CDC Director Throws 2nd US Ebola Victim “Under the Bus”
Ya know, I’m getting kinda fed up with that damnfool spin doctor propagandist talking head political hack fine individual we have occupying the slot for CDC Director, Tom Frieden. Yesterday, this POTUS sycophant tool weasel person implied, in a public statement to the press, that the second US healthcare worker to contract Ebola – Amber Wilson – had knowingly endangered the public. His exact words during a conference call with the press were as follows:
“She should not have traveled on a commercial airline. The CDC guidance in this setting outlines the need for what is called controlled movement. That can include a charter plane, that can include a car, but it does not include public transport.”
In other words, he’s apparently trying to shift blame to Ms. Wilson for any issues that arise from her travel – and preemptively shift blame away from his agency. Bluntly: he’s blaming the victim and throwing her “under the bus” in an attempt to protect his and his agency’s reputations.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. Frieden did much the same with the first US Ebola victim, Nina Pham, blaming her exposure to the disease on some kind of “breach of protocol”. That allegation was later shown to be, shall we say, highly questionable when information on just how poorly equipped and advised the nurses caring for Thomas Duncan were during the first few days of his hospitalization was made public.
In hindsight, all of what Friden says above might be technically true – but hindsight is always 20/20. And as the late Paul Harvey might have said, there is indeed a “rest of the story”. That “rest of the story” paints a far different picture.
It turns out that Wilson – after discovering she had a temperature, but one lower than the level deemed the threshold for concern (100.4F) – in fact contacted CDC prior to flying. She advised them of the fact that she had a temperature, and that it was 99.5F. Presumably she asked for guidance.
The CDC personnel she spoke with did not tell her not to fly. So she went ahead and flew home.
Hmm. So, in other words . . . CDC knew (1) Wilson was at high risk for Ebola exposure, (2) had developed a low-grade fever, and was (3) planning to fly that day. But CDC personnel did not tell her to stay put.
Yeah, that really freaking makes sense.
Sounds to me as if the CDC Director is either dissembling here or he’s clueless as to what’s going on in his agency. Or maybe both. Either way, his credibility – whatever was left of it after the Dallas debacle – has taken yet another major hit.
Oh, and the CDC has now notified Frontier Airlines that Ms. Wilson might have been symptomatic while flying home after all. Now ain’t that just “peachy-keen”?
Sheesh. It’s well past time for this tool to resign as CDC Director. After the past few weeks, IMO his professional credibility is absolutely shot. At this point I wouldn’t trust him to give me advice on how to treat constipation, much less direct the US national medical emergency response to a deadly disease.
Are you listening yet, Mr. President?
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Barack Obama/Joe Biden
Ok. I agree that the CDC and NIH are so far gone whack-a-doodle (yes that’s a technical term) that they cannot be trusted.
However, some responsibility for this should be borne by that nurse.
She knew that she had been caring for an Ebola patient.
She knew that she had a temperature.
She knew that she within the window that, if exposed, she would become sick.
Regardless of what someone at the CDC told her over the phone she should have been responsible enough to self-quarrantine.
edit: ” … that she WAS within …”
Agreed.
Completely agree that she shares responsibility. The CDC and administration have completely screwed the pooch so far in all of this.
Gravel, Old Trooper: I’m guessing the conversation went something like this:
Wilson: I have a temperature of 99.5F.
CDC Rep: So, your temperature is below 100.4F?
Wilson: Yes.
CDC Rep: That’s below threshold. You can fly.
Wilson: You’re sure?
CDC Rep: Yes.
Wilson: OK.
Yes, in a perfect world she’d have erred on the side of caution and self-quarantined earlier – or wouldn’t have gone anywhere at all. But I’m guessing she asked for guidance before getting on that plane and was told it was OK for her to fly.
I’d put the blame fully on her if she hadn’t called. But in this case, she IMO gets little or none of the blame. She contacted those who supposedly are the experts and know what they’re doing here – and got the green light – before the return flight.
I couldn’t disagree more. What’s the harm in waiting another day? By 24 hours later, the fever was worse, no? She endangered hundreds of people, and through them, thousands. If she weren’t a health care worker, I could agree with you, but she knows what this terrible disease is – she saw its ravages first hand. And she knowingly put folks at risk for want of changing her ticket by a day.
Even though she’s a nurse, she’s human, and she had a very human reaction: denial. ‘The Hot Zone’ talks about this, that even trained medical personnel will recoil mentally from admitting they are showing symptoms of that terrible disease. That’s what she did. Yes, she should have mentally prepared for the possibility of contracting the disease, and yes, she should have known better than to fly with the temperature, but let me ask you this: have you ever known anybody that had to go to the hospital that wouldn’t let you call an ambulance for them, even though they could legitimately use one? It’s the same phenomenon at work here — with far more potentially dangerous consequences.
Yeah Hondo … I have to disagree with you.
She is supposed to be a healthcare professional. She was just caring for an Ebola patient and knew she was within the window for becoming symptomatic with the virus, and had a fever. Allowing her to throw away common sense because “someone on the phone at CDC” told her she could fly on a plane is NOT an excuse.
And this is a perfect example of why I have issues with ‘big government.’ People have lost their common sense.
Gravel: and my answer to that is, she consulted a supposed expert in the field. She was effectively told, “That is not a problem – go ahead and fly”. Doctors effectively do the same every time they refer a patient to a specialist for confirmation of their initial diagnosis – e.g., when the GP refers the guy he/she “knows” has a blown ACL to the orthopedist for evaluation and treatment. They do that because as a GP, they’re not a specialist in orthopedics – and sometimes miss things the orthopedist doesn’t. Sometimes it turns out not a blown ACL after all. Nurses in US hospitals are not experts in exotic foreign diseases like Ebola; the lady had seen precisely one case of it personally in her life. CDC is supposed to be the nation’s institutional body of knowledge on that subject (exotic diseases and how to control same). I’m guessing most of us here would have done precisely the same if we’d asked someone regarded as an expert in the field and were told, essentially, “Don’t worry about it” – even if we had some misgivings. Why? Because they’re supposedly the expert, not you or me. Hell, you do that every time you take your car in to have an engine problem checked. You don’t take it in and say, “Put in a new engine.” You tell the mechanic (or the desk clerk) the symptoms, then let them tell you what needs to be done. The experts at CDC (and elsewhere) are the ones who know what can happen. And they’re the ones that should be worst-casing things and erring on the side of caution. Here, we should NOT be forced to depend on people second-guessing supposed experts to get things right and avoid a tragedy. And because of CDC’s politically-driven/”don’t worry, be happy”/belief in unicorns kind of manifestly idiotic actions so far, that’s precisely what we’re forced to do at present. Yes, in a perfect world the lady would have gone against expert recommendations, guessed right, and stayed in Cleveland. In a perfect world, you’d always know when to… Read more »
What part of 21 days are you missing Hondo?
Are you saying that none of them where told, or bothered to look up for themselves, a basic outline of the timeline for the disease’s progression?
Fever or not, SHE should have known she had the potential to be sick/a carrier, for around 21 days. And yes, I would expect a healthcare professional to self isolate until the timeline had run it’s course, REGARDLESS of how they feel.
Sheesh, I expect more common sense out of my 7 year old.
I completely disagree. (But please note my original posting. I don’t blame her entirely, but think she should shoulder some of the responsibility.)
She is supposed to be a professional and she used zero common sense.
“Oh the government expert told me it was ok,” is not an excuse. That is just falling into the trap of common sense being eroded in America. Doing something on the basis that ‘someone from the government’ told me to do it is never an excuse to forget your common sense.
You bring up the point that this was her first ever case of Ebola for her to see and/or be around. That is absolutely correct. For that very reason she should have been extremely over cautious, and not shirk her common sense and responsibility to the public-at-large.
We’ve both been in the Army – we both know that blame is NOT a zero-sum game. My Joe can screw up, and he’s responsible for it, but I’m also responsible because I didn’t stop him when I could have, and the company commander is responsible for not ensuring we were properly trained, and etc., etc. The fact that this nurse could have prevented the exposure of hundreds of people, causing the quarantine of flight crews, the closing of multiple schools, simply by changing her ticket by one day, does not absolve the president, the CDC or anyone of their responsibilities. But SHE COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS, with the knowledge she already had, and she chose not to, based on someone who answered the phone in Atlanta. This was not drawing to an inside straight – this was playing Russian Roulette with the justification, “the CDC told me the revolver wasn’t loaded!”
I just think that this is only the beginning and I shudder when i even begin to think of how they can and will fuck up time after time after time as this progresses.
Liberals seethe with jealousy when they recall GW Bush’s jump in the polls after 9/11. Let’s not forget Rahm Emanuel’s quote “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, thus I wonder if B. Hussein 0bama & Company WANTED this to happen thinking they could do a big media spin and sway the midterm elections in the democrats’ favor?
They won’t stop travel from the places where the disease comes from. That is really all you need to know regarding their intentions.
Obama is fundamentally transforming America all right, including bring Africa’s diseases to our door step.
It was brought up yesterday that several things have been allowed to develop in this country that would necessitate martial law being implemented.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’ve begun to wonder about our next presidential elections.
Ditto
Between this and the Enterovirus coming north from Central America in the illegal’s migration this administration is firmly in the wrong on all these health issues…
The Enterovirus is part of the normal diseases in Central America because they don’t have clean running water and don’t wash their hands. They get it young and if they survive they have an immunity to it but they still carry it…
This is a mess, a big fucking mess and it lies at the feet of ovomit and all his inept criminally liable administration…
It doesn’t help matters when you have a President that comes out and says that he hugged and kissed a couple of healthcare workers that were treating ebola patients and he isn’t afraid of catching it. I hope the dumb bastard DOES get it, for being so fucking stupid.
Oh crap, Uncle Joe sees his path to the oval office…he’s probably already called the moving folks to be ready to come to the Naval Observatory for the move over to 1600 Penn Ave…now the hard part is the waiting.
When I saw that on TV I was floored especially since he’d publicly disclose such a security risk openly like it’s a comfort to anyone.
Secret Service just should just be overhauled. That is one fucking retarded agency.
Yet another member of the Obama Reigh….um….Admnistration following their standard playbook defense.
Toss people under the bus.
You can’t blame her for this one. She reached out beforehand and they didn’t tell her to stay home. This CDC clown needs to shut the fuck up. That said, medical professionals have never taken my complaints seriously when I’ve had a temp lower than 99.6. That’s probably what happened with her. If only her temp had been slightly higher when she took it.
Former 11B: I agree in part. Make it “needs to go” instead of “shut up”, and I’ll agree completely.
To date, under Friedman’s direction this whole effort has been a story of nothing but politically-driven idiocy at the expense of public health and safety. And if that doesn’t change pretty soon, things could get really ugly.
Hell must be freezing over. I actually agree with you completely that he needs to go, Hondo.
I don’t see this as political, mind you – I highly doubt the director of the CDC is taking notes from the President’s administration on what to say or do – but unless there are some damn good reasons for why they’ve been doing the things they’ve been doing (and NOT doing the things they should’ve been doing!), then it’s a clear failure in leadership, planning, action and communication at the CDC.
Give credit where credit is due, I say:
May, 15 2009 (Hell, they couldn’t even get the comma right)
WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced that he has appointed Dr. Thomas Frieden, currently Commissioner of the New York City Health Department, as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[…]
Dr. Frieden is an expert in preparedness and response to health emergencies, and has been at the forefront of the fight against heart disease, cancer and obesity, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS, and in the establishment of electronic health records. Dr. Frieden has been a leader in the fight for health care reform, and his experiences confronting public health challenges in our country and abroad will be essential in this new role.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-appoints-dr-thomas-frieden-cdc-director
Yeah, sounds like just the guy to be the nation’s “go to” guy for controlling exotic diseases worldwide.
I hope the sarcasm above was obvious.
Stuff like the establishment of electronic health records SEEMS like it’s unimportant to things like disease control at first glance, but in reality, it’s a pretty useful tool for public health.
Maybe he isn’t the nation’s ‘go to’ guy for controlling exotic diseases worldwide, but for better or worse, controlling exotic diseases isn’t the CDC’s primary focus. Maybe we need it to be, maybe it should be, but at this point in time, it simply isn’t.
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to show – that Obama appointed him? Yes, and by all accounts, the guy is a well-credentialed expert with considerable experience in public health as well as a background in medicine and management.
He isn’t some political hack – he’s done plenty of good work in the past, it’s just he’s definitely dropped the ball on this.
Credit AND blame where it’s due.
You might want to read the guy’s bio at CDC, LC. The only real work with emerging diseases/disease outbreaks the guy ever did was from 1990-1996 – nearly 20 years ago. (I’m intentionally disregarding the 2009 H1N1 outbreak “leadership” he takes credit for, since (1) that was largely done by prior administration holdovers, and (2) as a new CDC director, he likely wasn’t directly involved in that effort.) Since then, he’s been essentially a public health administrator dealing with established healthcare systems and issues. That includes his time on loan to WHO in India – he was working with their public health system there while working to combat TB.
You are correct in that controlling infectious disease is not the only think that CDC currently does. That dispersal of effort – plus the undoing of the Bush-era organization that focused much of CDC’s effort on the threat of bioterrorism – is IMO precisely why we’re seeing rather clueless leadership of the current Ebola effort. The focus today is not correct, and the leadership doesn’t have the correct mindset or skills for the current problem.
However, listed first among their roles is “Detecting and responding to new and emerging health threats”. So even while much of CDC’s effort is focused on other matters, there is IMO still no excuse for the level of institutional incompetence we’ve seen in CDC’s response to the current Ebola outbreak.
Oh, I’ve already stated he’s botched this, there’s no question about that.
I’m just saying that for the wide range of roles the CDC has these days, the guy isn’t actually a bad choice – hell, I don’t want drug resistant TB here. Before the advent of this Ebola disaster, drug-resistant TB was probably considered more of a threat to US health and security.
My point is, yes, he fumbled, and no excuses should be made for that. But it doesn’t immediately mean he is incompetent at various other aspects of his job.
If you’re playing football and have some incredible receivers, and choose a great passing QB to lead the team, and suddenly all your receivers are injured and your focus needs to be on the run game, it doesn’t mean you have a terrible QB. It means you have a pretty good QB who unfortunately isn’t well suited to the current game.
” I highly doubt the director of the CDC is taking notes from the President’s administration on what to say or do – ” then LC, you haven’t been paying attention:
The chairman of the subcommittee that will be holding a high-profile hearing on the Ebola crisis today on the Hill said the CDC director told him that the administration fears a travel ban from affected countries would hurt fragile West African economies.
Dr. Tom Frieden is the director for Disease Control (a Doctor) – not the freggin commerce department, or tourism and trade… Always remember this hack was appointed, without Congressional approval by Dear Leader…
If you have a transcript from the past few days where Frieden says those words, I’d love to see it.
I’ve seen Rep. Murphy say Frieden said it, and I certainly wouldn’t doubt that the administration is looking at that economic angle, but I’d bet you dollars to donuts that Frieden’s focus, for all his faults in this, isn’t on West African economies.
Yes, he was appointed by Obama… after doing quite a bit to fight TB in NYC and in Indian with the WHO. He’s not some lacky who just donated a few bucks for a cushy position.
Yes, this self-described “community organizer” and philosophy major is obama’s appointment. He wasn’t picked for his expertise, I am sure. He was picked b/c he shares the progressive vision, a one-world kind of guy who, of course, as the WH pointed out, was also a champion of obamacare–as if that has something to do with the CDC’s mission. My sense of the guy is that he is a leftie and he was not selected for his management skills. The proof is in his present predicament: No one has confidence in him but he remains where he is, lest obama have to admit another mistake. My guess is that he will remain where he is BUT have real managers and real PR controllers placed next to him. I hope I’m wrong and obama fires his ass but, as I say, that, to obama, is admitting a mistake and he can’t do that.
He’s a Columbia University grad, 2/17 Air Cav – both MD and Public Health degrees. His undergraduate degree is from Oberlin College. And he’s worked in NYC much of his professional life – including for NYC as a city employee.
I’d guess you’re correct.
His undergrad degree is in Philosophy, from Oberlin College, class of 1982. He was the man behind the mandatory calorie postings in NYC restaurants. “When Frieden was first approached for the New York City health commissioner’s job, he said that tobacco would be his top priority—even though, in the aftermath of 9/11, there was political pressure to put bioterrorism at the top of the public health agenda. Frieden offered a simple explanation for his choice: he said that tobacco would kill more New Yorkers than bioterrorism.” (Harvard School of Public Health article) Yeah, that’s great. Wonderful. Except that smoking is a freakin’ choice, whereas becoming a victim of bioterrorism? Not so much.
Smoking is a choice. So are things like suicide, drug addiction, etc. They’re all choices people make, and they have deep impacts on society.
The job of a health commissioner is to do the most good for the general health of an area, regardless of whether it’s a choice. The number of lives lost and economic costs from tobacco ARE considerably higher than those lost from bioterrorism. Or asteroid strikes. Or tidal waves. Or other countless potential catastrophes that aren’t ‘choices’.
If you feel there should be someone to be a ‘bioterrorism health official’, that’s fine – maybe there’s a call for that. I’ll guarantee that the ‘return on investment’ in their salary pales compared to that of someone doing more mundane everyday work, though.
You must like the nanny state, LC. And that’s fine. Many Americans like being told what they can and can’t do, for their won good. Every such decision to control individuals is defensible and is packaged to make it desirable. But, in the end, there’s that lucid moment when the individual realizes he can’t even order a 32 oz soda in NYC or eat w/o being reminded of the calories contained in his meal, or have a smoke on the sidewalk during the post-meal stroll.
I don’t like the nanny state at all, actually – and the laws about soda sizes are utterly ridiculous.
I’m just saying that if we’re going to have a government-funded official focused on public health, he should probably focus on the dominant issues, and in doing so, seek to reduce risk and costs to the population he’s responsible for. You pointed out the soda example, which I agree is nuts, but is reducing the rate of TB, and especially drug-resistant TB a pointless exercise? Because that seems pretty useful for me.
(I’m also all for other methods that seek to address the root issue behind the soda decision – obesity and general health issues. I just don’t like when idiotic laws are made, as opposed to methods that still ultimately leave the choice to an individual.)
The Reuters story never says that the CDC were told of the nurse’s plan to fly. It says only that the CDC did not tell her not to fly after she informed the CDC of her slight fever. Given her role in caring for Duncan, one would think that ALL of the medical personnel would have merited very–shall we say–special attention. The nurse was suited up for transport, as were those who escorted her. Meanwhile, the CDC told the airline not to worry, just go about business as usual. To the airline’s great credit, it did not take the CDC’s advice. It grounded the airliner for deep cleaning, and gave the flight crew and stewardesses the next 21 days off with full pay.
The Reuters report is unclear on that point, 2/17 Air Cav. The CNN report on same is not.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/15/health/texas-ebola-outbreak/ (link now fixed)
According to that CNN article, the CDC rep to whom Wilson spoke was indeed aware she was planning to fly, and that she was asking if flying was permissible.
The link didn’t work but I found it anyway. Yeah, CNN says that the nurse asked the CDC about travel and was given the green light. Great. And the same story reports that two schools in Ohio and one in Texas closed b/c there may have been a couple of students who shared the flight with the nurse! Crazy. What are they going to do, close the schools for two months? Crazy. And then there’s this: “Staffing issues at the Texas hospital led to the decision to transfer [the infectyed nurse] to Emory, a federal official told Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent.” Staffing issues? Yeah, like I said yesterday, who the hell wants to work at that place now? The hospital is offering a free room to any employee who feels they will put their family at risk by sleeping at home. There was no word of anyone taking the offer.
This guy is clearly out of his league. Ebola is a far cry from eliminating transfats in NYC restaurants and “Helping Americans to quit smoking, reducing childhood obesity, prevent diabetes, and saving teens and others lives from car crashes through focused programs.” That’s from the CDC website. One reads the page and thinks immediately of a politician not a physician. I’m guessing he wishes he was still in NY right now, monitoring the size of soda cups or something.
The CDC declares itself in charge, therefore they own it. All of it.
Not that it matters much. Those with well honed survival skills will do what they need to do to live through all this, in spite of the “good intentions” of those who are supposed to be protecting us from such things as ebola.
Too bad that so many whom we have already paid to figure this all out are diddling and generally making life much more difficult for all of us than is necessary.
A protocol should have been to lock down med staff that cared for the first patient. Watch them for signs then move on.
Even if Ebola doesn’t get too far out of hand Medical centers will be jammed with people with fevers during the winter thinking they have Ebola.
That will overwhelm things enough. Do you take that chance? Or just check to make sure?
I hate to make this comparison but this is Obama’s Katrina. The worst part is I don’t know who to really believe.
‘THE PROTOCOL should have been … ”
There fixed it for you.
🙂
Dr. Friedbrain is going to be answering questions in a Congressional hearing today, questions on the mistakes the CDC has made. I’m sure he’ll waffle, obfuscate, and otherwise cloud the issue with predigested pabulum responses.
Here’s the link. Check the C-SPAN listings. It’s at noon EDT.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?321976-1/hearing-us-response-ebola-outbreak
In addition, there was a front page story on my desktop that the CDC is either considering putting the other 76 HC workers at the Dallas hospital on the no-fly list, or has already done so.
Barn door open.
Horse has already left.
Just remember: Death rides the pale horse.
The Four Horsemen may actually be here. The white horse is both Conquest and Pestilence, the black horse is Famine, the red horse is War, and the pale horse is Death.
Unfortunately, there is no horse carrying the Fool. I guess the Fool just trails along in the rear.
Oh, dear – that is so ominous of me. Sorry about that.
good morning to you too.
Just couldn’t resist the urge to relieve myself of a little Gloom & Doom. 😛
Wanna bet he has “missing e-mails” problems in the next few months?
You certainly don’t think his computer may “malfunction”, do you? Destroy all of his emails, or something?
Hello Congress, It’s not my fault, I resign.
‘Dr. Friedbrain.’ Heh.
@ Ex-PH2
Actually a large, black limousine with bullet resistant glass carries the fool.
A fool and his golf clubs are rarely parted … to … uhhh … mutilate … a popular saying.
Thank you all for the laughs.
I’m trying to decide whether to make choco chip cookies or lemon cake. I think I’ll do both. The cookie dough and the cake can both be frozen and used later, and I split the cake batter between two small pans to make two, which I can split in half and turn into layer cakes… and then drown them in lemon frosting and sprinkles.
There’s a scene in Idiocracy that takes place at a hospital. In my mind, it best describes the direction our health care “system” is headed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIktqjfsB_0
Love that movie. Actually, it’s more of a documentary today.
Never heard of it but I watched the clip and now I must see the movie. “Ahh. Hold on a second. THIS one goes on your mouth.”
I predict you will laff your ass off. My advice, order a DVD from Amazonn or Ebay. You will want your own copy. And one more thing 2/17 Air Cav… Welcome to Costco, I love you.
So per Obama mandate to THE REALLY BIG HEAD at CDC, under the bus she goes. Obama, so we can wipe our hands of that one, whew!
Meanwhile when an infected person, decides to migrate to DC and try their best to walk the halls of Congress, go on the White House tour or even, jump the fence and make into the White House again, if not shot or at least cussed at harshly, I wonder if it will make it more important to Obama than covering his ass and politics? I wonder if he’ll look at his wife and kids and in the mirror and say, we could be exposed, despite the best medicines in the world, we could still get sick and die. This is what every American is concerned about and this is what I have to deal with and address before everything else. I. DOUBT. IT!!! You can take the politician out of a cold dead corpse, but you can’t get the Ebola out of a self serving politician…or anyone for that matter.
To be honest, I think both should be at blame. The nurse should have realized pretty damn quickly that if she was working with someone with Ebola, she should pretty much assume that she *is* infected and act that way until proven otherwise.
As for the CDC, they should not have treated this so lightly. Again, assume that someone in close contact with infected personnel *is* infected, and work your way from there.
A day late and a buck short, Dallas County Commissioners to hold a meeting at 2pm today to declare a disaster and block all those who have been exposed from using any public transportation.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/Dallas-County-Judge-Clay-Jenkins-Creates-Order-to-Restrict-Travel-of-Ebola-Health-Care-Workers-279336932.html
Get a nurse. We need a nurse to head the CDC. There is such a thing as a doctoral level nurse, so we can even find someone who can satisfy the egghead requirement imposed by the kind of people who do not know what is really important.
Get a nurse. Nurses are the ones who care for patients. Nurses are the ones who will stop the spread of infection. Nurses are the ones whose lives are at most risk.
Valerie: what’s needed to head the CDC is someone with major expertise in epidemiology and/or exotic/emerging diseases. Or, preferably, both.
The current guy seems to be more a health administrator. Such individuals in the public sector are political animals.
Leaders in most orgs tend to surround themselves with people who say what the leaders want to hear. And they are the most ineffective leaders. The CDC needs someone who is gloves off (so to speak), who will make tough decisions, use some common sense, and if that’s a nurse with a BA or BS, that’s good enough for me.
Well, I guess a nurse wouldn’t have a BA, not in nursing, anyway.
Yeah not a BA, but a BS. My brother and his wife both have their Masters degrees in Nursing, and are working towards their Doctorate degrees in Nursing.
My former Army boss ran a lab where they tested these primates daily. I’ll let you judge from his descriptions on the idiocy we continue to be subjected to by the WH and the CDC. ProMEDmail is the site I’ve been using but I cannot find the thing again, that I keep quoting. Also, Biosurveillance is another good one. Read on. ” In my containment laboratory we were licensed to operate at ABSL-3 levels but I was working with multiple drug resistant biothreat agents and exposing macaques to aerosol. I did that inside a Class III glovebox inside an ABSL-3 lab and we all wore double suits with PAPR and head to toe bleach out with a 15 minute bleach contact time. That is using bacteria with a size above 0.2 microns which is what HEPA filters are rated for. Viruses, even Ebola which is relatively large, are 10- times smaller than the pore size of these filters so passes easily through them. BSL-4 mandates suits with integral seams and a separate (not filtered) air supply of an SCBA system. The exhaust out of a BSL-4 containment suite must be incinerated using a heavy multi-stage duty flame on the air effluent before it is released to the environment. These workers shower out in a separate exit shower using chemical sterilant with a 5 minute contact time. Then everyone showers out of the containment suite and leaves naked back into the dressing room. This includes rinsing your mouth out with a disinfectant. Not fun but this is what is required. Ebola is rated a BSL-4 level pathogen so I have no idea how anyone is complying with these requirements. The 40 bed BSL-4 slammer at USAMRIID was closed back in the 90’s as it wasn’t used much and when it was the seals all failed. What no one is talking about are the maximum credible event risk assessments required to operate labs and hospitals. This must include centrifuge tubes breaking, someone dropping a sample tray, tubing rupturing on a dialysis machine etc. Anyone who has worked in a containment lab knows… Read more »
I’ll leave this here for your reading pleasure:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/14/CIDRAP-Confirms-Ebola-Transmittable-by-Air
Kindly notice dear readers that at Old Trooper’s link, CIDRAP specifically states that the virus can be transmitted by “exhaled breath” which I do believe is what Old Poe was suggesting here at TAH the other day, based on the water vapor content of normal human exhalation. No coughing or sneezing is required to transport the virus from an exposed person’s lungs to who knows how many other uninfected persons.
And while Jesse Jackson wants to inject race into the equation, I find myself strangely agreeing with him. If the ground zero for this virus were a lily-white nation like Norway, do you not believe that all travel from Scandinavia would have been banned from the outset?
If our government doesn’t get its act together very quickly and quit playing politically correct/racial games, we’re in for a very hard ride.
“If the ground zero for this virus were a lily-white nation like Norway, do you not believe that all travel from Scandinavia would have been banned from the outset?”
Without a doubt. Hell, Obumbles put in a travel ban on Israel just to punish them for not playing nice with those wholesome palestinians!
PS…a potential case in my homestate…CT at Yale…the sick person traveled to and from Africa. Good God, have mercy on the fools running our country.
Tests on that person have now come back negative:
http://www.courant.com/health/hc-yale-new-haven-hospital-1017-20141016-story.html#page=1
That’s a good thing. We were lucky – again – and dodged another bullet.
National Nurses Union is blasting the CDC now as well. They are stating that not only was limited information disseminated to caregivers throughout the nation but the amount of training disseminated through CDC programs regarding Ebola is zero.
They are claiming that instruction protocols were grossly inadequate and extremely confusing when clarity should have been the key ingredient in all of these instruction sets.
I saw that as well.
I agree they should expect more from the CDC, but I gotta ask, are they incapable of doing their own research?!
“Tell me what I should do Lords and Masters, tell me what I should do, tell me what I should do, I’m helpless without your instruction!”
The problem currently for so many of these small hospitals Jacobite is that they are trying to comply with the “meaningful use” criteria and the HIPAA revised criteria and unfortunately when dealing with the government you don’t do anything on your own you check with them at each stage of this certification process and you never proceed without the government signing off on the previous stage.
It teaches the health care professionals to stop thinking on their own and await the government’s official directives or face reduced or zero reimbursements. That’s a reality of life at many small community hospitals these days. it’s why so many are failing and merging with large for profit operations whose motives aren’t necessarily in line with providing the best care so much as maximizing profits for shareholders. Quite a different motivation really.
What bothers me so much about that is how much it smacks of being a mindless sheep.
I can understand following protocol in the performance of your job, and while on the clock (to a certain point anyway), what I can’t accept is individuals so careless with their own personal safety, and the safety of others outside the workplace.
I mean honestly. I can see the CDC as partly responsible for the nurse catching it to begin with if the advised protocols were inadequate or flawed, but that’s not an excuse for the nurses behavior after knowing she’d been exposed.
From Hondo above;
Wilson: I have a temperature of 99.5F.
CDC Rep: So, your temperature is below 100.4F?
Wilson: Yes.
CDC Rep: That’s below threshold. You can fly.
Wilson: You’re sure?
CDC Rep: Yes.
Wilson: OK.
Properly expanded;
Wilson: But the incubation period can be 21 days or more, what if my fever climbs to over 100 while enroute or while I’m there?
CDC Rep: Good question, maybe you shouldn’t fly.
The nurse should have known better to begin with, I’m appalled she even called to ask for ‘permission’ in the first place. That smacks of shifting the responsibility to someone else when deep down inside you already know what you should or shouldn’t be doing. CYoA at it’s worst.
I don’t disagree that you would hope they are smarter than that, my point was that the mindset of acting only with approval becomes so ingrained it’s really weird.
My wife is a programmer for hospital database work and her efforts on behalf of a small non-profit community hospital have been amazing, but even she is so used to getting an approval before proceeding to a stage 2 requirement that it occasionally carries over to our home networking system.
She’s become accustomed to seeking and receiving permission before performing her job, and I see that with her colleagues and the nursing professionals she works with when we get together and talk shop stuff….when I point it out she gets it but
I’m not excusing the nurse in Dallas, but I am saying I understand the behavior as I’ve seen the change in my own wife over the last 14 years…
They’ve come a long way from being Florence Nightingale, haven’t they?
The Centers for Disinformation and Confusion. That pretty much sums it up for me. I mean, it’s not like this shit can kill us or anything.
Nope. It’s more important for CDC to combat stuff resulting from voluntary acts – like smoking and obesity. Or to focus on preventing the “disease” of firearm injury.
Shades of FEMA during Katrina
Friden you’re doing a hell of a job.
Which goes to what I have said for lo these many years: Administrations come and go, but the BUREAUCRACY goes on forever.
One of the most appalling things I’ve heard come out of someone’s mouth was this:
My fear is that ebola will spread in Africa and get worse.
That was Dr.Friedbrain in his bit at the hearing he attended this mid-day. Not an exact quote, but a summary.
Apparently, even though he’s a doctor and should know at least at little bit about the spread of virulent diseases as part of his job, he is not as up to date on either the real-time, real-world spread of ebola and its rising death rate, or the estimates by WHO that specifically stated the expected RISE IN INFECTIONS to be 10,000 PER WEEK (not per month) by January 1, 2015, with a RISE in fatality of 70%.
If I and others can find this online, what the hell is he doing not knowing about it?
I think Dr. Friedbrain should be fired and his medical license revoked. And whatever medical school he graduated from should demand that he return his degree to them.
He is a disgrace to whatever he thinks his profession is. He can go back to studying fat lesbians, but I wouldn’t go to him to get a splinter removed from my little finger. I could get better care and more awareness from my veterinarian.
“Sounds to me as if the CDC Director is either dissembling here or he’s clueless as to what’s going on in his agency.”
Hondo I think neither of those is the case with him. I think he is FULLY aware of the potential threat and repercussions of an Ebola outbreak. I DO THINK he is spineless and therefore takes his statements directly from the White House and President who ‘appointed” him.
From his resume: Frieden graduated from Oberlin College (BA, 1982), Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (MD, 1986) and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (MPH, 1985). He completed training in internal medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and sub-specialty training in infectious diseases at Yale University.
Despite political influence his duty as a sworn physician should have come first and that would have been to call this what it is…a disaster in the making. Even after being relieved by Obama which I am sure would have happened, he should have then continued to use his credentials as the MOST VOCAL advocate, on every news outlet who would talk to him, which would have been ALL OF THEM, to continue to get the truth out and insist on the proper course of action. A course of action he knows from his experience and training to be the best for our country. So I lay this on his spineless, self serving, typical Obama appointee outlook. Ineptitude… no way! No more care about this than Obama…all the way!
I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/21-day-ebola-quarantine-may-not-suffice-study/ar-BB9qdUK
Read down the page to the part about WHO. Yesterday, the estimate was 10,000 new infected weekly by January 2015. Now, it’s 10,000 weekly by the middle of November.
I don’t know if that is misinformation or if it has actually changed that quickly.
That’s about what the “quick and dirty” model I put together the other day (and wrote about in the “Previews of Coming Attractions” article) predicts, Ex-PH2. It predicts 17,280 cases for the “generation” beginning 8 Nov – and a generation lasts about 2 weeks. Given the fact that the pace of new infections is increasing, that means well more than 1/2 would be in the 2nd week – or the week of 15 Nov.
This article from the NE Journal of Medicine shows that – as of mid-Sep – all 3 nations were still in full exponential growth mode. The reproduction rate, R, for the 3 nations involved were estimated on that date as being 1.38 in Sierra Leone, 1.51 in Nigeria, and 1.81 in Guinea (Guinea’s R value had apparently fluctuated around 1 between Mar and Jul, but has since risen again). The number of cases in each of those nations in mid-Sep was doubling in 30.2, 23.6, and 15.7 days, respectively (the doubling time has an inverse relationship to R).
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100?query=featured_home#t=articleResults
I previously said I was afraid that those 3 nations may be lost causes, and that the best we might hope to do in West Africa now would be keep the disease from spreading to neighboring countries. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much recently that changes my mind.
Looks like you were more on top of this than the so-called experts, Hondo.
Good on you.
Thanks – but in fairness, the CDC modelers predict significantly higher numbers by Jan than my quick and dirty (and crude) model does. Theirs probably predicts about the same or more cases in mid-Nov than does mine.
I’d guess the discrepancy you caught was due to journalistic error vice their model being less accurate than mine. I know my model is crude, and I’m guessing the CDC had people put together a more detailed and accurate one.
So anyway, I was in the car warming up the engine, since I’m using it as little as possible for a while. The Eagles came on, while I sat there, with this song, and I thought the chorus was SO applicable to everything that EVERY gubbmint minion has mouthed about this business from Day One.
I only changed one word, to suit the problem.
You can’t hide your lyin eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
Sorry, you can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
It’s a pity they can’t see which fingers I’m using to salute them, isn’t it?
What happened to “You Can’t Get Ebola “Sitting Next To Someone On A Bus”???
The virus can live on doorknobs and tables and other inanimate objects for several hours. So, if someone whose body is teeming with the virus, yet in its early stages, coughs into his hand, picks his nose, rubs his eye or touches an armrest or a doorknob, the E virus can be transferred. Here’s a very tight and illuminating piece on the contagion that is in plain English, one that I–a science-challenged person– found quite easy to grasp. (BTW, a college student is under observation today for possible E virus in CT. He was in Liberia several weeks ago.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-makes-ebola-virus-so-deadly-2014-10
That student is now cleared, actually:
http://www.courant.com/health/hc-yale-new-haven-hospital-1017-20141016-story.html
This comes from MSN’s front page.
The degree of denial of reality is seriously disturbing.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/white-house-rejects-calls-for-ebola-travel-ban/ar-BB9nv04
I do NOT understand what the hell is wrong with bodaprz and Dr. Friedbrain. Does either of them ever step outside into the fresh air and see the real world?
What Friedbrain says goes beyond appalling: confident that our public health and health care systems can prevent an outbreak here.
Really? Then why did the nurse who is now in isolation go for a ride on an airplane twice and expose other people to the virus she was carrying?
Why did no one run a blood test on Thomas Duncan when he first appeared at Dallas Presbyterian?
How out of touch with reality are bodaprez and Friedbrain? I don’t believe anything either of them says, period.
Oh, yeah – if bodaprez really did what he says he did – hug and kiss two ebola patients – and he’s not worried about catching it, someone should tell him it isn’t AIDS and when he starts showing symptoms, he might as well bend over and kiss BiteMe’s ass goodbye.
S$@#!T!!