedness. Some 18,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses in Northern California are planning a two-day strike this week against what they say is unpreparedness in fighting the deadly Ebola virus. The walkout scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday would affect 21 hospitals and 65 clinics owned by Kaiser Permanente, said Charles Idelson, a spokesman for National Nurses United, Bloomberg reported. Kaci Hickox, boyfriend leaving Maine after Ebola quarantine fight. Nurse Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend are leaving Maine next week for parts unknown. Hickox made national headlines last week when she fought efforts to quarantine her in New Jersey and Maine because she had just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Ebola panic starting to fade, poll finds. Americans' fears about Ebola seem to be waning somewhat, though many still believe the virus is a public health threat to the United States, according to a new HealthDay/Harris Poll. The online poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 adults between Oct. 28-30, found that anxiety over Ebola appeared to be declining — even in the wake of the most recent case, involving an infected doctor in New York City. Thanks, Obama! There are Now 357 People Being Monitored for Ebola in NYC. If only we had people in charge who were bright enough to halt flights from Ebola-ravaged countries. Israel Reportedly Bans Travelers From Ebola-Stricken Nation. Israel moved Thursday [[11/6/2014] to close its borders to citizens from several West African nations struggling with Ebola outbreaks, as well as to travelers who recently visited those nations. Three Ways Health Officials And Doctors Fumbled In Communicating Ebola Risk. [#3] Evading hard questions by telling people not to worry because there are more deaths from flu. Other variations on that message tell us that more people die from falls, or traffic accidents, or heart attacks. The comparisons are not useful or informative. We know that few people in the U.S. have been infected so far and all of the current cases involved people who were either in West Africa or had been treating Ebola patients. The flu death toll is not a great point of comparison. The Ebola Presidency. The thing about diseases is that they are absolute wild cards. They cannot be predicted or controlled. They follow their own agenda. Emergent diseases possess immense power: they have destroyed cultures, left great cities to the crows and rats, and stopped entire armies in their tracks. Nor has anyone ever figured out how to exploit them — the major reason why biowarfare has never been used on any scale. Bugs do what they [...] please, and you'd better stay out of their way while they're doing it. Barack Obama doesn't know any of this. As a result of asinine policy borne of multiculturalism and his obsession with third-world immigration, the doors were left open and deadly disease — always overlooked by sophisticated urbanites, familiar with only the mild "childhood" diseases — came roaring in: the result has been the importation of potential epidemic disease into the U.S.: Ebola, enteroviruses, and others. U.S. uniformed officers to treat Ebola patients in Liberia. President Obama has assured Americans that none of the nearly 4,000 U.S. troops heading to Liberia will treat Ebola patients, but 70 uniformed officers of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will. The corps, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, will open a clinic outside the Liberian capital, Monrovia, this weekend and is tasked with treating Liberian doctors and nurses who contract the deadly disease. It is the first time U.S. government personnel have been given that assignment, although all volunteered. Judicial Watch Was Correct on Obama Ebola Report. The White House seems to be trying to back away — at least publicly — from potential plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment. [...] It is unclear who would bear the high costs of transporting and treating non-citizen Ebola patients. The plans reportedly include special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease as dangerous as Ebola. One source tells us that the Obama administration is keeping this plan secret from Congress. The source is concerned that the proposal is illegal, endangers the public health and welfare, and should require the approval of Congress. Mystery: VA Facility Prepares To Take Ebola Patients. A Veterans Affairs hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico is conducting an "emergency installation" of air filters for Ebola patients, raising questions about what the government plans for the facility. "This emergency service is for the creation of a Ward to attend suspected patients with the Ebola Virus that have to be quarantine," explains a document justifying the use of a sole-source contract for the filters, which will cost about $18,000. Fifth Sierra Leone Doctor Dies after Contracting Ebola. A Sierra Leone doctor died on Monday [11/3/2014] from Ebola, making him the fifth local doctor in the West African state to have succumbed to the hemorrhagic fever that has taken a heavy toll on the country's medical personnel. Hysterical Media Tell Us to Calm Down. In the past week, The New York Times has ridiculed Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Gov. Chris Christie for having "fed panic" by ordering quarantines for health workers arriving from Ebola-plagued countries. [...] I haven't noticed any panic. If you want panic, review media coverage of the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. That hair-on-fire coverage was based entirely, it turns out, on the media's gullibly swallowing inaccurate accounts of the incident. For decades liberals have terrified soccer moms about a slew of imaginary terrors: global warming, Alar on apples, breast implants, heterosexual AIDS, nuclear war, and Republicans taking away their birth control. Amid Ebola scare, Canada restricts visas. Canada's Conservative government said it is suspending visa applications for residents and nationals of countries with "widespread and persistent-intense transmission" of the Ebola virus. Understanding Obama's Ebola Psychosis. President Obama has been rolling out the red carpet for Ebola. Obama has no use for science that runs counter to the internal narrative playing in his head. He lies brazenly over and over again about the communicability of Ebola. He has said: ["]It is not airborne. The only way that a person can contract Ebola is by coming into direct contact with the bodily fluids of somebody who is showing symptoms.["] In his weekly radio address on Oct. 18, Obama said: ["]Ebola is actually a difficult disease to catch. It's not transmitted through the air like the flu. You cannot get it from just riding on a plane or bus.["] This is easily refuted nonsense. We don't know as much as we would like about Ebola, but we do know that it is easily spread. BioShield: Obama Diverted Funds From Its Fight Against Ebola, Other Threats. Seeking a more robust defense in the event of a bioterrorist attack on the United States, the Bush administration created a $6 billion fund to prepare the nation for such threats, including the deadly Ebola virus. The Obama administration, however, has not used the range of tools and budget provided by the post-9/11 project, focusing instead on only three targets and diverting at least $1 billion to other priorities, a review by The Daily Signal found. Nearly five years ago, in fact, the administration's own biodefense science board warned that project funds "should not be diverted to support other initiatives, regardless of the merit of other purposes." Ebola-Quarantine Objections Are Frivolous. [Scroll down] As is his Alinskyite wont, Obama is poisoning the public discussion by ascribing noxious motives to those who favor quarantine. His administration's straw man of choice is the admonition that doctors and nurses who do the noble work of treating Ebola patients must not be "stigmatized." But there is no true correlation between quarantine and stigma. Imposing the inconvenience of isolation on people who have the potential to infect others reflects our humanity toward our fellow citizens. The Editor says... An opposing viewpoint: The Editor says... Election Day looking like a referendum on competence. Ebola has crystallized the collapse of trust in state authorities. The overstated assurances, the ever-changing protocols, the startling contradictions — the Army quarantines soldiers returning from West Africa while the White House denounces governors who did precisely the same with returning health-care workers — have undermined government in general, this government in particular. Obama's clumsy attempt to restore confidence by appointing an Ebola czar has turned farcical. When the next crisis broke — a doctor home from West Africa develops Ebola after having traversed significant parts of New York City between his return and his infection — the czar essentially disappeared. The Story Changes Again: Ebola Is Now 'Aerostable' And Can Remain Active On Surfaces For 50 Days. When it comes to Ebola, the story that the government is telling us just keeps on changing. At first, government officials were claiming that it was very difficult to spread the Ebola virus. Some of them were even comparing it to HIV. We were given the impression that we had to have "direct contact" with someone else's body fluids in order to have any chance of catching the virus. But of course that is not true at all. Now authorities are admitting that Ebola is "aerostable", that it can be "spread through droplets", and that it can remain on surfaces for up to 50 days. That is far different information than we have been getting up until this point. Scientists try to predict number of US Ebola cases. Top medical experts studying the spread of Ebola say the public should expect more cases to emerge in the United States by year's end as infected people arrive here from West Africa, including American doctors and nurses returning from the hot zone and people fleeing from the deadly disease. Alarmed by Ebola, Public Isn't Calmed by 'Experts Say'. [T]he science of handling Ebola — what protective gear to wear, how to dispose of waste — has shifted. Even defenders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the agency has hurt the case for trusting scientists, by making overly broad assurances early on, or changing guidelines on handling the disease, indicating that the earlier ones were not strict enough. This comes on top of a broader mistrust of elites. Obama Leaves Maine Without Meeting Defiant Quarantine Nurse. President Obama campaigned in Maine yesterday [10/30?2014], but didn't meet with the nurse who treated Ebola in Sierra Leone yet refuses to stay in her home for the 21-day quarantine. Kaci Hickox is supposed to be under quarantine until Nov. 10. She spent 72 hours isolated in New Jersey after flying into the country, and was released to go back to her Maine town of Fort Kent. Maine Says Nurse Hickox's Roommate Had Ebola. What did arrogant nurse Kaci Hickox know about her roommate's Ebola, and when did she know it? Maine's battle to keep her quarantined for another fortnight continues despite Hickox's stubbornness. CDC Admits Droplets from a Sneeze Could Spread Ebola. Ebola is a lot easier to catch than health officials have admitted — and can be contracted by contact with a doorknob contaminated by a sneeze from an infected person an hour or more before, experts told The [New York] Post Tuesday [10/28/2014]. "If you are sniffling and sneezing, you produce microorganisms that can get on stuff in a room. If people touch them, they could be" infected, said Dr. Meryl Nass, of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC. Ebola: Three Million HazMat Suits on the Way. The liberal blogosphere is aflame with accusations that the Ebola outbreak is a fake crisis manufactured by right-wing media. The World Health Organization has a different point of view: the group at the front lines of the Ebola epidemic is ordering 3 million hazardous material suits for health care workers and patients around the world to meet demand over the next 9 months. More than 400 caretakers have contracted Ebola during the recent outbreak. The WHO estimates the outbreak could cause 10,000 new cases a week in Africa over the next two months. Officials say more than half of the cases of Ebola are fatal. CDC pulls poster saying Ebola can spread through a sneeze. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Thursday [10/30/2014] yanked a poster off its Web site explaining how Ebola can be spread by contaminated droplets — from a sneeze for example — a day after The [New York] Post reported on the frightening revelation. The fact sheet was taken off line, and a link that led to it a day before now sends viewers to a different page with a different message. New CDC confusion over Ebola as it deletes warning that virus can spread through coughs and sneezes from its website. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed a warning from its website that Ebola can, in rare cases, spread from person through coughing and sneezing. It has replaced the old language with new guidance that says there's 'no evidence' Ebola is spread through either. According to the New York Post, the CDC also took down on Thursday [10/30/2014] a poster that said that Ebola can be transferred through 'droplets' from coughing or sneezing that land on hard surfaces, like doorknobs. The Man I Used to Be. Since people can't quite be persuaded to stop talking about Ebola, the next best thing is to tabloidize it so that the conversation focuses on a nurse in Maine who wants to ride her bicycle in despite the quarantine state officials want her to observe. Blood Test For Ebola Doesn't Catch Infection Early. In an ideal world, health care workers returning from West Africa would get a quick blood test to prove they aren't carrying the Ebola virus. A test like that would likely put to rest some of the anxiety surrounding these doctors, nurses and scientists. Unfortunately, even the best blood test in the world can't do that. Showdown Imminent Over Nurse's Quarantine in Maine. A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone can move about as she pleases after a Maine judge eased state-imposed restrictions on her, handing officials in Maine a defeat in the nation's biggest court case yet over how to balance personal liberty, public safety and fear of Ebola. Kaci Hickox: Ebola's Sandra Fluke. In West Africa, Kaci was concerned about West Africans, but back home in America, Kaci is more concerned about Kaci than the safety of those she could expose to a fatal hemorrhagic fever. So, unlike Sandra Fluke, Kaci Hickox's message does not involve the "war on women"; rather, it focuses on the futility of a mandatory "self-quarantine" even though it is now being reported that her roommate in Africa is infected with Ebola. Judge rejects attempt to isolate nurse. A Maine judge gave nurse Kaci Hickox the OK to go wherever she pleases, handing state officials a defeat Friday in the nation's biggest court case yet over how to balance personal liberty, public safety and fear of Ebola. Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox: 'Flaming' liberals love her. 'Bully' conservatives hate her. Kaci Hickox may not have intended to become the center of a political debate, but she is one now. When the registered nurse — fresh from fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone — spoke out against a mandatory quarantine in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie was the first Republican into the breach. While refraining from attacking Hickox personally, Christie took up an unusual rallying cry for a member of the party of Reagan: the need for big government to contain a crisis. "The government's job is to protect [the] safety and health of our citizens," Christie said on "Fox News Sunday." "And so we've taken this action, and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it." The Editor says... These scientific studies show that airport Ebola screenings are largely ineffective. The debate over whether the Obama administration should ban flights from Ebola-stricken nations has been raging for weeks, fueled by fears of an outbreak in the United States and a lot of election-inspired finger pointing. If you like Liberia so much, stay there! Our Make-It-Up World. Do bothersome facts matter anymore? Not really. [...] Some days Americans are told there is no reason to restrict connecting flights from Ebola-ravaged countries. Then, suddenly, entry from those countries is curtailed to five designated U.S. airports. Quarantines are both necessary and not so critical, as the administration weighs public concern versus politically correct worries over isolating a Third World African country. Ebola is so hard to catch that there is no reason to worry about casual exposures to those without clear symptoms. But then why do health authorities still try to hunt down anyone who had even a brief encounter with supposedly asymptomatic carriers? Colleagues: US doctor with Ebola was very careful. An American doctor who caught Ebola while treating patients in Guinea was a hard worker who conscientiously followed safety procedures, two colleagues said Saturday [10/25/2014]. Ebola: Three reasons why most U.S. patients have survived. Grim tales of the thousands of sick, dead, and dying from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa contrast greatly with the high success rate of medical treatment for a small number of Ebola patients in the United States. What are the factors that make the biggest difference in saving the lives of people infected with the lethal virus? Christie calls Obama Administration's Ebola guidelines 'incredibly confusing. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the Obama administration's new guidelines for isolating those exposed to Ebola "incredibly confusing," and defended the state's stricter policy requiring quarantines for health-care workers exposed to the virus. [...] The Republican governor faulted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being too slow in implementing a protocol for those returning to the U.S. from Ebola-impacted nations. Obama's Ineptitude Stokes Ebola Fears. President Obama this week tried to tamp down public concerns about the Ebola outbreak. But it's not the disease that has Americans so alarmed as the festering incompetence on display at the White House. In his remarks, Obama delivered a thinly veiled attack on critics of his administration's response to the outbreak. "America," he said, "is not defined by fear. That's not who we are." And "we don't just react based on our fears. We react based on facts and judgment and making smart decisions." But the administration's own faulty judgment and haphazard decisions have sparked much of that fear. Obama assails Ebola quarantines, saying they are based on fear, not facts. President Obama on Tuesday forcefully rejected the idea of a quarantine for medical workers returning from Ebola-affected countries, arguing that such an approach would undermine the broader effort to eliminate the epidemic. Politicians in the United States, including the president, have come under increasing pressure to curtail the movements of medical personnel returning from Ebola-affected regions after Craig Spencer — a doctor who had been treating Ebola patients in Guinea — was diagnosed with the virus 10 days after he returned home to New York City. NBC Journo: White House May Have Coordinated Ebola Question With Reporter. NBC's Luke Russert speculated after President Barack Obama's Ebola address that the only question Obama took from reporters was coordinated in advance with the help of White House staff. Also posted under "Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people. In Ebola response, Obama's 'czar' stays behind the curtain. It's not often that a White House official gets mocked on both Saturday Night Live and a major daily newspaper before he makes his first public appearance. But Ron Klain's low-profile first week as President Barack Obama's behind-the-scenes Ebola "czar" has become another attack point for a White House struggling to show it's on top of the crisis. Where's [the] Czar? Ebola Raises Management Questions. President Barack Obama's commander in the fight against Ebola was expected to operate below the public radar. But did that mean invisible? Two Governors' Shifts on Ebola Are Criticized as Politics, Not Science. Shifting stances and a lack of clear standards from the governors of New York and New Jersey over their Ebola quarantine policy left critics and even some allies questioning on Monday [10/27/2014] whether the two men had fully worked through the details before they announced it. Premature beatification of returned Ebola care-givers. I don't know either of these people, but I have observed among people I have gotten to know who have done conspicuous good works, particularly in impoverished lands, a certain amount of self-righteousness and self-beatification. Ebola Worries Ease a Bit Despite Preparedness Concerns. Ebola worries have eased slightly in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, despite a broad sense among Americans that their local hospitals are unprepared to deal with the virus — and continued preference for a more robust response by the federal government. After the difficulties at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where two nurses were infected, just 29 percent in this national survey think the staff at their local hospitals is adequately trained to deal with Ebola cases. Six in 10 think not. Your movements can and will be tracked by your use of public transportation. Tests reveal certain Ebola strains survive for weeks when stored at low temperatures. The number of confirmed Ebola cases passed the 10,000 mark over the weekend, despite efforts to curb its spread. And while the disease typically dies on surfaces within hours, research has discovered it can survive for more than seven weeks under certain conditions. During tests, the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) found that the Zaire strain will live on samples stored on glass at low temperatures for as long as 50 days. 21 Days. "I want to be pleasant through this whole thing," California Representative Darrell Issa said on Friday, unpleasantly, to a panel of medical experts at a congressional oversight-committee hearing. "But," he continued, scolding from his perch, "we have the head of CDC — supposed to be the expert — and he's made statements that simply aren't true." During the tense four-hour session, the subcommittee challenged almost every element of the United States' response to its domestic Ebola cases so far. Most pointedly, chairman Issa criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's messages to the public. Do-Gooder May Have Spread Ebola. Gotnews characterizes NYC Ebola vector Craig Spencer as a "left-wing hipster Democrat." More to the point, he is evidently a do-gooder — which would make his behavior after returning from Africa emblematic of the liberal do-gooder mentality. Ebola czar Ron Klain is still out of sight. There was confusion Monday [10/27/2014] over the government's response to the Ebola crisis — and mystery over what President Obama's Ebola czar was doing to address it. [...] Through it all, the Ebola czar, longtime Democratic operative Ron Klain, remained out of sight. "It's a theater of the absurd. It's laughable," said Dr. Robert Murphy, director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University and a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering with much experience in Africa. Ebola and Obama's crisis of competence. Ebola may not be a widespread health crisis in the United States just yet, but it is creating a crisis of another kind — a crisis of confidence in the competence of the federal government. Many Americans were shocked to learn that when Ebola-infected doctor Craig Spencer returned to New York City from Guinea, took a three-mile run, visited a coffee stand, ate at a meatball restaurant, traveled on three New York subway lines, met friends at a Brooklyn bowling alley and used an Uber sedan to return home, he was not violating the U.S. government's Ebola protocols. Australia issues blanket visa ban on Ebola-hit countries. Australia came under fire on Tuesday [10/28/2014] from health experts and rights advocates after it issued a blanket ban on visas from West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak, making it the first rich nation to shut its doors to the region. House Judiciary Chair: 'Increasing Evidence' Foreign Ebola Patients Coming To US. House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) reported there is "increasing evidence" that the Obama administration is planning to bring foreign Ebola patients into the US for treatment on Monday's [10/27/2014] "The Kelly File" on the Fox News Channel. CBS Continues to Push False Lib Ad Claiming GOP Cut Funding for Possible Ebola Vaccine. On Monday night [10/27/2014], CBS News national correspondent Chip Reid continued to promote a false ad by a liberal organization that claims Republicans in Congress are responsible for cutting funding for research hoping to find an Ebola vaccine. Reid stated at the conclusion of his report on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley how: "One independent liberal group released an ad criticizing Republicans for cutting spending that they say could have led to an Ebola vaccination. [...]" ER nurse: Duncan lied about exposure to Ebola. An emergency room nurse who treated Thomas Eric Duncan said in an interview broadcast Sunday night that the first person to die of Ebola in the U.S. was not honest about his exposure to the deadly virus. Sidia Rose told "60 Minutes" that Duncan said during his second trip to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas that he had not been in contact with anyone who had been sick. 5-year-old tested for Ebola in NYC after return from Africa. A 5-year-old boy who just returned from West Africa was transported to Bellevue Hospital Sunday with possible Ebola symptoms, according to law-enforcement sources. The child was vomiting and had a 103-degree fever when he was carried from his Bronx home by EMS workers wearing hazmat suits, neighbors said. Nurse's Lawyers Promise Legal Challenge to Ebola Quarantine. Lawyers for a nurse quarantined in a New Jersey hospital say they'll sue to have her released in a constitutional challenge to state restrictions for health care workers returning to New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel said Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined after arriving Friday at the Newark airport, shows no symptoms of being infected and should be released immediately. He and attorney Steven Hyman said the state attorney general's office had cooperated in getting them access to Hickox. CDC Moves Fast on NY Ebola Case as Soul-Searching Begins. Even before official confirmation that a New York City doctor had contracted the Ebola virus, a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was on its way to Manhattan Oct. 23. The quick reaction is part of a painful period of self-examination and adjustment at the CDC after a variety of alleged and acknowledged missteps in the case of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. NY governor admits Ebola policy could be unenforceable. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo admitted Saturday that the 21-day Ebola quarantine policy for health care workers returning from West Africa could be unenforceable. The New York Daily News reported that the Democrat acknowledged that several contingencies had not yet been worked out by officials, including what would happen if someone refused to be quarantined or even where they would spend their time during the watch period. Random Thoughts on Ebola, Islam and Hillary. [Scroll down] I am thoroughly confused by this administration's response to the crisis by naming an Ebola czar, Ron Klain. Not only does he have no medical knowledge and is a democrat operative but Obama already has a bona fide Ebola czar, Dr. Nicole Lurie. She was named in 2009 as Assistant Secretary to the Department of Preparedness and Response. According to the HHS website, her mission is "to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies." Nurse being kept in Ebola quarantine in New Jersey to sue for her release. The Doctors Without Borders nurse who became the first person quarantined under new 'draconian' Ebola rules plans to sue for her release. Nurse Kaci Hickox, 33, was placed in an isolation tent at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey on Friday, just one day after a fellow Doctors Without Borders volunteer tested positive for the virus in New York. Ebola and the Media's Multiple Personality Disorder. While The Daily Mail suggests that terrorists could transform the virus into a weapon, The Daily Beast declares that the "Ebola Panic Is Worse Than the Disease." Fox raises the specter of illegal immigrants bringing the virus over the border, and MSNBC assures us that the authorities have things in hand. One outlet asks an author of medical thrillers to speculate about the ways the threat might mutate into something more frightening; another declares that we're watching an "epic, epidemic overreaction." Wait, sorry: Did I say that was "another" outlet? Actually, those last two both came from CNN. Questions About the Care of Dallas Ebola Patient. Of the nine people who have been treated for Ebola in the United States, only one has died. US nurse sues after being forced into quarantine as she returned from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. A US nurse who says she was treated like a "criminal" after returning from caring for Ebola victims in West Africa has hired a top human rights lawyer to challenge her enforced quarantine. Kaci Hickox, the first person to be placed under a new mandatory quarantine for health workers who arrive back in the US via airports in New York, New Jersey and Chicago, was ordered into a 21 day period of isolation despite testing negative for the disease. Pentagon builds units to transport Ebola patients. As more U.S. troops head to West Africa, the Pentagon is developing portable isolation units that can carry up to 12 Ebola patients for transport on military planes. The Pentagon says it does not expect it will need the units for 3,000 U.S. troops heading to the region to combat the virus because military personnel will not be treating Ebola patients directly. Instead, the troops are focusing on building clinics, training personnel and testing patient blood samples for Ebola. "We want to be prepared to care for the people we do have there just out of an abundance of caution," Defense Department spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said. She said prototypes would be tested in the next month before being deployed in the field by January. '60 Minutes' Just Broke New Details On The Dallas Ebola Case. It was the story of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas — the hospital that treated the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. A hospital that's been widely criticized, since Texas Health nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson also got sick with Ebola. You may think you know the details of what happened in Dallas. But 60 Minutes asks you to think again. White House Convenes 27 Person Ebola Meeting. Suffering a crisis of confidence over his leadership on Ebola a week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama assembled a massive staff meeting on the issue at the White House Sunday [10/26/2014]. Including the president, there were 24 people in physical attendance at the meeting CBS News said was convened "to discuss a nationwide policy for health care workers returning from West Africa." Vice President Joe Biden joined via telephone, and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power joining via video teleconference. N.Y. official: New Ebola policy 'a real stunner'. A mandatory 21-day quarantine imposed by New York and New Jersey on health care workers returning from West Africa after treating Ebola patients caught local and federal officials by surprise and spurred a heated debate on handling the spread of the virus. The policy of isolating medical personnel and others arriving from Ebola-affected countries zones was abruptly implemented Friday [10/24/2014] by the governors of New York and New Jersey, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie. Ebola Nurse Complaining About Quarantine is Left-Wing Democrat, CDC Employee. The nurse currently quarantined in New Jersey is an employee for the Centers for Disease Control and a registered Democrat with a history of left-wing advocacy, Gotnews.com has learned. Kaci Hickox's ties to the CDC were not disclosed in a controversial anti-quarantine column she wrote for the Dallas Morning News. The CDC opposes quarantines or travel bans from Ebola infected countries. U.S. Ebola fighters head to Africa. Hundreds of Americans have flown to Liberia in the past few days. Thousands more are on the way. This Ebola corps is a collection of doctors, nurses, scientists, soldiers, aviators, technicians, mechanics and engineers. Many are volunteers with nonprofit organizations or the government, including uniformed doctors and nurses from the little-known U.S. Public Health Service. The Editor says... US nurse quarantined over Ebola says she was treated 'like a criminal'. Illinois joined New York and New Jersey in imposing mandatory quarantines for people arriving with a risk of having contracted Ebola in West Africa, but the first person isolated under the new rules, a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, called her treatment a "frenzy of disorganisation". Kaci Hickox, who arrived at Newark airport in New Jersey on Friday [10/24/2014], described hours of questioning by officials in protective gear and what she said was a mis-diagnosis of fever, followed by a transfer to a hospital isolation tent. Quarantined nurse to CNN: 'My basic human rights' are being violated. Kaci Hickox, a nurse placed under mandatory quarantine in New Jersey, went on CNN on Sunday and criticized the "knee-jerk reaction by politicians" to Ebola, saying "to quarantine someone without a better plan in place, without more forethought, is just preposterous." Hickox, an epidemiologist who was working to help treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, has tested negative twice for Ebola and does not have symptoms, she said. God Bless These Heroes of the Ebola Crisis. If we are to survive the epidemic, we are going to need heroes. Several individuals and conglomerates have, in Obama's absence, already stepped up to the plate and, through their selfless actions, given us hope. It's worth recognizing those heroes now, before it's too late. Dr. Fauci: 'I Cannot Explain' Treatment of Quarantined Nurse. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci had no good explanation for the treatment of a New Jersey nurse, who was quarantined Saturday at the Newark airport after returning from treating ebola patients in west Africa. Fauci, who has criticized the mandatory ban announced by several states, intimated the quarantine procedure, which drew a sharp rebuke from Doctors Without Borders, went against scientific protocol. Kaci Hickox was initially believed to be symptomatic for ebola, but later tested negative. The Editor says... Ebola survivor describes 'pure fear' when he saw doctors in protective suits. American video journalist Ashoka Mukpo knows that he is lucky to be alive, having beaten the deadly Ebola virus, which he contracted while working in Liberia. Mukpo, 33, who is now recovering at home in Rhode Island after being declared Ebola-free, recalled the moment he realised that he had become very seriously ill. "I'd love to be able to say that I knew I was going to be fine and kept a cool head, but when I put that thermometer in my mouth and I took it out and it said 101.3, it was just pure fear," he said. Survival of the witless? Unlikely to impossible. Time after time in just the past year, our nation's well-being has been reduced to an afterthought or an obligatory "we've got that covered" when in fact our leaders have been making decisions that put us all at increased risk. [...] Ebola: While the United Kingdom quickly instituted an air-travel ban from the three most infected countries in Western Africa to prevent importing this deadly disease, the United States first had no restrictions, then asked people if they were infected or knew anyone who was infected, then stepped up and required that people's temperature be checked before they got on the plane (at least if they were traveling to one of five major airports). White House Pressures States to Reverse Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders. The Obama administration has expressed deep concerns to the governors of New York and New Jersey and is consulting with them to modify their orders to quarantine medical volunteers returning from West Africa as President Obama seeks to quickly develop a new, nationwide policy for the workers, according to two senior administration officials. Top U.S. health official warns of risks from Ebola quarantines. The White House has told states that have imposed mandatory quarantines for some travelers from Ebola-hit West Africa that the policy could impede the fight against the disease, while the first health worker isolated under the rules plans to sue. An anti-Ebola march in SW Philadelphia. Practically everyone at the march had a story about people who refused to shake hands or moved to another bus seat when they realized they were near a Liberian. "Once they hear our accent, people try to avoid us," said Harris Murphy, a filmmaker. "Everybody is afraid of you. I'm a West African — not a virus." On Saturday [10/25/2014], he and about 60 members of Philadelphia's Liberian, Guinean, and Sierra Leonean communities took to the streets, staging a noisy, drum-thumping demonstration to call attention to the facts of the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed nearly 5,000 in West Africa. Obama choreographed hug with Ebola victim. President Obama is usually "not interested in photo ops," but apparently he made an exception for Friday's [10/24/2014] good news that Nina Pham, the first Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola, is now virus-free. But according to still photographers on the scene, his hug with Ms. Pham was staged. New York cops apparently not briefed on how to dispose of Ebola bio-hazard waste. Police who sealed off the Harlem apartment of Dr. Craig Spencer after he was taken to the hospital have apparently not been taught the proper way to dispose of potential bio hazardous material. While they geared up to enter the apartment and cordon it off, they ended up throwing their gloves, masks, and police tape into a public garbage receptacle. [Video clip] New York, New Jersey Set Up Mandatory Quarantine Requirement Amid Ebola Threat. In the wake of the first confirmed Ebola virus case in New York City, the states of New York and New Jersey have set up a new screening system that goes above and beyond the guidelines already set up by federal officials. Ebola crisis rekindles concerns about secret research in Russian military labs. She was an ordinary lab technician with an uncommonly dangerous assignment: drawing blood from Ebola-infected animals in a secret military laboratory. When she cut herself at work one day, she decided to keep quiet, fearing she'd be in trouble. Then the illness struck. "By the time she turned to a doctor for help, it was too late," one of her overseers, a former bio-weapons scientist, said of the accident years afterward. The woman died quickly and was buried, according to one account, in a "sack filled with calcium hypochlorite," or powdered bleach. DHS faulted for expired, questionable pandemic response supplies at Ebola hearing. The chief Homeland Security watchdog ripped the department at a hearing on Friday for not "thinking through" its purchase of millions of dollars' worth of pandemic response supplies, saying much of the protective gear and drugs are expired or will be soon. Inspector General John Roth testified at a House oversight hearing on Ebola, a health crisis that has sharpened focus on the government's preparedness for an outbreak — even though officials maintain the likelihood of an Ebola outbreak remains low. Roth, ahead of the hearing, released an August audit that found the department has "no assurance" it has enough protective equipment and antiviral medication to respond to a pandemic. N.Y., N.J. governors impose new Ebola quarantine rules. Craig Spencer crisscrossed New York City in the days after he returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa — riding the subway, going for a three-mile run, grabbing coffee on the High Line, bowling in Brooklyn. And while the 33-year-old doctor notified authorities when he developed a fever and was quickly isolated at Bellevue Hospital Center, his own Ebola diagnosis prompted the governors of New York and New Jersey on Friday [10/24/2014] to impose a mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical workers returning from the countries hit hardest by the epidemic. Illinois later in the day imposed similar restrictions. Obama administration considers mandatory quarantine for health care workers returning home from Ebola hot zone. The Obama administration is considering imposing a forced quarantine on healthcare workers who return to the United States from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa, after a New York doctor who treated patients there tested positive for the virus on Thursday [10/23/2014]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner told Reuters on Friday that a mandatory quarantine is one possible plan under discussion by officials from across the administration. How cellphones can predict where Ebola strikes next. Mobile phone calls, airline bookings, tweets, field reports, government announcements and population statistics are among the vast amount of information being collected, filtered and analyzed by sophisticated computer software tools around the world. The information is enabling data mining experts to predict where the virus could be headed next and how many people are likely to be infected. While many people are deeply suspicious about data collection — you can hardly blame them after Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. government's mass surveillance of Americans' telephone and email communications — it could be critical to containing Ebola. HazMat team empties Ebola doctor's apartment without gloves, face masks or any protective gear. Hazmat teams arrived at the apartment of Ebola patient Dr Craig Spencer last night to remove items that he could have contaminated. Workers from Bio Recovery Corp were at the property in Harlem, New York, wheeling away large blue barrels to be taken for testing at the CDC. The containers were loaded onto the back of the truck into the night as cleanup crews carried out essential testing of the apartment. Media Should Stop Lecturing Americans About Their Ebola Concerns. The very moment that the news was confirmed about Dr. Ebola, various reporters started telling everyone to calm down. But nobody was panicking. I mean, expressing interest in an unbelievably deadly disease that has spread quickly is not panicking. Panicking is loading up your car like a prepper who just won the Lottery and heading to your cabin in West Virginia. I mean, maybe there's someone who has done just that. But there is no evidence that we have any serious problem with people panicking. Obama: 'There's a Silver Lining in All The Attention The Ebola Situation Has Received'. In remarks delivered in the Oval Office late on Wednesday afternoon [10/22/2014], President Barack Obama pointed to what he called "a silver lining" in the attention that has been focused on people in the United States falling ill with Ebola. This "silver lining," the president said, is that it points out how important public health systems are. Additionally, the president noted that at some point in the future Americans may in fact be dealing "with an airborne disease that is much easier to catch and is deadly." Ebola in New York: Feel O.K.? Health officials and talking heads have lectured us about the nature of the disease: it is transmissible only through bodily fluids, etc. The politicians issued their reassurances. Whether or not these are empty, we're probably all (or almost all) going to be fine. The contrarians will cite other banes (alcohol, cars, flu) that will kill more of us tomorrow. And it is unseemly for us to freak out over a single case when, in Africa, scores are dying by the day. But the Spencer scenario is a provocation. Ebola Vaccine, Ready for Test, Sat on the Shelf. Almost a decade ago, scientists from Canada and the United States reported that they had created a vaccine that was 100 percent effective in protecting monkeys against the Ebola virus. The results were published in a respected journal, and health officials called them exciting. The researchers said tests in people might start within two years, and a product could potentially be ready for licensing by 2010 or 2011. It never happened. The vaccine sat on a shelf. Only now is it undergoing the most basic safety tests in humans [...] After Negative Ebola Test, Quarantined Nurse Criticizes Treatment at Newark Airport. A nurse who was being quarantined at a New Jersey hospital after working with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone criticized her treatment on Saturday as an overreaction after an initial test found that she did not have the virus. "I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa," the nurse, Kaci Hickox, wrote in an essay on the website of The Dallas Morning News, in collaboration with a friend who works for the paper. Dr. Oz: Ebola is 'dumb'. There's at least one New Yorker who isn't concerned about Ebola: Dr. Oz. [...] Oz stressed that one of the main reasons New Yorkers shouldn't worry about Ebola becoming a plague is because the virus is "dumb." "At its very core, Ebola is a dumb virus," he explained. "What I mean by that is that it's not very smart; it doesn't spread well. It's not very smart because it doesn't keep you alive. A smart virus doesn't kill its host. This version of this virus is not what's going to be a pandemic." Ebola in the Big Apple. Our inept government's first contact with Ebola on American soil resulted in nearly a thousand people being needlessly put at risk, fear and chaos burning hot in the media, an orgy of finger-pointing, and Democrat hacks claiming that Ebola is spread by Republican budget cuts. We had Ebola scares in the sky, and on the high seas. It lasted for weeks. It ended with our semi-retired President flipping the bird to the American people and installing a political fixer with no medical knowledge as "Ebola Czar." He proceeded to blow off his first three Ebola meetings at the White House. And all that came from one guy. NYC Police Dump Gloves and Masks in Public Trash Can After Leaving EBOLA Doctor's Apartment Area. [T]wo NYPD officers are seen dumping their protective gear and caution tape in a public trash can after leaving the apartment of New York City's first Ebola victim, Dr. Craig Spencer. New York Ebola doctor was told by charity he worked for that he didn't have to self-quarantine. New York's Ebola-stricken doctor was told by the charity that he worked for that he did not have to self-quarantine after returning from an Ebola-ravaged country[.] Dr Craig Spencer returned to the U.S. on October 17 from Ebola 'hot zone' Guinea where he was treating patients with non-profit group, Doctors Without Borders. NYC Ebola patient PASSED new 'enhanced screening' at JFK Airport. Craig Spencer, the doctor whose confirmed Ebola diagnosis sent New York City into a tailspin on Thursday [10/23/2014], successfully cleared the U.S. government's newest 'enhanced' screening protocols when he returned from Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Dr Spencer, who was in Guinea treating Ebola patients as part of a Doctors Without Borders team, passed inspection six days before showing symptoms and being rushed to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Feeling Ebola Anxiety, From Bellevue to Brooklyn. On the morning after Ebola's unwelcome arrival in their city, New Yorkers tried not to let fear of the deadly disease disrupt their routines. But even those who should know best struggled to keep calm. An Ebola-infected doctor has been wandering around New York City for a week. I have unlimited admiration for members of Doctors Without Borders, like him, who risk their own lives to treat people in war-torn and disease-ravaged countries. Unfortunately, Dr Spencer is also exceptionally selfish and stupid. It almost defies belief that any qualified doctor could fly back to America after treating Ebola patients in West Africa and promptly insert himself straight back into New York's streets like he's been to Hawaii on vacation. HHS Secretary Says Ebola 'Difficult' to Catch, Urges Doctors to Help Obamacare Signups. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell told physicians [10/23/2014] the American people must be reminded that Ebola is a "difficult disease to catch" and the best way to prevent the spread of the virus in America is to take action abroad. She also asked physicians to help enroll Americans in Obamacare. The Editor asks... Cremation fears leave empty Ebola beds in Liberia. Cremation violates Liberians' values and cultural practices and the order has so disturbed people in the West African nation that the sick are often kept at home and, if they die, are secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections[.] Obama Is Too Cool for Crisis Management. By the time President Obama gave in and appointed an Ebola czar on Oct. 17, the White House response to this latest national crisis had already run a familiar course: the initial assurance that everything was under control; the subsequent realization that it wasn't; the delay as administration officials appeared conflicted about what to do; and the growing frustration with a president who seemed a step or two behind each new development. Meanwhile, public anxiety mounted as cable news hysteria filled the vacuum and shaped the perception of the unfolding crisis. Obama Attends $32,400 Democratic Fundraiser As Ebola Hits NYC. Dr. [Craig] Spencer's Ebola tests results mark the fourth Ebola case in America. Before Spencer's test results were in, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers that, "Our understanding is that very few people were in direct contact with him." However, according to the New York Times, the day before testing positive for Ebola, Spencer traveled from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the subway, went to a bowling alley, and rode a taxi home. N.Y. doctor positive for Ebola had no symptoms until Thursday, officials say. The doctor, identified as Craig Spencer, 33, came back from treating Ebola patients in Guinea October 17 and developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue Thursday. He is in isolation and being treated at New York's Bellevue Hospital, one of the eight hospitals statewide that Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated earlier this month as part of an Ebola preparedness plan. Spencer, who is hospitalized in intensive care, went for a jog, may have gone to a restaurant, traveled the city's vast subway system and went bowling before feeling ill, but authorities stressed that the likelihood of him spreading the virus was low. The Editor says... Source: Doctors Without Borders physician in NYC tests positive for Ebola. The doctor, identified as Craig Spencer, 33, came back from treating Ebola patients in Guinea October 17 and developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue Thursday. He is in isolation and being treated at New York's Bellevue Hospital, one of the eight hospitals statewide that Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated earlier this month as part of an Ebola preparedness plan. Spencer, who is hospitalized in intensive care, went for a jog, may have gone to a restaurant, traveled the city's vast subway system and went bowling before feeling ill, but authorities stressed that the likelihood of him spreading the virus was low. The world is in denial about Ebola's true threat. It is such a relief about that Ebola thing. The threat of a U.S. outbreak turned out to be overhyped. A military operation is underway to help those poor Liberians. An Ebola czar (what is his name again?) has been appointed to coordinate the U.S. government response. The growth of the disease in Africa, by some reports, seems to have slowed. On to the next crisis. Except that this impression of control is an illusion, and a particularly dangerous one. The fevered political plague. Unsettled by Ebola's transmissibility and skeptical the government can track and contain the lethal virus, Americans want travel restrictions from affected African countries. Yet President Obama resists, claiming a ban could lead to more Ebola cases. In America, we don't kill the Ebola dog. America is a compassionate nation to be sure, and we love our dogs. But even more than that, the bureaucrats in Washington love to win elections. And with only two weeks to go before the midterms, there was no way [...] that anyone in the CDC was going to be allowed to give the order to put that dog down. The headlines would have been a nightmare and the name Bentley would, you may rest assured, have come up during a White House press room briefing. No Ebola Panic Despite Media Hysteria. One man has died of Ebola in the U.S. and he came here from Liberia. Two of the nurses that tended him are in intensive care and likely to survive. A third was thought to be infected, but wasn't. That news has been sufficient to keep most Americans calm as the media has done its best to exploit Ebola-related news. The public absorbed the facts and came to their own conclusion. Obama's chronic calm. While good leaders know that overreacting can foster panic, they also know that underreacting fosters insecurity. And time and time again, Obama underplays developing scandals, crises and failures to create the appearance of control. The result is often the opposite. Thanks, Obama! Liberian Man With Ebola Symptoms Arrives in Newark. Good thing we have an Ebola Czar now, even though the guy hasn't shown up for work yet. Granted, he's already in line for a promotion. But back to the deadly virus. We now have a Liberian under observation in New Jersey after landing in Newark Tuesday on a flight from Belgium, via Liberia. Are Hospitals More Deadly Than Ebola? We've all been horrified by the medical blunders made in dealing with Ebola in the United States — from sending home a patient who was showing symptoms and had recently travelled to West Africa to relying on inadequate protocols or protection that led to the infection of two of his nurses. It's awful, but we shouldn't be surprised. These types of hospital mistakes — caused by knowledge gaps, carelessness, unpreparedness or a combination of all — by my estimate kill between 210,000 and 440,000 people in the United States every year. What to know about Ron Klain's job as Ebola czar. Ron Klain steps up to his new role as Ebola czar Wednesday morning [10/22/2014]. Here's a glimpse at what his role as the President's Ebola czar will and won't entail, according to sources inside and outside the White House. Don't expect to see Klain briefing the public on the contours of the Ebola response. That will be left to Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci and relevant cabinet officials, as required. Taking back America. [Scroll down] In a similar context, sending 4,000 military personnel to Ebola-infected countries makes no sense. It is symptomatic of an administration that views our military as expendable. This is not a military mission. Clearly, a comprehensive strategy needs to be developed that involves the United Nations, the World Health Organization and nongovernmental organizations throughout the world to contain this deadly virus. Common sense demands that the infected countries must be quarantined. All commercial flights in and out of these countries must be immediately terminated. Nurse Amber Vinson free of Ebola virus, family says. Barely a week after being diagnosed with Ebola, Texas nurse Amber Vinson is free of the deadly virus, her family said on Wednesday night [10/22/2014]. "We are overjoyed to announce that, as of [Tuesday] evening, officials at Emory University Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control are no longer able to detect virus in her body," read a statement from a family spokesperson. U.S. Plans 21-Day Watch of Travelers From Ebola-Hit Nations. Federal health officials Wednesday placed new restrictions on travelers from West African countries with Ebola outbreaks, requiring that they report their temperatures daily for three weeks, along with any other potential symptoms of the disease. The regulations, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are meant to monitor everyone at risk of developing Ebola symptoms from an infection acquired overseas, while not shutting the borders and not overwhelming state and local health departments with having to hunt down hundreds of newly arrived visitors. Obama: They Still Don't Get Who He is. Think of Obama as a cyborg programmed by socialist/progressives, unfeeling, relentless and laser focused on his mission to transform America as founded and dethrone her. And nothing, I repeat, nothing, including American lives, will deter this machine from fulfilling its mission. Consequently, Obama's programming prohibits any possibility of him banning flights from the Ebola hot zone, no matter how many Americans are infected. [...] Military experts say it is preposterous for Obama to deploy our troops (4000) to the Ebola hot zone to do a job for which they are not qualified. Our troops are not social workers or construction workers. Obama does not care. This is What You Get When You Reduce Everything to 'Activism'. Suppose you were the President Obama, in the Oval Office, or more likely at the golf course, wondering how to save the Obola administration before Ebola flushes it down the toilet. You would think: I need someone who is a cool head in a bad situation. He would be someone that has a history of turning around failing operations. He needs to be a man that inspires trust, and he needs to be the kind of person that would be prepared to set everything aside to help his country. [...] Instead, of course, the president has chosen Ron Klain to be the Ebola czar. Because for Obama the best man for the job is always a political fixer. Ebola Airport Checks Expand: Nurses Get Training. The federal government is closing a gap in Ebola screening at airports while states from New York to Texas to California work to get hospitals and nurses ready in case another patient turns up somewhere in the U.S. with the deadly disease. Ebola Czar Day One: Mr. Klain's debut. Political point man or medical manager? That is the persistent question for Ron Klain, who officially begins his tenure as the nation's "Ebola response coordinator" on Wednesday [10/22/2014]. Travelers from Ebola-wracked countries ordered to fly into one of just five US airports. Everyone coming to the United States from the three West African countries at the center of the Ebola outbreak will now be screened for the deadly disease at one of five airports, the Homeland Security Department said Tuesday [10/21/2014]. 'All passengers arriving in the United States whose travel originates in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea will be required to fly into one of the five airports that have the enhanced screening and additional resources in place,' DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said. Forty-nine new Ebola cases in a day leaves bodies piling up in Sierra Leone. Dozens of people are being infected with the deadly Ebola virus each day in Sierra Leone, as the terrifying disease tears through the country's capital city, Freetown. Yesterday [10/20/2014], forty-nine new cases were confirmed in just 24 hours, the National Ebola Response Center (NERC) reported. So many people are succumbing to the deadly virus that removing the dead bodies is becoming a serious problem. This article includes a list of ebola-related sub-scandals: America's October Worries. Much of what the Obama administration and the Centers for Disease Control initially swore about the Ebola virus proved false. The virus really did infect Americans at home, despite assurances that there was "no significant risk." There always was a danger of infected West Africans entering the U.S. The CDC protocols did not protect nurses from infection by Ebola patients. Banning all travel from West African countries where the virus is epidemic may not stop Ebola from spreading throughout the U.S. But the administration still cannot offer convincing reasons why we should not try just that. Instead, a purely medical decision seems hopelessly embedded in the administration's usual politically correct spin. Where is C. Everett Koop when We Need Him? Viruses and microbes have no regard for the emotional state of anyone, be that person calm or hysterical. But for the Left, emotion rather than rationality is the key to public policy. The idea is that if we all stay calm, maybe the Ebola crisis will just disappear. This is one reason why Obama, ever committed to his image as the secular Messiah, tried by example to show he certainly was not afraid of Ebola. [...] We need a C. Everett Koop to step up to the plate now. We do not need another czar who will doubtless attempt more smoke and mirrors tactics to politicize a disease. Ebola Study Projects Spread of Virus. Up to three Ebola-infected people could embark on overseas flights every month from the three most-affected African countries, according to a new study that projected travel patterns based on infection rates and recent flight schedules. The findings, published Monday [10/20/2014] in the journal Lancet, suggest that Ebola cases could be spread overseas by unwitting travelers from the worst-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A 'Dark Winter' of Ebola terrorism? The world is experiencing virulent outbreaks of Ebola and Islamist radicalism. What if the two threats converge into one? [...] Ebola has up to a 21-day incubation period — more than enough time for terrorists to infect themselves and then come here with the virus. In a nightmare scenario, suicide bombers infected with Ebola could blow themselves up in a crowded place — say, shopping malls in Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Atlanta — spreading infected tissue and bodily fluids. Because Of Ebola: Knock Before Entering One North Texas ER. Walk into the emergency room entrance at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco and you'll face a locked sliding glass door, with a sign attached telling you to knock. Dave Williams, a radio news anchor on KLIF-AM in Dallas, says he noticed the chance during a trip to the hospital on Saturday [10/18/2014]. 'New' CDC Ebola Strategy Still Too Dangerous. Monday [10/20/2014], the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced its new Ebola strategy. It includes more training and more protective gear for hospital staff. [...] The CDC is presuming that a few days is enough to make a hospital Ebola ready. That's a gamble. Texas Health Presbyterian, a highly regarded 900-bed hospital, couldn't handle Ebola. The CDC is betting on other hospitals to fare better. A safer strategy would be to expand capacity at the nation's four bio-containment hospitals, which have treated Ebola patients successfully without the virus spreading to a single healthcare worker. Infected by Politics. The public-health profession has a clear political orientation, so it's quite possible that its opposition to a visa and travel moratorium is influenced as much by belief in America's responsibility for the postcolonial oppression of Africa, and suspicion of American border enforcement, as it is by a commitment to public-health principles of containment and control. (African countries, unburdened by any such racial guilt, have not hesitated to impose travel bans; Nigeria's travel restrictions are now being credited for its escape from an Ebola incursion.) To be sure, the logistics of such a moratorium would be challenging, but no more challenging than retrofitting American hospitals for Ebola patients. 6 Times Obama Declared Crisis, Then Did Nothing. Last week, President Obama finally began taking Ebola seriously — so seriously that he cancelled a campaign trip in order to hold an emergency meeting on Ebola. He then appointed a new Ebola czar, Ron Klain, whose stellar qualifications for handling a possible Ebola outbreak include flacking for Janet Reno, Al Gore, and Joe Biden. Finally, Obama held another Ebola meeting after going golfing. Klain skipped the meeting. It was the second such meeting Klain skipped. Don't worry. The Obama administration has top men on the job. Three passengers a month flying from West Africa may be infected with Ebola, warn researchers. Three Ebola-infected travellers a month can be expected to get on international flights from the West African countries suffering epidemics of the deadly virus unless more effective exit screening is introduced, scientists have warned. The three countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, are already checking departing air passengers for fever, but the test cannot spot sufferers in the period before they show symptoms — which can be up to 21 days. Ebola vaccine abandoned in 2008 after showing promise in trials. The pitch was intriguing: U.S. health officials wanted to fast-track trials for an Ebola vaccine and sounded the call for volunteers. Charles Sullivan called up the hotline on a whim, figuring the National Institutes of Health already had filled its queue and wouldn't need him. But he was accepted for three rounds of shots of a deactivated virus, a year's worth of blood analysis and a $900 check for his trouble. The clinical trial went well, and the vaccine seemed promising. Ebola 'czar' to skip House hearing, aide says. America's newly appointed Ebola 'czar' is not yet in the House — at least not the ones on Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill. Ron Klain, appointed last Friday [10/17/2014] by President Obama to direct the nation's response to the Ebola crisis, sent his regrets Monday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which had invited him to testify this Friday, a committee aide told Fox News. Klain was invited to join Defense and Health and Human Services department officials also slated to testify at the hearing. Why is there no surgeon general? Ask Democrats. The Ebola scare has made many Americans aware that there is no U.S. surgeon general. (The post is filled by an acting official who is not in line for the job.) There is, however, an Obama nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has not been confirmed by the Senate after more than a year of waiting. Why hasn't Murthy won Senate approval in all that time? Obama Repeats: You Can't Get Ebola on a Bus — [a] Day After [a] Bus [was] Quarantined in D.C.. On Saturday — one day after a bus that had departed from the Pentagon was quarantined on Capitol Hill in an Ebola false alarm — President Barack Obama issued a video message to Americans telling them that "you cannot get it [Ebola] from just riding on a plane or a bus." "Ebola is actually a difficult disease to catch. It's not transmitted through the air like the flu," Obama said in his weekly video message. "You cannot get it from just riding on a plane or a bus." White House caught tweaking official Obama transcript. Another chapter in the Obama White House bid to censor news about its primary occupant. Obama's returned to the campaign trail after foregoing a handful of events for two days last week to be seen addressing the Ebola crisis. Even as he's ordered formation of a special national Ebola SWAT team, the president, as is his behavior pattern, has played down domestic threats from the lethal disease that's killed thousands in West Africa. "Ebola," he says, "is actually a difficult disease to catch." Which doesn't jibe in the public's eye with all the hazmat suits, isolation units and sterilization teams deployed after two Dallas nurses contracted the disease. NBC's Snyderman faces credibility issues. NBC must now decide whether Snyderman's credibility is too damaged for her to continue reporting on Ebola or other medical issues and, if so, for how long. Obama's Empathy Problem. President Obama telegraphs indifference to Americans' well-being. [...] The response to Ebola underlines all of these tendencies in thick, black ink. His instinct has been to tamp down fears rather than address threats with alacrity. He is willing to send U.S. troops to Africa to fight Ebola but not to Iraq to fight the Islamic State. The administration's resistance to a travel ban makes no sense if the top priority is the safety of Americans. A Democrat "Honor System" For Ebola Carriers, Illegals, Terrorists — And Voters. Roughly 150 air travelers per day, originating from Ebola hell-holes of West Africa, arrive here in the U.S. on board commercial flights. The flights do not come directly from West African countries, but from places where flights from those countries connect. Even after the still-unfolding Ebola disaster in Dallas, we are told by our government that it's safe and sufficient to rely on "self-reporting" by those traveling from such areas of Africa, who otherwise show no apparent symptoms of Ebola, as to any contact, timelines, or other relevant circumstances about their possibility of infection. Great! Haven't we seen how this has worked out so far? Ebola and American Racism. "It's really interesting how when Ebola was common in Africa, nobody cared about it, but now that it's common in white countries, there is a vaccine and a cure." The student who said this to me is a good student. He is intelligent, hard-working, courteous, and curious about the world. We were conversing on an American university campus in mid-October 2014, during the worst Ebola outbreak in history. I responded to this student, "Ebola has never been common in Africa. The death toll is in the thousands, not the millions. Ebola is not common in white countries. There is no vaccine. There is no cure. There are lots of incurable diseases that strike lots of white people." Ebola and American Racism. In his October 18 Weekly Address, with the Orwellian title "What You Need To Know About Ebola," President Barack Obama scolded Americans. "We can't give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need. We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts," nagged Obama. The implication here is, of course, that Americans are hysterical, panic-prone ninnies who need their president's wagging index finger to remind them that science is superior to hysteria and fear. It doesn't take long in any given Google search of the word to discover that Ebola was invented by Americans to murder or exploit Africans. A Liberian newspaper, The Daily Observer, published an article alleging that Americans invented Ebola in order to harvest organs from Africans. US Army Handbook From 2011 Confirms Airborne Ebola Cases. The handbook published by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRID, titled "USAMRID's Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook," is now in its seventh edition. The most recent edition was published in 2011, with more than 100,000 copies distributed to military and civilian health-care providers around the world. On page 177 of the handbook, in a chapter discussing "Viral Hemorrhagic Fever" (VHF), a category of viruses that includes Ebola, USAMRID says: "In several instances, secondary infections among contacts and medical personnel without direct body fluid exposure have been documented. These instances have prompted concern of a rare phenomenon of aerosol transmission of infection." An Outbreak of Epidemiological Hysteria. There have been far fewer cases of, and deaths from, Ebola Virus Disease (hereinafter "Ebola") during the period of the recent outbreak than from numerous other endemic diseases that primarily afflict Africans, such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and childhood diarrhea. Yet there is a widespread sense, in the media and among the public, that particularly urgent measures must be taken to combat Ebola. Ebola Czar Ron Klain was Appointed to Cover Up New Cases of Deadly Virus, Not Protect Americans. Dr. Nicole Lurie is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Lurie has been mysteriously absent from discussions of the Ebola outbreak. The media seems rather incurious about her even though she's served in her very high-ranking position for five years. She is one of only eight direct reports to the HHS Secretary. But Lurie has a sordid background: she was implicated in a major scandal three years ago, reportedly directing a $433 million grant to a major Obama donor "and away from a company that was developing a treatment now being used on Ebola patients." Obama Plans to Let Ebola-infected Foreigners Into U.S. for Treatment. Judicial Watch has learned that the Obama administration is actively formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment. Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis. It is unclear who would bear the high costs of transporting and treating non-citizen Ebola patients. The plans include special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease as dangerous as Ebola. White House Said to Seek New Funds to Prevent Ebola Spread. President Barack Obama is preparing to ask Congress for additional funds to combat Ebola, a move that could shift some political pressure from the White House to lawmakers in the last two weeks before midterm elections. While the move is unlikely to end criticism of Obama for a faltering response to the first U.S. cases, it could give him and his fellow Democrats a new talking point: that Republicans aren't willing to pay to fight Ebola. Keywords: Petri Dish, guinea pigs, experiments on humans. Failures of Competence. For years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the most trusted agency in the federal government. In 2003, when Gallup did a survey to determine what the public thought of various federal agencies, the C.D.C. topped the list, with 66 percent of respondents describing it as "excellent" or "good." Marxist Propagandists at "The Advocacy Project" Blame Obama's Dysfunctional CDC on... Republicans. A new ad put out by the left-wing Advocacy Project seeks to link Republican budget cuts with the spread of the Ebola virus, a shameful fear tactic that could take hold among a populace rightfully concerned about this epidemic. While media organizations such as Time Magazine and Real Clear Politics have reported on the existence of the video, all they did was cite the ad, not challenge the veracity of its information. In doing so, they're acting as vehicles for spreading its misinformation. What Exactly Does a Government 'Czar' Do? [Scroll down] So, what differentiates a "czar" from any other government officer? One difference is that he or she doesn't always have to be confirmed by the Senate, allowing the White House to act quickly to put a leader in place in times of crisis. Here is a brief history of some of the czars the U.S. government has employed during past crises, giving a hint to what Klain may do, and how he may help or hurt the White House's Ebola response efforts. Obama Golfs For 4 Hours, 40 Minutes On Saturday, Then Holds Nighttime Ebola Meeting — Which New Ebola Czar Skips. President Barack Obama's new Ebola "czar" Ron Klain has skipped another White House meeting on the Ebola crisis, a readout of who attended a Saturday [10/18/2014] meeting with Obama shows. Obama held the Ebola meeting after spending four hours and 40 minutes on the golf course at Fort Belvoir, according to the White House press pool report from the New York Daily News' Dan Friedman. Mr. Obama plays a lot of golf. That's because he's lazy. Ebola Czar Not Included in White House Ebola Meeting. On Friday, the White House announced Democratic hack Ron Klain as the point-man on the Ebola crisis. But despite his new role, which is being described as some as the Ebola czar, Klain was not in attendance at the White House meeting on Ebola on Friday [10/17/2014]. At least 21 other White House officials, including the vice president, were either in attendance in person or via video conference. Including the White House communications director. Ebola: What Would George Washington Do? As a nervous nation watches the Obama administration's response to the Ebola crisis, many Americans have concluded that the country's top health officials seem more concerned with stopping the spread of panic than stopping the spread of the virus. But Americans' fear is only growing, and one reason is that too few people believe what the president of the United States says anymore. Cruz: Klain a 'political operative'. Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday dismissed new Obama administration Ebola czar Ron Klain a "political operative" without health care experience. "Mr. Klain is not a doctor, he's not a health care professional, he doesn't have background in these issues," the Texas Republican said on CNN's "State of the Union." "We don't need a White House political operative, which is what Mr. Klain has been. What we need is presidential leadership. The person who needs to be on top of this is the president of the United States." A toxic president. Don't worry, there's no chance of an outbreak, they said. Then it was, Oops, we must rethink all procedures for handling cases. Then there was no worry about a "wide" outbreak, yet quarantines for lots of people. The irrational fear of an alien pathogen is fueled by rational suspicion of an incompetent and dishonest government. How did the so-called experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give Nurse No. 2 permission to travel by air, even though she had a mild fever? That's a great question — if only the CDC would answer it. Ebola and the Centers for Dissimulation and Confusion. The initial human infection with Ebola occurs when a human contacts the virus in nature, either by contact with the host organism, fruit bats, or by touching or ingesting contaminated meat. Unfortunately, many old buildings in Africa are infested with bats, and it also turns out that bat soup is considered a delicacy by some. Bushmeat, the meat of wild animals hunted and sold, is also a potential source of infection. In past times, Ebola might wipe out a small village and disappear. With rapid population growth and urbanization in Africa, the potential for a massive epidemic grew — and has now been realized. Ebola Monitoring Inconsistent As Virus Spread. The inconsistent response by health officials in monitoring and limiting the movement of health workers has been one of the critical blunders in the Ebola outbreak. Nigeria declared Ebola-free after containing virus. Nigeria was declared free of the deadly Ebola virus on Monday after a determined doctor and thousands of officials and volunteers helped end an outbreak still ravaging other parts of West Africa and threatening the United States and Spain. Senegal Just Eradicated Ebola. It Implemented Travel Bans Back in August. According to a press release this morning from the World Health Organization (WHO), the African country of Senegal has effectively ended the transmission of Ebola within its borders. More than a decade later, SARS offers lessons on Ebola. It was a novel virus whose early symptoms could easily be mistaken for a dozen other common afflictions. With no treatment or vaccine in hand, it bubbled up — and quickly mushroomed — in a group of poor, populous countries. Healthcare workers who treated the infected died by the hundreds. Eventually, the virus boarded airplanes and crisscrossed the globe, infecting thousands in the span of several months. Millions more came down with a paralyzing fear of the deadly and mysterious pathogen: severe acute respiratory syndrome. Insane Ebola Policy Exposes American Suicide Culture. It's a testimony of the novelty and plain awfulness of Obama's Ebola Policy that we can quite boldy state that it is unprecedented, even for him. Like a phoenix returning to its smoking pyre, Barack repeatedly treads the shambolic trail of failure. U.S. health agency chief faulted over confusing Ebola messages. The widening circle of people potentially exposed to Ebola in the United States is calling into question how well Dr. Thomas Frieden, the lead U.S. public health advisor, has communicated the risks of the deadly virus, according to crisis management and infectious disease experts. Seeing Ebola Through Obama's Eyes. The nephew of the black African who brought Ebola to the United States doesn't blame his uncle. He blames us. He writes in The Dallas Morning News that his uncle did everything right in Liberia, but still got Ebola, and wasn't treated correctly in the U.S. The claim is that he had a right to be on U.S. soil and that it's our fault he's dead. I suspect this is how President Barack Obama views Ebola. How else do you explain his opposition to a common-sense ban on travel to the U.S. by people from Ebola-infected countries? Rand Paul Engages in Blatant Fearmongering By Accurately Citing CDC Advice on Ebola Exposure. [Scroll down] So the characterization by the AP is this: Rand Paul — not the CDC, mind you, but Rand Paul — is making the claim that standing three feet away can constitute exposure. This "contradicts experts" and his comments "directly conflict with statements from world health authorities." The Democrats' embarrassing attempt to blame Republican for Ebola collapses. Democrats have spent the better part of the week insisting that Republicans who have urged the president to take stronger measures to contain Ebola in the United States, which he did on Friday with the creation of a federal Ebola response coordinator, are stoking unwarranted fears among the public. At the same time, liberals do not see a contradiction in their behavior when they make the dubious claim that the only reason why there is an Ebola threat to America today is because of Republicans and their pathological attachment to budget cuts. Obamamedia found someone other than Bush to blame for Ebola. When it comes to politicizing Ebola, I don't know who's worse; Democrats or the press. 'Ebola Czar' Absent from White House Ebola Strategy Meeting. Ron Klain, the newly-appointed "Ebola Czar" for Barack Obama's administration, did not attend a White House meeting Friday [10/17/2014] discussing the federal response to the domestic threat of the deadly Ebola virus. Obama appoints lawyer to handle Ebola response. President Obama on Friday tapped longtime Democratic operative Ron Klain to coordinate the federal government's response to the threat of widespread infection from the Ebola virus. The move came as the president and his administration faced mounting criticism about its handling of the disease. Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe. [Scroll down] Those frustrations spilled over when Mr. Obama convened his top aides in the Cabinet room after canceling his schedule on Wednesday [10/15/2014]. Medical officials were providing information that later turned out to be wrong. Guidance to local health teams was not adequate. It was unclear which Ebola patients belonged in which threat categories. "It's not tight," a visibly angry Mr. Obama said of the response, according to people briefed on the meeting. Obama 'Seethes' Over Obama Administration's Inept Response To Ebola. For the past couple of weeks, government elites and their media courtiers have been sneering at the American public for supposedly over-reacting to the Ebola threat. There has, unsurprisingly, been a bit of hysteria here and there — human nature remains unchanged — but it's nothing like the cyclone of hysteria portrayed in certain media outlets. What most people are concerned about is the fumbling, stumbling response of the authorities, especially the ultimate authorities in Washington, although there's also been some head-shaking about whatever went on at Texas Presbyterian Hospital. Ted Cruz Schools Candy Crowley on Travel Ban From Hot Zone Ebola Countries. Candy Crowley should always be prepared to be schooled on her liberal assumptions whenever Senator Ted Cruz is a guest on her State of the Union show as happened today [10/19/2014] when Crowley parroted the administration line that a travel ban from the Ebola Hot Zone nations of West Africa was both unnecessary as well as harmful. Watch how well Cruz set Crowley's mind on the path to learning that a ban on such travel, not liberal shibboleth talking points, is what is needed to halt the spread of that disease into this country. Ben Carson: I Wouldn't Serve as Surgeon General if Obama Asked. In case you were wondering, Dr. Ben Carson won't be President Obama's Surgeon General. And even if asked, he would absolutely, 100 percent refuse. I know, I know, the chances of any of that actually happening are zilch to zip, but Carson just wanted to make it clear on Hugh Hewitt's show today that even if Obama asked him to step in to deal with this current Ebola crisis, he would refuse. Hewitt asked Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, if he would serve in that position under Obama. Carson said, "No, because I would, if I were going to serve in that position, I would have to serve under someone that I trusted." Obama Names Democratic Operative to Coordinate Ebola Response. The appointment of Ron Klain, a seasoned Democratic operative and White House veteran, spoke of the seriousness of the situation for the administration, which was eager to put the management of the crisis back on track in the midst of a tough election season. The response has been criticized as sloppy, with two intensive care nurses in a Dallas hospital falling ill after treating a Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan, who eventually died from the virus. Obama's New Ebola Czar Was Deeply Involved in Solyndra Scandal. Bridget Johnson reported earlier that President Obama has appointed Ron Klain to become Ebola czar. Klain's career is not in medicine, epidemiology, or any field related to disease control or prevention. Klain is a laywer, a K Street lobbyist, and a career Democrat party operative. Klain is not a doctor. He is a Democrat loyalist. Not only was he involved in Al Gore's 2000 election recount as Bridget reported, Klain was involved in the Obama administration's Solyndra debacle. More about Solyndra can be found on this page. Ebola and America's epic institutional fail. Was the director of the CDC somehow unaware that Ebola has been ravaging nations in Africa for months? Is there any possible explanation beyond rank incompetence for why Frieden's agency would respond with anything other than a "hands-on" control team to a case within the United States? That really is a disgrace. Tougher protocols needed to protect U.S. from Ebola. The State Department announced that a health care worker from Dallas who may have had contact with specimens from Thomas Duncan, the first person to die of Ebola in the United States, had embarked on a cruise ship from Galveston, Texas, on Oct. 12 and is now [10/18/2014] being kept in isolation aboard the ship "out of an abundance of caution." Where was that abundance of caution when it counted? Head of Homeland Security Links Ebola to Black Power. On September 10, 2014, 10 days before Ebola victim number one, Thomas Eric Duncan, landed in Dallas, Texas from Liberia, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson, ironically named for 'Chief Jeh,' a Liberian tribal leader who befriended his grandfather in 1930, spoke to members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Before the presenter opened the floor to questions on ISIS, Ebola and homegrown terrorism, Johnson made a few brief remarks, first on DHS's responsibilities, including border security and protection against nuclear, chemical and biological threats. Ebola czar Ron Klain was a Fannie Mae and Cigna lobbyist. "They won't work in my White House!" candidate Obama proclaimed about lobbyists. This was never true. Obama has hired about 100 lobbyists, and now he's just promoted one of them: revolving-door K Street Democratic operative Ron Klain is now Obama's Ebola czar. Klain served as chief of staff to Janet Reno and then Al Gore in the 1990s, and as Joe Biden's chief of staff recently. In between, of course, he was a corporate lobbyist. What Happened To The First "Ebola Czar", Dr. Nicole Lurie? Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain called for an Ebola czar, not knowing one already effectively exists. Why should he, since Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H., has been completely M.I.A. You have to wonder sometimes if anyone in a leadership position in the Obama administration bothers to show up to work these days. Case in point is Dr. Nicole Lurie, who arguably should be front and center in planning for and responding to the Ebola outbreak. Mutant Ebola warning: Leading U.S. scientist warns deadly virus is already changing to become more contagious. The deadly Ebola virus could be mutating to become even more contagious, a leading U.S scientist has warned. The disease has killed nearly 4,000 people, infecting in excess of 8,000 — the majority in the West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Judicial Watch: Obama Plans to Transfer Ebola-infected Foreigners to U.S. for Treatment. Thursday night [10/16/2014] on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer predicted that it would only take "a couple more cases like Mr. Duncan" flying to the United States from West Africa with Ebola for the president to back down from his no travel ban position. But if Judicial Watch's sources are correct, Obama's open door policy for people coming from Ebola infected countries, may creak open a little wider to allow the transfer of non-US citizens infected with the disease into the country for treatment. ABC Accuses Americans of Ebola 'Hysteria,' Makes Absurd Argument Against Travel Ban. Take today's [10/18/2014] Good Morning America where co-anchors Paula Faris and Dan Harris accused Americans of "hysteria" over Ebola and concoted an anti-travel ban argument flying right into the face of the facts. Speaking of flying, the oblivious duo asserted that a flight ban makes no sense since Ebola can only be passed via contact with bodily fluids. But surely Faris and Harris know that Thomas Eric Duncan had no such symptoms when he boarded a plane to the US, where he proceeded to infect at least two people before dying. Zogby Report Card: An Ebola mutiny on Obama's ship. Pollster John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama, despite his efforts, is losing the confidence of the nation over his handling of Ebola. Dallas hospital has become a 'ghost town' as patients are avoiding facility. The hospital where one man died of Ebola and two nurses treating him contracted the deadly virus has seen a steep and sharp decline in patients. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, has become a 'ghost town,' with patients cancelling previously scheduled appointments for procedures and surgeries and others going out of their way to travel to other facilities even in emergency situations. Alarm after vomiting passenger dies on flight from Nigeria to JFK. A passenger died on a Nigeria-to-JFK flight after a vomiting fit Thursday — and a top lawmaker said officials gave the corpse only a "cursory" exam before declaring that the victim did not have Ebola. Rep. Peter King said in a letter to Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection that the handling of the remains exposed serious flaws in airport preparedness for an Ebola outbreak. Fresh fears after passenger flying from Nigeria to JFK dies in his seat after vomiting profusely. A 63-year-old American man has died during a flight from Nigeria to New York's JFK after vomiting profusely — but it was only a 'cursory' exam by the CDC that confirmed he did not have Ebola. The unnamed passenger boarded an Arik Air plane out of Lagos, Nigeria, on Wednesday night [10/15/2014], but passed away before the plane reached its final destination. Flight attendants called the CDC, Port Authority and customs officials, who then boarded the plane in protective gear as it touched down, forcing 145 worried passengers to remain on board. The Editor says... Incompetence Meets Mendacity in Obama Administration's Ebola Response. Ebola is causing such anxiety that even alarm over an outbreak of enterovirus D-68 — far more prevalent and linked to the deaths of at least four children — has been crowded out. Ditto news of the Islamic State's rampage, a stock-price rollercoaster, and the impending midterm elections. Understandably, two concerns dominate the public discussion. One is incompetence. [...] Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. Study questions 21-day Ebola quarantine period. As the 48 patients exposed to the first U.S. Ebola patient near the end of their 21-day incubation period on Sunday, Oct. 19, a new study is questioning whether that period is sufficient to keep the public safe. "Twenty-one days has been regarded as the appropriate quarantine period for holding individuals potentially exposed to Ebola Virus to reduce risk of contagion, but there does not appear to be a systemic discussion of the basis for this period," lead researcher Charles Haas, an environmental engineering professor at Drexel University, wrote in the study paper. How the NYT blatantly spins for Obama on Ebola. Just look at the New York Times, always an industry leader: It's become the official stenographer of the Obama White House. On Saturday, The Times ran a story about the president and his response to the Ebola outbreak that read like it was dictated word for word by the president's top men. If I were a stockholder in the New York Times Co., I would certainly hope the paper was properly compensated for the front-page placement of this naked political advertisement. CDC Spent 3 Times as Much on "Community Transformation" Than On Disease Control. While the nurses in Texas were dealing with an Ebola patient without protocols and proper equipment, the CDC continued to claim the protocols were in place and the hospitals in the U.S. were ready. You have to understand. Ebola takes them away from their real mission which is to build bike lanes, get rid of guns, tell you what to eat, and harass anyone who builds a playground. Obama administration failed to implement all of the CDC's advice to prevent an Ebola outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control told the incoming Obama administration in 2008 that it should establish 18 regional disease detection centers around the world to adequately safeguard the U.S. from emerging health threats like Ebola, according to an agency memo. But six years later, as the government struggles to contain the fallout from a deadly Ebola outbreak at home and abroad, the CDC still has only 10 centers — and none of them operates in the western Africa region hardest hit by the deadly virus. Ebola vs. civil liberties. Unnervingly, the U.S. public health services remain steps behind the Ebola virus. Contact tracing is what we do, Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden assured the nation. It will stop the epidemic "in its tracks." And yet nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who developed Ebola, were not even among the 48 contacts the CDC was initially following. Nor were any of the doctors and nurses who treated the "index patient," Thomas Duncan. No one even had a full list of caregivers. Lapses persisted at Dallas hospital treating Ebola patient. The hospital's protective protocol was "insufficient," said Dr. Joseph McCormick of the University of Texas School of Public Health, who was part of the CDC team that investigated the first recorded Ebola outbreak in 1976. Obama Says Ebola Travel Bans Could Make Things Worse. President Barack Obama on Saturday [10/18/2014] urged Americans to avoid hysteria over Ebola, and played down the idea of travel bans from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa, explaining that restrictions could make things worse. Lawmakers this week urged Obama to bar people from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea from entering the United States. Hagan Flip-Flops on Ebola Travel Ban. Democratic senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina was emphatic earlier this week that instituting a travel ban on those attempting to enter the United States from West African nations ravaged by the Ebola virus was "not going to help solve the problem." Hagan's Republican opponent, Thom Tillis, had been one of the first candidates for office to suggest the ban. [...] But in a statement released Friday afternoon [10/17/2014] by her official Senate office, Hagan appears to have changed her mind. Obama DHS Now EXPEDITING Visa Requests From Ebola-Infected Countries. The Department of Homeland Security is proudly advertising its "Ebola Outbreak-related Immigration Relief Measures to Nationals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone Currently in the United States." You read that right. Not only are the Obama Democrats leaving our doors wide open to those seeking entry from Ebola-infected countries, they're actually expediting visa requests! Watchdog: Obama to bring non-American Ebola victims to U.S. for treatment. While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world's Ebola patients to the United States to be treated. Judicial Watch, the conservative public watchdog group, says in a shocking report that the president is "actively formulating plans" to admit Ebola-infected non-citizens just to be treated. The Editor says... New York Times: 'Seething' Obama Has Been Let Down by CDC. Whether it's his IRS targeting his political opponents, his NSA spying on journalists, his EPA blowing an oil spill, his HHS fumbling a Website designed to sell only one product (ObamaCare), or his CDC proving itself so inept you wonder if anyone there has even bothered to see the movie "Outbreak," President Obama's Palace Guards in the mainstream media are always there to assure us the President is very, Very, VERY angry and disappointed. As though the guy in charge is the helpless one, the real victim. A czar is born: Competence in question, Obama spins. After convening with top staff for two days to devise America's Ebola strategy, and roughly 12 hours after allowing that naming an Ebola czar could be a good idea, President Obama named a political crisis manager to the job. Perfect. Ron Klain's mission of mercy starts with trying to rescue the Democrats from losing the U.S. Senate and more of the House of Representatives thanks in part to Obama's demonstrated lack of command. Klain's utter lack of medical expertise raises all too obvious questions about his ability to lead the government's response to a public health threat that demands sophisticated, near-instantaneous judgments on everything from treatment protocols to flight bans. White House defends Ebola czar's lack of medical experience. The White House hit back at Republican suggestions Friday [10/17/2014] that President Obama should have appointed an Ebola czar with more medical experience, calling Democratic insider Ron Klain the right person to navigate Washington's bureaucratic maze. Though the White House admitted that the former chief of staff to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore is not an "Ebola expert," they said he was an "implementation expert." Also posted under Czars. Ebola's Newest Victim: How the CDC chief became a media piñata. I'm not a big defender of [Dr. Tom] Frieden. He seems rather robotic at his televised briefings, rattling off numbered talking points. He doesn't project a lot of empathy. And he's only grudgingly admitted that his agency has made several crucial mistakes in handling the response to the virus and those who have been infected. At a House hearing yesterday [10/16/2014], Frieden, an experienced physician and public health official, used the same bedside manner, quietly intoning "we will consider all options" when pressed on why the administration isn't imposing more travel restrictions. As in his TV interviews, he doesn't seem to know how to make news or communicate a sense of urgency. But this seems to me to be the classic media response to a crisis, reducing it to a question of which heads should roll. Dallas Hospital Had the Ebola Screening Machine That the Military Is Using In Africa. The military is using an Ebola screening machine that could have diagnosed the Ebola cases in Texas far faster, but government guidelines prevent hospitals from using it to actually screen for Ebola. [...] The FilmArray retails for about $39,000 per unit and can screen for the genetic markers of a wide number of respiratory, gastro-intestinal and other illness, including Ebola, but only with the right "kit" in place. Current FDA guidelines would not have allowed Dallas Presbyterian Hospital to get that kit. That's despite the fact that it can provide results with higher than 90 percent certainty and it's one of the machines that the military is currently using to screen for Ebola in Africa. Islamic Burial Rituals Blamed For Spread Of Ebola. When Muslims die, family members don't turn to a funeral home or crematorium to take care of the body. In Islam, death is handled much differently. Relatives personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. Often, several family members participate in this posthumous bathing ritual, known as Ghusl. Before scrubbing the skin with soap and water, family members press down on the abdomen to excrete fluids still in the body. A mixture of camphor and water is used for a final washing. Then, family members dry off the body and shroud it in white linens. $39,643,352 Worth of NIH Funding That Could Have Gone to the Ebola Vaccine. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent more than $39 million on obese lesbians, origami condoms, texting drunks, and dozens of other projects that could have been scrapped in favor of developing an Ebola vaccine. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready," said NIH Director Francis Collins, blaming budget cuts for his agency's failure to develop a vaccine for the deadly virus. However, the Washington Free Beacon has uncovered $39,643,352 worth of NIH studies within the past several years that have gone to questionable research. The Ebola Administration. The Right has had a good deal of fun this week mocking all of the things that our federal health czars have been paying attention to in recent years rather than horrifying threats such as Ebola — e.g., figuring out why lesbians are commonly fat but gay men aren't, stopping us from bringing home cheese from France but not Ebola from Liberia, etc. But that could very well turn un-funny in short order. Ebola: First, do no Harm. In response to repeated inquiries about travel bans to and from Ebola-riddled nations, Dr. Tom Frieden has said from his very first appearances onward, that our highest moral obligation is "to first, do no harm." He claims that implementing travel bans would harm the very people we are trying to help — that bans and quarantines would restrict humanitarian aid (despite the fact that exceptions can be made for charter and/or military flights to bring supplies and care in and out of the region) and disrupt economic and political stability in the region. Moreover, he and other experts claim that there would be a negative impact on the economies of these already faltering nations. On Ebola, White House calls on media to help calm public. The Obama administration said Thursday [10/16/2014] it's relying on the news media to help tamp down public anxiety over Ebola. White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters the president is not considering giving a prime-time address to the nation about the virus. Instead, other administration officials — such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Thomas Frieden — will continue speaking to the American people. Ebola: Schultz Blames Profit Motive for Texas Hospital Shortcomings. Here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I live, the Ebola outbreak is very much a local issue. Playing tennis with some buddies this morning, I remarked during a break: "can you imagine what a disaster this Ebola thing must be for Texas Presbyterian? Who's going to want to go there? The whole hospital could go out of business!" Pretty obvious, no? It would be akin to the financial disaster that would befall a restaurant if someone who dined there died of food poisoning. Well, obvious to you and me, perhaps. But not to Ed Schultz. Airborne Ebola spread can't be ruled out, docs from infamous 'Hot Zone' episode say. Both President Obama and his top infectious disease experts tried to calm Americans' fears about Ebola this week by saying the current outbreak cannot be transmitted through the air. But less than 30 miles from where top government officials made their declarations in Washington, scientists a quarter century ago did in fact prove that an Ebola strain contained to monkeys could spread airborne. Six Reasons to Panic. As a rule, one should not panic at whatever crisis has momentarily fixed the attention of cable news producers. But the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has migrated to both Europe and America, may be the exception that proves the rule. There are at least six reasons that a controlled, informed panic might be in order. Obama: Travel Ban Could Make America Less Safe. President Obama discussed the proposal to institute a travel ban to protect America from the grown Ebola crisis, but suggested he wasn't in favor of it because it might make Americans less safe: [Video clip] Dallas' Top Health Epidemiologist Being Monitored For Ebola. Dallas County's top public health epidemiologist confirmed Thursday [10//18/2014] that she spent time at Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan's beside and that she is among those potentially exposed to the virus. Steve Scalise Leaves CDC's Frieden Stuttering Over Ebola Travel Ban. Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise grilled the Centers for Disease Control head Tom Frieden over bans on travel from Ebola-stricken countries and whether the White House has even spoken to the CDC about the matter. Scalise repeatedly questioned Frieden, who's effectively heading the administration's response to Ebola, about whether the White House has discussed the possibility of a travel ban with the CDC. Ebola and the Failure of the Administrative State. When news broke two weeks ago that a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, had been diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, declared: "We are stopping Ebola in its tracks in this country." Since then, Duncan has died, two of the nurses who treated him have contracted Ebola, and it has become clear that the situation is a lot less under control than the administration is willing to admit. Obama fights to keep Ebola from becoming Katrina. Better late than never presumably. Barack Obama is finally acting and talking like an actual president on this Ebola crisis. How he and the CDC Director Tom Frieden have 'handled' the situation from a strategic point of view will likely be a case study in PR classes someday on how not to perform crisis communications. Their approach was late, clueless and detached from the average American's reality. No surprise that Washington functionaries in their arrogant bubble of self-importance are detached from the rest of the country. Especially this president. How the Feds block Ebola cures. We have technology to potentially control Ebola and other viral outbreaks today. But the federal bureaucracy refuses to catch up with 21st-century science. [...] These companies could start producing Ebola vaccine/treatments tomorrow — except that the Food and Drug Administration's insistence on randomized studies and endless demands for more data means firms have to spend millions on paperwork instead of producing medicines. And for every small company drained by such tactics, many others conclude it's not even worth trying. List of Lawmakers backing travel ban. Pressure is building on President Obama to ban flights to West African nations that are battling Ebola, as concerns mount about the disease spreading in the United States. Administration officials have resisted a flight ban thus far, arguing it would make it harder to deliver relief supplies to the countries where the virus is running rampant. Obama will name Ron Klain as Ebola Czar. President Barack Obama will appoint Ron Klain his "Ebola czar," knowledgeable sources tell CNN. The president on Thursday [10/16/2014] signaled his openness to the idea to have one individual coordinating the entire federal response to any threat of an outbreak in the United States. "It may make sense for us to have one person ... so that after this initial surge of activity, we can have a more regular process just to make sure that we're crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's going forward," Obama said. Ron Klain named Ebola czar by Obama. Responding to urgent calls from Congress and a fearful public, President Obama has tapped a former White House official to serve as his "Ebola czar." Ron Klain, an attorney who worked for Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, is president of Case Holdings, which handles business interests for former AOL CEO Steve Case, and general counsel at Revolution LLC, a tech-focused venture capital firm in Washington, according to the White House. Dallas hospital that treated three Ebola patients had machine that can detect disease in just minutes but couldn't use it because it wasn't FDA approved. The Dallas hospital that sent home Thomas Eric Duncan the first time he showed up at the emergency room has a machine that could have detected Ebola in less than an hour — but doctors were barred from using it because of federal regulations. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has treated three Ebola patients — Duncan, who died last week, and two of its own nurses who contracted the disease from Duncan. In each case, the hospital had to wait up to two days for confirmation that that patients were infected with the virus. GOP Rep. Plans Legislation To Ban Travel From Ebola-Stricken Nations To U.S.. With scores of lawmakers calling for a travel ban, Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) says he plans to introduce legislation to restrict all commercial flights from Ebola-stricken nations and deny visas to those with a travel itinerary from those counties. "Now that two of our health care workers have contracted the virus I am putting my foot down," Ross, the Senior Deputy Majority Whip, said Thursday [10/16/2014]. "This legislation is a more serious approach to preventing Ebola from further infiltrating our homeland. Airport security screening is a complete smoke and mirror approach to the virus and Americans aren't buying it." U.S. Soldiers Get Just Four Hours of Ebola Training. As the U.S. military rushes to combat Ebola in West Africa, soldiers are receiving on-the-fly instructions on how to protect themselves against the deadly virus. American military operations to fight Ebola in Africa are unfolding quickly — forcing the military to come up with some procedures and protocols on the fly. Soldiers preparing for deployment to West Africa are given just four hours of Ebola-related training before leaving to combat the epidemic. And the first 500 soldiers to arrive have been holing up in Liberian hotels and government facilities while the military builds longer-term infrastructure on the ground. Brilliant, idea, Barry! The Editor says... Donald Trump: Something Mentally Wrong With Obama. Thursday on NewsMax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show," real estate mogul Donald Trump called into question President Barack Obama mental health for refusing enact a travel ban on commercial flights from West African nations suffering with the Ebola outbreak. CDC Off Center. A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease. Ebola Scare at Pentagon After Woman Who Was Recently in Africa Vomits on Tour Bus. Pentagon police shut down a building entrance and a portion of the south parking lot Friday because a woman was sick and told emergency personnel she had recently been to West Africa, officials said. If you like western Africa so much, stay there! Obama's man on Ebola is former Biden staff chief. He's tackled the financial crisis, served two vice presidents and been portrayed by Kevin Spacey in an HBO film, but Ron Klain's newest job as the U.S. point person on Ebola may be his toughest challenge to date. GOP rep worries about Ebola treatment for US troops. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) expressed concern Wednesday about what the U.S. plans to do if troops helping to fight Ebola in West Africa contract the disease. "[W]hat happens if they do show symptoms of Ebola? Do we even have the capacity to bring them back here?" Murphy asked CNN's Wolf Blitzer. In addition to worrying that the disease could spread in America, Murphy said treatment for soldiers could be life-threateningly slow. Presbyterian workers wore no hazmat suits for two days while treating Ebola patient. Health care workers treating Thomas Eric Duncan in a hospital isolation unit didn't wear protective hazardous-material suits for two days until tests confirmed the Liberian man had Ebola — a delay that potentially exposed perhaps dozens of hospital workers to the virus, according to medical records. CDC Director's Credibility Collapses: A Series of Tweets. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, is reacting to news that a second Dallas nurse contracted Ebola from Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who flew to the United States after he knew that he had been exposed to the deadly virus. Naked Politics: The Ebola Czar Has No Clothes. 1. We shouldn't need an Ebola czar. 2. We already put somebody in charge of corralling federal bureaucracies and coordinating local responses to national emergencies. His name is Barack Obama. 3. He has a chief of staff, the nation's chief operating officer, Denis McDonough; a homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco; a national security adviser, Susan Rice; a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and a Cabinet full of secretaries. 4. That should be enough. 5. If it isn't — if all the president's men and women can't coordinate among themselves, if McDonough isn't strong enough to ride herd, maybe a massive shakeup is in order. We'll Tell You How Dangerous Ebola Is After The Election. There had never been a case of Ebola in the U.S. until a few months ago. Since then, thousands of people have died of the disease in Africa, and millions upon millions of dollars have been spent treating Ebola patients in the U.S. who acquired it there, one of whom has died. But the Obama administration refuses to impose a travel ban. This summer, the U.S. government imposed a travel ban on Israel simply to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu into accepting a ceasefire agreement. But we can't put a travel restriction on countries where a contagious disease is raging. New Ebola vaccine study has begun in Maryland. The first human trials of a Canadian Ebola vaccine began Monday, part of a flood of experimental therapies rushed into testing to battle the Ebola epidemic. Although the world has been fighting Ebola since 1976, major drugmakers showed little interest in the disease because outbreaks were small and sporadic, said Thomas Geisbert, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who has studied Ebola and tested drugs against it for many years. In this country or overseas? Ebola nurse called CDC several times before boarding flight. In the case of Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who flew commercially as she was becoming ill with Ebola, one health official said "somebody dropped the ball." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Vinson called the agency several times before flying, saying that she had a fever with a temperature of 99.5 degrees. But because her fever wasn't 100.4 degrees or higher, she didn't officially fall into the group of "high risk" and was allowed to fly. Officials in the U.S. have been trying to calm fears over the Ebola crisis, but time and again events have overtaken their assurances. Obama 'Absolutely Confident' U.S. Won't Have 'Serious' Ebola Outbreak. President Obama said at a cabinet meeting on Ebola today that he is "absolutely confident that we can prevent a serious outbreak of the disease here in the United States." Just over a week ago, the president said "the chance of an ebola outbreak in the United States is extremely low." U.S. troops assisting in Ebola mission may be quarantined. In an unprecedented move to protect U.S. troops that might be exposed to Ebola, U.S. military commanders are being given the authority to quarantine troops for 21 days at a Defense Department facility where they will be monitored for signs of the disease and treated if they do contract the virus, a Defense Department memo explained. The memo, which was obtained by CNN, spells out the details of the military's plan for the first time. Health-care worker with Ebola was allowed to fly despite reporting slight fever. The experts had warned that fighting Ebola is hard, and Wednesday's drumbeat of bad news proved them correct. The day began with a bulletin about another health-care worker stricken with the deadly disease, and the news got worse with the revelation that she had flown with a slightly elevated temperature from Cleveland to Dallas on a crowded airliner barely 24 hours before her diagnosis. Before she boarded that flight, the woman, identified by Ohio officials as Amber Joy Vinson, 29, informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she was running a temperature of 99.5 degrees, a federal official told The Washington Post. Lawmakers Seek US Ban on Travelers From Ebola-Stricken Region. A growing chorus of lawmakers is calling on President Obama to impose travel restrictions on passengers coming to the U.S. from West African countries stricken by Ebola. On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner became the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker to ask the president to consider a travel ban. Existing Protocols Might Not Be Enough For Ebola. As Thomas Eric Duncan's health deteriorated, nurses Amber Joy Vinson and Nina Pham were at the Ebola patient's side. Obama, Ebola and optics. President Barack Obama is on high alert about Ebola, and doesn't want anybody to think otherwise. Any time Obama is campaigning or on vacation when something big goes wrong — from a downed plane to race riots — aides scoff at the idea that he is not focusing on his day job. Air Force One has a pretty good conference call feature. The president does his job from wherever he is, they say. Not this time. Told in 2008: Obama administration ignored the CDC's advice to prevent an Ebola outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control told the incoming Obama administration in 2008 that it should establish 18 regional disease detection centers around the world to adequately safeguard the U.S. from emerging health threats like Ebola, according to an agency memo. But six years later, as the government struggles to contain the fallout from a deadly Ebola outbreak at home and abroad, the CDC still has only 10 centers — and none of them operates in the western Africa region hardest hit by the deadly virus. Experts Offer Steps for Avoiding Public Hysteria, a Different Contagious Threat. So far, emergency rooms have not been overwhelmed with people afraid that they have caught the Ebola virus, and no one is hiding in the basement and hoarding food. But there is little doubt that the events of the past week have left the public increasingly worried, particularly the admission by Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that the initial response to the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States was inadequate. Obama to Hold Ebola Meeting With Cabinet. President Obama won't be traveling to New Jersey and Connecticut later today [10/15/2014], as he had been planning to do. There he was going to raise money for Democrats up for reelection in November. Instead, Obama is going to be hosting Cabinet members for a meeting on Ebola. President on Ebola in U.S.: 'I'm confident we can prevent a serious outbreak'. President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip at the last minute to stay in Washington and spearhead a more aggressive response to the Texas Ebola outbreak that has infected two nurses, one who traveled through Cleveland, and frightened Americans with the prospect that their health system is not equipped to handle a catastrophic medical event. He said that monitoring of Ebola must be done in a "much more aggressive way." CDC Wasted $1.6 Mil on Tranny Beauty Pageant Group. Obama's billionaire Democracy Alliance trolls have already decided how they're going to divert attention from Obama's botched Ebola response. Via Erica Payne's Agenda Project Action Fund (the political consultant trolls behind Throw Granny Off a Cliff) is blaming Republican cuts. [...] In fact the CDC budget is at $6.6 billion. That money was wasted on assorted junk instead of being used to develop an available Ebola treatment. Here are some of the places where that money went... Nurse Vinson called CDC, was told OK to fly despite her fever. The calm reassurances offered by Dr. Thomas Frieden of the CDC that its protocols are effective and its information is "clear and correct" are now a laughingstock. Amber Joy Vinson, the Dallas nurse who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, actually called the CDC asking if it was all right for her to fly a commercial airliner with a fever of 99.5 and was told to go ahead. Hours after she landed in Dallas, she developed Ebola symptoms. Russian premier questions Obama's mental state. She's the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, a position created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that reports directly to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Her mission, according to the HHS website, is "to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies." Lead? Well, maybe she's leading from behind, because [Doctor Nicole] Lurie's been nowhere to be found since Ebola showed up on U.S. soil. Obama's spectacular incompetence turns deadly. President Obama, a short-term college professor and failed community organizer who became a mostly absentee state senator and then an all-but-invisible U.S. senator, has Petered out. Per the Peter Principle, he has risen to his level of incompetence — some would argue far beyond it. The president — and the president alone — let Ebola into America. He could have made one phone call (even on Saturday, when playing his 200th round of golf as president) and said one sentence to protect all Americans from the usually fatal disease: "No one from West Africa gets into the country." 'Who's the idiot with the clipboard?'. As news helicopters swarmed over Dallas' Love Field on Wednesday evening to watch the second U.S. nurse to contract Ebola board a private plane bound for Atlanta, one lone mysterious man stood out from the pack. Holding a clipboard and directing the transfer, the unidentified man seemed to be the only person on the tarmac without protective clothing, wearing just a button down shirt and slacks. While Ebola is not an airborne disease, his presence so close to patient Amber Vinson's medical team sparked fears after he was seen grabbing a container and hazmat trash bag from one of the workers' in full-protective gear and later boarding the flight. Restrict Travel to Curb Ebola. The threat of a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States is small; the object should be to keep it that way. Banning travel to and from West Africa — most importantly, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where Ebola is epidemic — is a commonsense measure that would help to keep the disease contained and the risk of its spread abroad low. The White House, or the White House working with Congress, could quickly and easily establish a blanket ban on travel. They could also provide for appropriate exceptions to ensure that aid continues to reach afflicted areas. 911 dispatchers forbidden from saying 'Ebola' on the radio. City officials are so jittery about causing widespread Ebola panic that 911 dispatchers have been forbidden from dropping any "E"-bombs over the radios, The [New York] Post has learned. An FDNY memo instructs all personnel to use more vague terms when discussing the deadly disease, which is threatening to become a global pandemic. "At no point shall a dispatcher transmit over the radio any message containing the word 'Ebola' or related terminology," according to the advisory, which was obtained by The Post. Why Has Ebola Czar Nicole Lurie Been MIA? Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain called for an Ebola czar, not knowing one already effectively exists. Why should he, since Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H., has been completely M.I.A. Obama Calls For a Medical 'SWAT Team' To Fight Ebola. President Barack Obama called for monitoring the spread of the Ebola virus "in a much more aggressive way" after a top-level White House meeting. He directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to organize and send what he referred to as a medical "SWAT team" within 24 hours of a diagnosis. No, no, no. If there is one thing this country has too many of already, it's SWAT teams. The surrealism of Obama's Ebola. "The chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low"-President Barack Obama, September 16 in a speech in Atlanta. Less than one month later, Obama's predictions were proven fatally wrong. Within days of this extremely low chances of an Ebola outbreak in America prediction, several Americans have been diagnosed with the virus with innumerable more potentially exposed to it. President Obama's Ebola problem. The Ebola crisis in the United States has become an anchor threatening to sink the Obama presidency. Already under fire from critics who saw the federal response to the outbreak as disorganized and timid, things went from bad to worse on Wednesday [10/15/2014], when it was revealed a second nurse had contracted the disease while treating a Liberian man at a Dallas-area hospital. Disaster Declaration Planned for Ebola Fight. Dallas County Commissioners tabled plans to declare a disaster over the Ebola virus at a Thursday [10/16/2014] meeting, deciding to restrict the travel of health care workers exposed to the virus without it. Commissioners had been expected to make the declaration Thursday, but went into a closed-door session at the start of an emergency meeting. Afterward, the commissioners returned and said they believed a disaster declaration would ultimately hurt Dallas more than it would help. The Ebola Twilight of Public Institutions. On Wednesday [10/15/2014] the World Health Organization warned of the threat of a global plague, which can cause "vomiting, marked hypocalcemia, metabolic acidosis, convulsions and, in rare cases, even death." Ebola? No, the WHO culprit is the overconsumption of energy drinks. The Bloomberg Disease. One name that hasn't surfaced yet in respect of the floundering by the federal government in the face of Ebola is Michael Bloomberg. Yet it was the former mayor of New York City who gave the nation Thomas Frieden, who is one dangerous doctor and is the middle of the catastrophe. Mr. Bloomberg made him New York City's Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, which is a post that tries to re-educate New Yorkers so that they will accept passively living like socialists. Now Dr. Frieden directs the Centers for Disease Control, where he wants to do the same thing. He is emerging as what the New York Times, in a story on page one of its Web site this morning, calls the "face of the nation's worry" and also, in respect of Ebola, the Obama administration's "flawed response." Because of the government's blunders in the Ebola emergency, people are starting to look a harder look at Bloombergism. Obama May Send National Guard to Liberia to Fight Ebola: Sources. President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Thursday paving the way for the deployment of National Guard and Reserve forces to West Africa to help contain the Ebola outbreak there. Under the mandate, the secretaries of defense and homeland security can order to active duty some members of the Selected Reserve and the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization. Ebola in the Big Apple? CDC tells NYC to get ready. Federal health officials are focusing their attention on New York as a key potential Ebola point of entry, with a new report warning: "Ongoing transmission of Ebolavirus in West Africa could result in an infected person arriving in NYC." The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that New York is key entry point for those coming in from West Africa, but apparently so far Ebola free. On the Travel Ban. The communications operation of the federal government has been classically Obama-esque. At every turn they've over promised and under-delivered. It seems obvious to me that the two main drivers of this failure are an undue prioritization of politics and a typical overconfidence in the government bureaucracy. Whenever you listen to Friedan, Fauci or Obama talk about this, they do so in a way that leaves you wondering what the real facts are. What are they not telling us? At every turn they issue categorical statements about how things are under control and that X or Y won't happen and when X or Y happen, they say it's because of a breach in protocol they cannot identify. Seven in Ohio confirm contact with nurse Ebola patient, in quarantine. Seven people who had confirmed contact with the second Texas nurse diagnosed with Ebola during her visit to Ohio over the weekend are in voluntary quarantine and have not shown symptoms of the virus, county public health officials said on Thursday [10/16/2014]. Carney: 'No Question' Ebola Outbreak Puts Obama 'In A Bad Light'. Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said there is "no question" that the environment caused by the Islamic State, Ukraine, and Ebola crises has put President Obama in a "bad light." "You don't get to choose the crisis you deal with as a president," Carney said. "I think in the end, this is not a political issue. It's an issue that has to be handled. There is no question in this environment it all washes back on the White House and that puts him in a bad light." Ebola nurse to be transferred to DC suburb. The first Dallas healthcare worker infected with Ebola will be transferred to an isolation unit at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) near Washington, D.C. The nurse, 26-year-old Nina Pham, will arrive in Bethesda, Md., after several days of care at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, confirmed the transfer, first reported by NBC News, to lawmakers during a hearing on Ebola Thursday [10/16/2014]. Obama Admin Predicted 25% Ebola Threat To U.S; Obama Downplayed. President Obama assured the American public that our country's Ebola risk was extremely low, even after a federal government-funded study quietly found a nearly 25 percent chance of Ebola reaching the United States in September 2014. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the federal government's Models of Infectious Disease Agency co-funded a September 2 analysis on the threat of Ebola's spread to countries including the United States, Israel's Arutz Sheva reported. The analysis was circulated among federal government officials prior to its September 2 publication date. US Embassies in Ebola-Stricken Countries Are Still Processing Visas for Non-US Citizens. Despite the outbreak of Ebola, it is still possible to get a visa from the three West African countries at the heart of the outbreak, and a key congressman is demanding to know why. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, sent a sternly worded letter to Secretary of State John Kerry about the Obama administration's handling of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Fauci: NIH Doctors Treating 1st Nurse with Ebola Won't Be Under Travel Restrictions. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a House subcommittee Thursday that doctors at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., who will be treating Nina Pham — the first nurse to contract Ebola from Liberian Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan — will not be under travel restrictions. "According to the guidelines that the people who will be coming into contact with her will be physicians, nurses and others who will be in personal protective equipment, and therefore, they are not restricted," Fauci told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. Obama: 'I hugged and kissed' medical staff treating an Ebola patient — and 'felt perfectly safe doing so'. President Obama Wednesday that the dangers of a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States are "extraordinarily low," pointing to his own contact with medical personnel treating a patient infected with the virus. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with cabinet secretaries and other top federal officials, Obama said Ebola is being "taken very seriously at the highest levels of government," but stressed that the risk of infection for the average American remains very low. Obama said he had been in close contact with nurses at Emory University hospital who cared for two American Ebola patients. Poll: 82% want quarantine, 66% would block entry. As the Ebola crisis surges to the top issue on the minds of Americans, a new poll finds that 82 percent of those following the issue closely want to quarantine anybody who has recently traveled to the virus-stricken nations. CDC: We'll consider Ebola travel ban. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden told a House panel Thursday he isn't ruling out a travel ban from Ebola-stricken nations. "We will consider any options to better protect Americans," Frieden told the House Energy and Commerce Committee at a hearing examining the federal government's response to the Dallas Ebola cases. Lawmakers repeatedly pressured Frieden about a travel ban from Ebola "hot zones," a move President Obama has resisted despite increasing public support for one. Obama calls up reserves to deal with Ebola in Africa. President Obama issued an executive order Thursday [10/16/2014] allowing the Pentagon to call up reserve troops to combat the Ebola crisis in Africa. Obama also opened the door to an Ebola "czar" to coordinate the response, saying that an additional official may be helpful as his advisers juggle threats of terrorism and the upcoming flu season. And while he said he had no "philosophical objection" to barring west Africans from traveling to the U.S. from western Africa, he said he would continue to listen to experts who say "a flat-out travel ban is not the best way to go." U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Ebola: 'Consequence of Deforestation and Climate Change'. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service posted on its website an article that claims Ebola is a "direct consequence" of manmade climate change. The article also stated that the virus specifically threatens conservation efforts focused on ape and monkey populations in Africa, including those in Guinea, one of the countries experiencing an Ebola outbreak and where the U.S.-run Chimpanzee Conservation Center is located. "The larger conservation connection, however, is perhaps less obvious: Ebola appears to be a direct consequence of deforestation and human disturbance," the article stated. CDC Director: 'We Could've Sent a More Robust Hospital Infection Control Team' to Dallas. In the days after the first diagnosis of Ebola in the U.S., the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was resolute in his confidence about hospitals' ability to manage the virus. Should Obama Go to Ebola Ground Zero? After a series of missteps in dealing with an Ebola patient from Liberia, two health care workers who cared for the man are now infected — raising fresh concerns about the capacity of government agencies, private health care systems, and the American public itself to grapple with the virus. Five questions quickly came to mind. Ebola Patient Traveled By Air Day Before Symptoms Surfaced. The CDC has announced that the second healthcare worker diagnosed with Ebola — now identified as Amber Joy Vinson of Dallas — traveled by air Oct. 13, with a low-grade fever, a day before she showed up at the hospital reporting symptoms. The CDC is now reaching out to all passengers who flew on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth. 2nd health care worker with Ebola in Dallas took plane day before symptoms showed, officials say. The second health care worker to test positive for Ebola in Dallas traveled by air the day before presenting symptoms and being isolated, the CDC announced Wednesday [10/15/2014]. Obama puts our security at risk. This is what happens when President Obama refuses to ban travel to America from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa, strictly for political and politically correct reasons. The Dallas case suggests that the disease is more contagious than Americans are being told, given the fact that the nurse who was in contact with Duncan was wearing full protective gear. It certainly calls into question Obama's statement that "you cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus." By not banning flights — or shutting the southern border — Obama is putting our national security at risk, to say nothing of the 3,000 U.S. troops whose lives are now in danger after he nonsensically deployed them to Africa to fight the disease. 16 Members of Doctors Without Borders Infected with Ebola, Nine Dead. International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died. CDC sending team of 16 Ebola experts to Dallas. A female hospital worker in Dallas tested positive for the Ebola virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported early Wednesday [10/15/2014]. A statement from the CDC says the preliminary test was performed overnight at the Texas public health laboratory in Austin on a specimen from another worker who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas a week ago. The absurd claim that only Republicans are to blame for cuts to Ebola research. This ad is simply a more extreme version of a new Democratic talking point — that GOP budget cuts have harmed the nation's ability to handle the Ebola outbreak. It mixes statistics — the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "cut" $585 million (the ad offers no date range) — with disturbing images of the outbreak and various Republican leaders saying variations of the word "cut." House Dems call for U.S. troops in Africa to give direct Ebola care. A trio of House Democrats is calling on President Obama to allow U.S. troops in West Africa to provide direct care to Ebola patients. The Obama administration has already committed around 4,000 U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in the affected West African countries, but they are performing tasks such as building treatment centers and training local providers, not directly providing care. Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.) want to change that. New Ebola patient transferred to Atlanta. Federal health officials said they are planning for more Ebola cases as 50 Dallas healthcare workers undergo "intensive follow-up" to catch signs they might have the virus. "We are planning for the possibility of further cases in the coming days," said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden on a call with reporters. "The investigation is identifying additional healthcare workers who will be very closely [monitored]." Infected nurse flew on Frontier Airlines hours she was hospitalized. Amber Jay Vinson, the second nurse to be diagnosed with Ebola, had a fever of 99.5 degrees and boarded a flight from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, anyway — just hours before she was hospitalized with the deadly disease. Now, CDC officials are trying to track down all 132 passengers who were aboard Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 on Monday [10/13/2014] with Ms Vinson over fears they could all have been exposed to the virus. Stuart Varney Destroys NIH Claim That Budget Cuts Killed Ebola Vaccine. Filling in for Cavuto, Varney does a great job highlighting the gobsmacking hypocrisy of the NIH director who blames supposed budget cuts for lack of an Ebola vaccine. Watch as Varney details the ridiculous "studies" on which they've been recklessly spending our tax dollars. Ebola and the Stench of Democrat Desperation. One of the most fascinating things to me during this election season has been the media's studious obliviousness to the obvious stench of desperation surrounding Democrat campaigns. By comparison to the Republican disaster of 2006, the Democrats are showing an equally obvious amount of fleeing the Democrat brand ID, the Democrat President, and Democrat policies, and an equally obvious amount of fetid desperation in their attack ads. Did A Texas College Deny Men Admittance Because Of Ebola? Are some students, expecting to attend classes in North Texas, being denied a higher education because of Ebola? CBS 11 News has learned that Navarro College is refusing to admit at least two Nigerian men to the school because of where they're from. Did the CDC put Dallas health care workers at risk? When I recently called for the resignation of CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, some of you may have thought I went too far. And yet here we are, facing startling claims that the Dallas medical staff who responded to the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States — including a nurse who is now hospitalized with the virus — had limited protocols in place. America, if you weren't worried by Frieden's inadequacy before, you should be now. Dallas Nurse's Boyfriend in Isolation for Possible Exposure to Ebola. There is some good news today for Dallas nurse Nina Pham. The 26-year-old has Ebola, but has released a statement in which she says that she is "doing well." She received a blood transfusion from Dr. Kent Brantly, the American missionary who contracted Ebola but survived it. Brantly survived in part thanks to a blood transfusion that he got from a fellow Ebola survivor. The blood of Ebola survivors has antibodies in it that fight the deadly virus, which kills about 70% of its victims. CDC now watching 125 people for Ebola signs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now monitoring 125 people for symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus, including 76 who came into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who died of the disease last week in a Dallas hospital. CDC Director Tom Frieden told reporters Tuesday [10/14/2014] that so far, only one nurse who helped care for Duncan has contracted Ebola and no other people have been diagnosed with the disease. Ebola death rate rises to 70 percent, says world health body. Global health officials said Tuesday [10/14/2014] that the death rate in the Ebola epidemic has risen to 70 percent, up from 50 percent. The World Health Organization (WHO) made the announcement at a news conference in Geneva, where officials said there could be up to 10,000 new cases of the virus every week within two months. Scott Brown: Anyone with Ebola can 'walk across' our 'porous' border. When I reported the other day that GOP Senate candidate Tom Cotton had claimed ISIS is collaborating with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate the border and kill Arkansans, a number of folks joked on twitter that if Cotton had thrown Ebola into the mix, he would have hit the Fox News Trifecta. It turns out that at least two GOP Senate candidates are, in fact, linking Ebola to the border, and using that double jolt of fear to attack Dem Senate incumbents. Nurses cite sloppy conditions in Ebola care at Dallas hospital. A Liberian Ebola patient was left in an open area of a Dallas emergency room for hours, and the nurses treating him worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, according to a statement released late Tuesday by the largest U.S. nurses' union. Surgeon General Still Silent On Ebola. On Wednesday [10/1/2014], Breitbart News reported that the U.S. Surgeon General's office had not said anything about the ongoing Ebola crisis, as public confusion, fear and frustration continue to mount. In fact, the lead story on the Surgeon General's website on the first day of October was a message that September was "Fruits & Veggies — More Matters Month!" Since then, nothing has changed: Acting Surgeon General Boris D. Lushniak is silent. Dallas Mayor: 'It May Get Worse Before it Gets Better'. Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings said Ebola "may get worse before it gets better." "But," the public official promised, "it will get better." [...] The comments were given at a news conference in Dallas this morning announcing that another hospital worker in Dallas has been diagnosed with Ebola. Obama Is Risking a U.S. Ebola Outbreak for His Own Ambitions. Nearly 60 percent of Americans want the government to shut down flights to the U.S. from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, sources of the Ebola virus. Why isn't the White House playing ball? One theory: because once again, President Barack Obama is serving his legacy at the expense of the country. Six years ago he put his legacy-building healthcare legislation ahead of the need to create jobs and reboot our fragile economy. Today, his ambition to be a hero to Africa is undermining common sense approaches to protecting Americans from the Ebola virus. The Centers for Everything But Disease Control. So now the federal health bureaucrats in charge of controlling diseases and pandemics want more money to do their jobs. Hmph. Maybe if they hadn't been so busy squandering their massive government subsidies on everything but their core mission, we taxpayers might actually feel a twinge of sympathy. At $7 billion, the Centers for Disease Control 2014 budget is nearly 200 percent bigger now than it was in 2000. Nurses' Union: Ebola Patient Left In Open Area Of ER For Hours. A Liberian Ebola patient was left in an open area of a Dallas emergency room for hours, and the nurses treating him worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, according to a statement released late Tuesday [10/14/2014] by the largest U.S. nurses' union. Ebola Restaurant Still Getting Five-Star Reviews. NBC medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman's Ebola quarantine violation last week has made a victim of an unlucky restaurant in Hopewell, New Jersey. Snyderman, reportedly a resident of nearby Princeton, was spotted Thursday [10/9/2014] on a takeout trip to Peasant Grill specialty market in Hopewell Boro. At the time, Snyderman had agreed to remain under quarantine after returning from an assignment in Liberia that left one member of her team stricken with Ebola. After TMZ Sunday reported her public appearance, Snyderman got a lethal dose of bad publicity, and the voluntary quarantine became mandatory. Why Blood Transfusions From Ebola Survivor Dr. Kent Brantly Could Help Patients. Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly has donated the plasma in his blood to three patients in the last month, echoing what one of his former patients did for him before he left Liberia. Brantly was caring for sick Ebola patients with the aid group Samaritan's Purse in Monrovia, Liberia, when he became the first American diagnosed with Ebola in late July. The decades-old treatment that may save a young Dallas nurse infected with Ebola. In late July, when it looked like Dr. Kent Brantly wasn't going to make it, a small news item escaped Liberia. It spoke of Brantly's treatment — not of the Ebola vaccine, Zmapp, which Brantly later got. But of a blood transfusion. He had "received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy who had survived Ebola because of Dr. Brantly's care," the missive said. Second Texas healthcare worker tests positive for Ebola. A second healthcare worker who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. has tested positive for Ebola, public health officials announced early Wednesday [10/15/2014]. In the world of Ebola, no room for error. They work in two-person teams, always. Their temperature is monitored four times per shift. Safety meetings take place daily. In "Ebola world," there's no margin for error for the doctors, nurses and others taking care of people with the deadly virus. "You must bat 1000 every day," said Ken Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse, a Christian humanitarian relief group running medical facilities in challenging conditions in the heart of the West African outbreak. "If you make a mistake, people die." Nurses' union slams Texas hospital for lack of Ebola protocol. A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola, health officials said Wednesday [10/15/2014] — casting further doubt on the hospital's ability to handle Ebola and protect employees. The worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated, health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. Ebola is 2014 October surprise. Ebola has become the October surprise of this year's midterm elections, with Democrats and Republicans doing battle over everything from restrictions on travel to the disposal of a victim's remains. The U.S. public is increasingly fearful of the virus following three cases in Texas and news that the fatality rate for infected patients has hit 70 percent in West Africa. Angry nursing union says NO US hospital can cope with Ebola. Nurses at the Dallas hospital where the first patient died of Ebola in America have spoken out to insist there were no protocols for dealing with the disease in place — and claim that no hospital in the country is prepared to deal with the deadly virus. CDC Director Responds to Calls for Resignation, Faces Off with Megyn Kelly. CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden faced off with Megyn Kelly tonight over how the agency is dealing with cases of Ebola in the United States. Kelly even brought up calls by her colleagues, including Bill O'Reilly, for him to resign for his mishandling of the situation. Frieden kept assuring that despite a smattering of cases in the U.S., the CDC is doing everything it can to make sure contact with others is minimal and hospitals have the tools they need to treat. Kelly confronted him with past assurances that Ebola would be stopped in its tracks and wouldn't be coming to the United States. Ebola Preparation 'Will bankrupt my hospital!' Director Reacts to CDC Prep Call. Dr. Betsy McCaughey appeared on Fox just after she had attend a CDC conference call with hospitals this afternoon. Host Stuart Varney asked her what it would take to set up 50 hospitals to be ready for Ebola. McCaughey's answer is stunning. According to her, after the CDC outlined its preparation strategy, one hospital administrator responded, "What you're telling us would bankrupt my hospital!" She said that that administrator represents a Southern California hospital. Fight the spread of Ebola by wiping out malaria with DDT. It is good to see President Obama and his political machine finally wake up, sound the alarm and spring into action against the ongoing global humanitarian crisis that is Ebola. [...] If it were not so tragic, it might be comical to hear his minions squirm, vacillate, hem and haw about what Americans should do. One minute, everybody is to remain calm. Then next, we are all supposed to "think Ebola" and monitor our fevers and cease personal contact. One thing is absolutely certain: These people have been exactly, completely, 100 percent wrong every step of the way. Did someone mention DDT? Luis Gutierrez: I have a duty to protect America, which is why I can't support a border security bill. You trust a guy who openly admits his only loyalty is to the immigrant community to do what's best for the country at large, don't you? [...] Meanwhile, Dick Durbin's blaming the Ebola epidemic in Africa in part on House Republicans' failure to pass the Gang of Eight bill. If Boehner came back to him today with a pure border security bill that contains some provisions for fighting Ebola, think Durbin would suck it up and sacrifice amnesty to pass it? Me neither. The Angel of Death. One of the most interesting things about the West African Ebola outbreak is that stopping the disease has very little to do with hospital treatment. In fact, according to the WHO, it makes almost no difference to survival whether a West African is taken to a hospital or not. [...] A Liberian woman named Fatu Kekula reportedly nursed 3 out of 4 of her stricken relatives back to health using only plastic trashbags to make up her protective equipment and a cell phone to consult her family doctor on treatment instructions. She made the best use of what she had. By contrast "government" response has been a shambles. They have made the worst use of what they had. The Worsening Ebola Crisis. Recent days have brought two alarming developments in the struggle to contain Ebola. The campaign against the epidemic in West Africa, the only sure way to prevent the spread of the virus to the United States and other countries, fell even further behind. And the discovery that a nurse treating an Ebola patient in Dallas had herself become infected despite wearing protective gear raised questions about the readiness of American hospitals to deal with Ebola patients. About 500 Fort Hood troops West Africa-bound. The U.S. Army is deploying about 500 Fort Hood soldiers to Liberia to back U.S. efforts in the fight against the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. The Editor says... More about Ebola. Ebola outbreak: Nigeria 'a week away' from beating virus. Nigeria will be officially declared Ebola-free in less than a week after containing the disease that has killed more than 4,000 people. Eight of the 20 people infected in the country died and there have been no new cases confirmed since 8 September. Ebola: The President Is Responsible. [Scroll down] The point here is that for the first time in American history, the AIDS epidemic saw the American Left politicize disease. Making the way a president handled a dangerous threat to the public health a serious, legitimate up-front-and-in-your-face political issue. Now along comes President Obama's struggle with Ebola. With precedent making it all too clear that the subject of a serious health epidemic is now Exhibit A in terms of a president's managerial effectiveness or ineffectiveness, the wisdom of his policies or the lack thereof. CDC urges all US hospitals to 'think Ebola'. Every hospital must know how to diagnose Ebola in people who have been in West Africa and be ready to isolate a suspected case, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday [10/13/2014]. Will airport screening for Ebola actually work? Ebola panic is well under way. The disease, which has killed more than 4,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, has claimed its first victims in the West, and Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has compared its spread to that of the HIV virus. As the public grows more nervous, the British government — among others — has announced that it is to begin screening passengers at Gatwick, Heathrow and the Eurostar terminal. But will it do any good? Government Has Failed In Its Job To Protect Americans From Ebola. The problem of invasion across our border is no longer just a jobs problem. It's a national security problem, a welfare problem, a public school problem and a dangerous disease problem. It's not a problem of accepting a few lost teenagers who arrived unannounced and demanded admission. It's a problem of our public schools suddenly being invaded by thousands of young adults who have never been to any school, who are not familiar with basic hygiene, who can't read or write, who don't speak English or even familiar Spanish (but speak one of 21 different Spanish or Indian dialects) and who may carry new diseases such as EV-D68. It's a problem of requiring our newly burdened health care establishment to deal with diseases that are not common in the U.S. NIH spent millions on wacky projects but now complains cuts killed off Ebola vaccine research. The $30 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health blamed tightening federal budgets on Monday [10/13/2014] for its inability to produce an Ebola vaccine, but a review of its grant-making history in the last 10 years has turned up highly unusual research that redirected precious funds away from more conventional public health projects. The projects included $2.4 million to develop 'origami' condoms designed with Japanese folding paper in mind, and $939,000 to find out that male fruit flies prefer to romance younger females because the girl-flies' hormone levels drop over time. Americans short on reasons to trust. The CDC has been unclear on how Ebola is transmitted, and has looked clumsy and untrustworthy. Despite the CDC's assurances, Ebola fears persist. As Matthew Continetti writes: "Again, the authorities behave irresponsibly and inscrutably. Again, the faces on our televisions say there is no cause for alarm. ... These dangers are real, and pressing, and though the probability of their occurrence is not high, it is amplified by the staggering incompetence and failure and misplaced priorities of the U.S. government. It is not Ebola I am afraid of. It is our government's ability to deal with Ebola." The CDC's spate of problems with handling other dangerous pathogens like anthrax, smallpox and deadly influenza samples doesn't inspire much confidence either. Ebola screening at Heathrow airport blasted [as] 'a complete joke'. Britain's Ebola screening plans descended into chaos on its first day today after people flying to the UK from high risk countries revealed the checks are not compulsory. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said airline passengers from West Africa must be checked for symptoms 'to make our country safe' and warned the epidemic could be as deadly as Aids. Americans want flight restrictions from Ebola countries. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are concerned about an Ebola outbreak in the United States, and about the same amount say they want flight restrictions from the countries in West Africa where the disease has quickly spread. A new poll from the Washington Post and ABC News shows 67 percent of people say they would support restricting entry to the United States from countries struggling with Ebola. Another 91 percent would like to see stricter screening procedures at U.S. airports in response to the disease's spread. Ultimatum to Nurses: Make a Mistake and You Die. On Sunday, health officials announced that a nurse who had treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola-infected Liberian, has the virus and is in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, the same hospital where Duncan died. This news exposes the falsehood behind the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's repeated assurances for months that "U.S. hospitals can safely manage patients with Ebola." That's a whopper. [...] Treating Ebola patients is a deadly job. More than 233 doctors and nurses have caught Ebola and died in Africa this year. Report: Officials Haven't Tested Whether Coughing, Sneezing Can Spread Ebola. Experts have reportedly not tested whether Ebola patients can infect others by coughing or sneezing even as one of the top experts on the particular strain of Ebola that has ravaged West Africa believes the virus is "primed" to go airborne. Obama Planned To Cut CDC Budget For Public Health Preparedness And Response. President Obama proposed to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) funding in his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is currently blasting out ads accusing Republicans of voting to cut CDC's Ebola-fighting capabilities in February 2011 by voting for a bill to cut $60 billion from the federal budget, including from the CDC, in anticipation of the fiscal year 2012 budget battle. Ebola and fear spread, so Obama fundraises. [Scroll down] It was inevitable 21 days from a midterm election that Ebola would also infect the nation's politics. The usual Washington suspects call for flight bans, as if no one can change planes in Europe. They call for an Ebola czar, as if another padded federal department would fix things right up. It's all just futile flopping for an anxious population detecting the spread of an even more virulent virus: Fear. Here's the real problem: There is no national leadership. We have a president. But he is no leader. CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden should resign. Right now, I'm not as afraid of Ebola as I am of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency held a press conference Monday to provide an update on the transmission of Ebola to a nurse that cared for Thomas Eric Duncan. After listening to this update, I have to say, I am more convinced than ever that CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden is not the right person for the job. And I say this because this latest press conference consisted of him telling a room of reporters what anyone who has ever dealt with Ebola in the past should have known. The CDC say we need to 'rethink' Ebola. What are we NOT being told about Ebola? How is it that so many health workers around the world are now going down with this lethal virus? Why should we continue to trust the official 'protocols' laid down for dealing with Ebola when there are so many apparent 'breaches'? These are three very serious questions that need to be answered very quickly. President Obama Already Has An Ebola Czar. Where Is She? [Scroll down] What's particularly interesting about this discussion, then, is that nobody has even discussed the fact that the federal government not ten years ago created and funded a brand new office in the Health and Human Services Department specifically to coordinate preparation for and response to public health threats like Ebola. The woman who heads that office, and reports directly to the HHS secretary, has been mysteriously invisible from the public handling of this threat. And she's still on the job even though three years ago she was embroiled in a huge scandal of funneling a major stream of funding to a company with ties to a Democratic donor — and away from a company that was developing a treatment now being used on Ebola patients. The Fourth Horseman has Arrived. On September 30 the first African to make it to the U.S. with Ebola was identified. By October 8 he was dead. Ebola has arrived and, despite everything that the various agencies of the Obama Administration are telling us — the Centers for Disease Control and Homeland Security — I have no confidence it will not keep arriving. Rather than denying entry to those living in the nations where Ebola exists, there is no indication that U.S. embassies have been instructed to not issue visas. [...] Britain and France have ended flights to or from the affected nations. The U.S. has not. This provides zero protection to flight crews, nor those at the arrival airports who process passengers. No mention is made of our porous southern border that is trespassed daily. The Fear Equation. Last week, the Obama Administration announced that, at five major U.S. airports, passengers arriving from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone will be checked for fever. That measure isn't likely to be any more effective at detecting the Ebola virus than it was at finding SARS. Ebola outbreak: Why Obama is allowing Ebolaphobia to spread. With the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, news of a second possible case of Ebola in the Dallas area (that of Sgt. Michael Monning) and worries that dogs and other animals could transmit Ebola, fears of a deadly epidemic in the United States are bound to accelerate. The reality is that multiple deaths from Ebola are likely in America, but the psychological toll is already far outpacing the physical one. Ebola: Five ways the CDC got it wrong. A nurse contracts Ebola. An urgent care center in Boston shuts down when a sick man recently returned from Liberia walks in. Health care workers complain they haven't been properly trained to protect themselves against the deadly virus. Public health experts are asking whether the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is partly to blame. Here are five things they say the CDC is getting wrong. The Centers for Disease Control Loses Its Grip. I have lived long enough, now, to have seen it again and again. Something goes badly wrong involving a corporation, a university, a religious denomination, or a branch of government, and the executive in charge or a designated minion goes before the press to engage in what is euphemistically called "damage control." The spokesman does not level with the public. He or she tries to be reassuring and — more often than not — by lying, succeeds in undermining confidence in the institution he or she represents. This is what is now going on with the Centers for Disease Control. Obama: You Can't Get Ebola 'Sitting Next to Someone on a Bus;' CDC: 'Avoid Public Transportation'. Speaking in a video message to residents of West African countries currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola, President Barack Obama dispensed advice on how residents can avoid the disease, including: "You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus." At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising Americans who travel to the Ebola-stricken nations to "avoid public transportation." NIH Head Blames Funding Cuts for Lack of Ebola Vaccine. Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institute of Health, told Huffington Post's Sam Stein that an ebola vaccine might already exist were it not for a decade-long slowdown in medical research funding. "NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001," Collins said. A Conflation of Viruses. Is anyone surprised that after Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan succumbed as the first victim of the Ebola virus to die on American soil his demise would become a cause célèbre for the race-hustling Left? Of course not. The only surprise was that it was Jesse Jackson, whose exploits in racial demagoguery have of late been plagued by a relative lugubriousness in comparison to more ebullient contenders like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan, who commandeered the train by insinuating himself among Duncan's family members to accuse Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of bigotry for the sin of not saving its most high-profile patient. Government Incompetence and Deadly Recklessness in Ebola Threat Response. Within the span of a couple of weeks, the Obama administration and the director of the CDC have proven themselves to be dangerously incompetent and reckless in dealing with the deadly threat that the Ebola virus poses to the American people. Despite feeding us politically-correct bromides that we have little to fear from Ebola and Obama's personal reassurances that "the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low," Ebola has reached America. People are infected, some are under quarantine, many more are being monitored, and one has already died. Just last week, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lectured the American people that closing the border "would not work" in controlling the spread of Ebola to the United States. In classic Orwellian newspeak he warned that restricting travel to and from West Africa would put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola. Surgeon General 'missing in action' after first Ebola patient in America died. When the Ebola began to savage thousands West Africans, it was Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head, Dr. Thomas Frieden, who promised Americans that a similar 'widespread outbreak' would not occur in the U.S. [...] Frieden, not the 'Nation's Doctor,' has been at the forefront of the Ebola crisis throughout the last several months, leading some Americans to wonder why the surgeon general hasn't led the administration's efforts to stop the spread of the deadly disease in America. Jesse Jackson, Dallas lawmaker blame racism for Ebola patient's death. Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. have made similar arguments this week that Thomas Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died because his race and lack of "privilege" kept him from receiving the care he needed. Keep Ebola Out of America. I and many others are not comfortable with the idea of bringing infected individuals into our midst when we can readily treat them elsewhere and happily receive them back once the infectious danger has passed. When one does a logical benefit-to-risk analysis, it is clear that the worst things that could happen by intentionally bringing this dangerous disease to America are far worse than the best things that could happen. Some say if we bring infected individuals here, it will accelerate research endeavors and a potential cure or effective vaccination. Others say that not bringing infected citizens back demonstrates an insensitivity toward wonderful people who risk their lives for others. I am sympathetic to these arguments, and if we did not have safer alternatives, they would convince me. Poll: Majority of Blacks Believe There Would Be Ebola Cure if Outbreak Originated in US or Europe. Nearly six in ten black Americans (59 percent) believe that there would already be a cure for the deadly Ebola virus had it originated in Europe or America. A YouGov/Economist poll also found that 62 percent of Americans think "more would have been done" to combat Ebola had it not originated in West Africa. Duncan Family Plays the Race Card After Ebola Patient Zero Dies. Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who lied on his exit forms and brought Ebola to the United States, died today. It took less than half a day for his family to come out and blame racism for Duncan's death. Experts fear Ebola virus COULD spread through the air and not just through contact with bodily fluids. As the death toll from Ebola reaches 3,800, experts are warning that the virus could mutate and become airborne, meaning that it could be caught by breathing it in. The public is being told by health officials that the virus that causes Ebola cannot be transmitted through the air and can only be spread through direct contact with bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms. However, several leading Ebola researchers claim that the virus mutating and spreading through the air should not be ruled out. Hospital bill for deceased Texas Ebola patient nearly $1,000 an hour. Caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Dallas Ebola patient, may cost as much as $500,000, a bill that his hospital is unlikely to ever collect. Duncan, who died Wednesday morning, was in critical condition at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where he had been isolated since Sept. 28. He had been on a ventilator, had been given an experimental medicine and is received kidney dialysis, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday [10/7/2014]. His treatment likely included fluids replacement, blood transfusions and drugs to maintain blood pressure. There's also the cost of security, disposing of Ebola-contaminated trash and equipment to protect caregivers. Isn't this what the Peace Corps is for? President Alfred E. Neuman. How many people from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea will arrive today on aircraft, ships and across our open borders by car and on foot? Nobody knows. How many will, like the man who lies at death's door in a Dallas hospital, be infected with the disease? Again, nobody knows, least of all our government. [...] Let's be precise: no U.S. troops should be sent and those already there should be ordered back. The good they can do is very little, and the risk to them is too enormous to require any soldier to take. NIH Official Dismisses Rand Paul's Concerns Of Ebola Threat To US Troops. On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Institutes and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dismissed Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) concerns that U.S. troops being sent to West African nations with Ebola outbreaks could be in danger of contracting the disease. On CBS's Face the Nation [10/5/2014], Fauci was asked about Paul's comments last week in which he expressed concerns about Ebola spreading on ships like the "diarrhea viruses" that have ravaged cruise ships. Gov't Quarantines Homeless American — Not Travelers from Ebola-Stricken Countries. When people travel from Ebola-stricken nations to the United States, there is one certain way to prevent them from transmitting that virus here: Quarantine them long enough to know they are not infected. Then there is a way that puts Americans at risk: Let people travel here from stricken regions. Let them roam freely — until they show symptoms. Then trust that you can rush them into isolation before they expose others. Which is the prudent — and compassionate — policy? Obama Fails to Protect Us, Again. Of all the examples of incompetence and failure to protect Americans that the Obama Administration has displayed, its failure to keep Ebola out of our country may be the worst. Obama's number-one job is to keep dangerous people from coming into America, and he has flunked the test. General: If Ebola Reaches Central America, 'There Will Be Mass Migration into the U.S.'. [Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly] also said with certainty that "there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa." Ebola: Senator Ted Cruz Is Asking the Right Questions. Of all the uncertainty surrounding the Ebola epidemic, one thing is true: the existing measures for keeping Ebola out of the United States failed, period. We also know that the Obama administration, as it often does, has entered Wonderland — keeping Liberians and citizens from Sierra Leone here illegally in the United States from being deported back to their homes. While Obama doesn't take steps to use federal power to protect Americans by stopping the flow of potentially infected foreigners, he exercises his authority to protect foreigners from returning home. The Editor says... Update: What if the conspiracy theories are true? I found an article published by the Washington Post on July 16 of this year reporting that [Thomas] Frieden had been called to testify on Capitol Hill about researchers at his agency that had mishandled live anthrax and other deadly pathogens in a number of mishaps over the past year or so. This came on the heels of federal officials finding forgotten smallpox samples in a storage room at the National Institute for Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. They also discovered 12 boxes and 327 vials with pathogens that included the virus behind dengue and spotted fever. When Frieden testified about the anthrax, his response was: "We missed a critical pattern, and the pattern is an insufficient culture of safety." Really? And this is the guy in charge of making decisions on Ebola? Buchanan: 'What We Are Seeing Now Is an Utter Absence of Common Sense'. The emergence of Ebola as a global threat has highlighted deeper problems: The "maximum absurdity" of people calling travel bans racist; and the failure of government to protect its citizens from a deadly disease, conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan told Fox News's Sean Hannity Tuesday night [10/7/2014]. "You know, the post-World War II generation, the greatest generation, had common sense. What we are seeing now is an utter absence of common sense when people talking about, look, you know, we've got to open the doors to people who are good people; but they're carrying a deadly disease that's comparable to the bubonic plague!" Ebola is a greater clear and present threat to America than any terror group. From bird flu to SARS, we're repeatedly told it's going to be the new Plague that will wipe everyone out and then... it doesn't. Probably because the scare-mongering itself makes people take it seriously enough to prevent it spreading. But there is something very sinister and frightening about this Ebola outbreak, which has so far infected 7,100 and killed 3,300. Will Ebola Be Death Knell for Democrats? Voters who ignored Obama's many disasters are paying attention to this one. It is on American soil, it is effecting [sic] ordinary people like them, it is a human interest story, and it is scary. It also shows government as it is — lying, incompetent, and not even aiming at the basic job of national security and safety. How many voters will decide they disagree with Democrats who say it's best to import Ebola here and then quarantine exposed and dying Americans? Workers Spray Ebola Patients' Vomit Off of Sidewalk with Pressure Washer and No Protective Clothing. Apparently, they didn't tell anyone to use protective suits, or to keep residents or passersby away while power-washing. And from the casualness of the guys doing the power-washing, it is unlikely that (1) they put any disinfectants in the power-washer or (2) they were even told what they were cleaning. Conn. Health Commissioner Granted Quarantine Power. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has signed an order that gives the state's public health commissioner the ability to quarantine anyone she believes may have been exposed to the Ebola virus. The government's tune is changing.
Epidemiologist: Stop the flights now. The United States got its first scare from Ebola last week when Thomas Eric Duncan, a man sick with the virus, traveled from Liberia to Dallas. This man was feared to have been in contact with up to 100 people after he became contagious, all of whom had to be individually evaluated by public health professionals for their exposure risk. Half of these individuals are currently under observation. Nine of them considered to be at highest risk are being checked twice daily for symptoms. Bodily fluids including vomit spread Ebola, and Duncan — who presented himself to a Dallas hospital only to be misdiagnosed and sent home — vomited on the sidewalk outside of his home. It took days before a properly trained Hazmat crew was sent to the apartment to clean it. The human errors in this single case highlight why it is urgent that we ban all commercial flights from the impacted countries to all non-affected countries until the outbreak is contained. What does 'direct contact' mean? The truth about Ebola transmission. In light of the first diagnosis of Ebola in the U.S. earlier this week, concerns over whether the disease will spread — and by what means — still linger. How Ebola Compares to Other Contagious Diseases. With Ebola making its way to the United States, people are rushing to find more information on the deadly disease. The Centers for Disease Control released a new chart on how contagious Ebola is compared to other diseases. The White Man Created Ebola To Kill Black People, Says Noted Scientist Louis Farrakhan. With Ebola dominating the headlines, you might feel a looming dread. Can it happen to you and your loved ones? How can you protect yourself? Is it too early to start freaking out about Ebola? Well, you can relax, as long as your skin is white. That's according to the 100 percent sane and rational Rev. Louis Farrakhan, who explains it all: [...] Farrakhan Crawls Out From Under Rock To Declare Whites Invented Ebola To Kill Blacks. Louis Farrakhan has crawled out from under a rock to spew another hatred-filled tome. His latest revelation is a CIA weapon "that can be put in a room where there are Black and White people, and it will kill only the Black and spare the White, because it is a genotype weapon that is designed for your genes, for your race, for your kind." His latest rant is called "Justifiable Homicide, Black Youth In Peril," and it's a whopper. Why We Cannot Trust the White House on Ebola. On Thursday morning [10/2/2014], I received my first well-produced Facebook message mocking those deluded souls, presumably on the right, who are worried about the spread of Ebola. The only thing that surprised me about the message was that I had not seen one sooner. The same people who gave us homophobia and Islamophobia (not to mention racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, nativism, and climate denial) are about to give us Ebolaphobia. As former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel notoriously said (while plagiarizing Winston Churchill), "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." Samaritan's Purse Chief Admits Ebola 'Out of Control,' Slams Drudge for Reporting It. Thursday [8/7/2014] at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health hearing titled, "Combating the Ebola Threat," Samaritan's Purse's vice president of programs and government relations Ken Isaacs said, "Ebola is out of control in West Africa," and then criticized the reporting on the crisis by saying, "I look at the Drudge Report, it can drive a lot of panic." War On Ebola: 3000 US Troops Headed for Africa to Degrade and Destroy a Disease. I'm old enough to remember when worrying about the ebola outbreak was said to be the business of paranoid hysterics. [...] It's not even worth talking about. Just ignore ebola and it will go away. That was then, and this is now. The Washington Post reports that President Obama has suddenly authorized a far larger military intervention to combat ebola in Africa than his "boots on the ground" commitment to battle the ISIS terror state: Climate Change is even worse than Ebola says British Medical Journal. Climate change is even deadlier than ebola according to the editor of one of the world's oldest and most distinguished medical journals. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal; established 1840), claims in her latest editorial: ["]Deaths from Ebola infection, tragic and frightening though they are, will pale into insignificance when compared with the mayhem we can expect for our children and grandchildren if the world does nothing to check its carbon emissions. And action is needed now.["] Author: Slavery Gives Us 'Responsibility' To Not Ban Flights From Liberia. David Quammen, an author of multiple books on science and diseases, including "Ebola," and "Spillover," argued against a ban on flights to Liberia by stating the US has a "responsibility" to the nation "given the fact that this is a country that was founded in the 1820s, 1830s because of American slavery" on Thursday's [10/2/2014] "AC360" on CNN. Kissing the Corpses in Ebola Country. Ebola victims are most infectious right after death — which means that West African burial practices, where families touch the bodies, are spreading the disease like wildfire. Let's put the Ebola outbreak in perspective. Over and over we hear rational scientific explanations for why we shouldn't be afraid. For example, as opposed to HIV, you have to be very sick with Ebola to spread it. That fact alone makes it much easier to contain the virus. You also have to be in direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick with Ebola to get it. Unlike some other viruses, it doesn't spread through the air. The Editor says... 5 Reasons Not to Trust the 'What Me Worry' Media About Ebola. [#1] The Mainstream Media Love to Lord Their Superiority Over Us[.] Accusing the hoi polloi of panicking and then calling for calm is the first knee-jerk reaction of anyone who gets off on puffing themselves up as Our Betters. And that is our media personified. I believe and worry that the need to preen their superiority over us could affect the media's judgment. That's why the bloodless, slide-rule, Big Government-worshipping Spocks at Business Insider are already accusing others of panic ... even though no one is panicking. Why Ebola's nothing to worry about. We're now witnessing the worst Ebola epidemic ever — and on your list of worries it belongs ... nowhere. Here's a rule of thumb about diseases: The rarer and less likely they are to kill you, the more hype they get. The New York Times ran more than 2,000 articles on SARS, which ultimately killed zero Americans. The Fear Equation. In early March of 2003, when SARS swept into Hong Kong from Southern China, the streets of one of the world's most densely populated areas were practically deserted. Venders in kiosks sold face masks and hand sanitizer to anyone brave, or foolish, enough to leave home. The fear of a new highly contagious disease is understandable, and, with no effective treatment or vaccine for SARS, it was difficult to know what to do. The World Health Organization recommended that officials in the countries most affected warn people with a fever to stay off international flights. Hong Kong went further, using infrared scanners and thermometers to take the temperature of more than thirty-six million passengers as they arrived. Nineteen hundred and twenty-one of them had a fever, and forty were admitted to the hospital. None developed SARS. (Canada and Singapore also scanned arriving passengers. Neither country found anyone with SARS.) Ebola Optics and Questionable MSM Smiley Narratives. Conservatives can be forgiven if, after having carefully reflected upon a sampling of MSM Ebola narratives, they conclude that something seems a bit askew. Certain optics and associated stories appear to put a giant smiley face on the Ebola situation. Nothing to worry about here. Move along. However, certain omissions raise troubling questions in regard to what we have been told — especially when the omissions are conjoined with scientific findings on Ebola. [...] The MSM is obviously populated by many people whose mouths are as big as their brains are tiny. It is therefore no surprise that many such people do not know how to recognize when a question is really statistical in nature and, if it is, how to analyze it. I Aim To Misbehave. The UK's top public doctor says the failure to find a cure for Ebola represents underscores "the moral bankruptcy of capitalism". Does that mean we can expect an Ebola vaccine from a socialist country any day now? Or one developed by the public doctor's public system? Ben Carson Calls Into Question CDC Secrecy Over Ebola Testing. Neurologist and author of "One Nation," Dr. Ben Carson said that the Centers for Disease Control should keep the need to balance patient privacy and the public's need to know in mind when it comes to the Ebola virus. Concerned about Ebola? You're worrying about the wrong disease. A deadly disease is set to hit the shores of the US, UK and much of the rest of the northern hemisphere in the coming months. It will swamp our hospitals, lay millions low and by this time next year between 250,000 and 500,000 worldwide will be dead, thousands of them in the US and Britain. Despite the best efforts of the medical profession, there's no reliable cure, and no available vaccine offers effective protection for longer than a few months at a time. If you've been paying attention to recent, terrifying headlines, you may assume the illness is the Ebola virus. Instead, the above description refers to seasonal flu — not swine or bird flu, but regular garden variety influenza. The First Horseman. Ebola is proving the proposition that when dealing with nature, if you lie you die. Nowhere is this clear[er] than in Liberia where the poorly educated population is hiding victims, abstracting them from hospitals, attacking doctors who they believe bring the disease or dumping Ebola corpses in the street, satisfied that by casting the infectious corpses out of doors to be torn to pieces and spread abroad by dogs and carrion, have solved the problem. Back to the Environmental Issues PageOther Environmental False Alarms Back to the Home page 
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