Conservative Musings

Our goal is to have intelligent discussion of the topics of the day. We realize everyone has their opinion and they should be allowed to express it in a discussion forum without calling each other names. We learn from discussion and not from name calling or argument.We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. See details

Showing posts with label Thomas Frieden. Show all posts

Friday, October 17, 2014

Too Much Attention To Minor Issues And Not Enough To The Big Ones--CDC!

Doctors Chief: CDC Curbs Secondhand Smoke More Than Ebola

Thursday, 16 Oct 2014 11:31 PM

By Bill Hoffmann and Todd Beamon

Get Short Link |

Email Article |

Comment |

| A A

inShare

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more safeguards against secondhand smoke than it does regarding Ebola, Dr. Jane Orient, director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said on Thursday.

"If you look at the precautions against secondhand smoke, they are absurd," Orient told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "The hazard from secondhand smoke, unless you're just sensitive to it and it bothers you, are really nonexistent.

"And yet, we have all these … expensive restrictions against these non-hazards — and a pathogenic, lethal organism that can infect you with one to 10 particles, we're so cavalier about?" Orient asked. "This just really does not make sense."

Story continues below video.

She told Malzberg that CDC Chief Dr. Thomas Frieden skated around answering key questions about the crisis as he was grilled by Congress on Thursday.

"Frieden evaded a lot of very important questions or pretended not to know," Orient said.

"Certainly, he evaded, despite really intense questioning, whether the White House was telling him they were not going to do a ban, whether he was in communication with the White House or whether the CDC was going to recommend a restriction in travel.

"The CDC claims not to know how those two nurses [at a Dallas hospital] got infected, despite their protective gear, because if the nurses did not breach the protocol, there's something wrong with the protocol," Orient said.

She disputed Frieden's claims that Ebola could not become airborne. It could, Orient said, through germs via "aerosols" that are created by sneezing or coughing.

"Your body fluids have to go through the air, unless you touch somebody," she told Malzberg. "You generate an aerosol if you cough or sneeze or vomit or have explosive diarrhea — and it makes droplets of different sizes.

"The ones that are really, really tiny can get through your mask, around your mask, down into your lungs," Orient said, adding that these droplets could infect "target cells down in your lungs."

The physician surmised that Frieden's thinking is based on a premise that the Ebola virus "does not survive being dried down to a particle of that size, but there's experimental evidence that it can survive for as long as 90 minutes on one of those drops down there."

When asked by Malzberg whether Ebola could, as such, is transmittable by air, Orient responded: "Theoretically, it certainly is. We cannot rule it out."

Orient is author of the book, "Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis,"published by LWW.

Related Stories:

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

How Many People Did The Dallas Ebola Patient Infect? Could This Be The Beginning Of The Disease Spreading Throughout The US?

Man in Dallas With Ebola Initially Sent Home With Antibiotics

Wednesday, 01 Oct 2014 08:27 AM

Get Short Link |

Email Article |

Comment |

| A A

0
inShare

A man with Ebola in Dallas was initially sent home from the hospital with antibiotics after seeking treatment for an unknown illness, officials said.The man, whose name wasn’t released, is the first case of the deadly viral infection to be diagnosed outside of Africa. He traveled from Liberia and arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.
The man is being kept in isolation in an intensive care unit. He had no symptoms when he left Liberia and began to show signs of the disease on Sept. 24, the CDC said. He sought care on Sept. 26, was hospitalized two days later at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and is critically ill, said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. The agency is working to identify anybody who had contact with the man and track them down, he said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here,” Frieden said at a press conferencein Atlanta.
A CDC team of epidemiologists will follow anyone who has had contact with the man for 21 days, Frieden said. If they develop any symptoms, they’ll immediately be isolated, and public health officials will trace their contacts. The diagnosis was first confirmed by a Texas lab based on samples of the man’s blood and confirmed by the CDC.

Ambulance Workers
The man was traveling to the U.S. to visit family and was staying with them. He was exposed to only a “handful” of people during the time when he had symptoms, including family members and possibly some community members, according to Frieden, who said there was little risk to anyone on his flight.
“Ebola doesn’t spread before someone gets sick, and he didn’t get sick until four days until after he got off the airplane,” Frieden said. “So we don’t believe there was any risk to anyone on the flight at that time.”
The patient wasn’t involved in helping contain the Ebola outbreak effort, according to Frieden, who declined to give further details on the man’s nationality or travels. CDC researchers said because Ebola is spread through human fluids, he had to have had closecontact with someone in Liberia who had the disease or had recently died from it.
After the patient sought medical care on Sept. 26 and was sent home with antibiotics, he returned in an ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian two days later and was admitted, said Edward Goodman, an epidemiologist at the hospital. The ambulance workers and other health-care professionals who treated him are being monitored for symptoms, Goodman said.
Obama Briefed
The CDC and Texas doctors are discussing the use of possible experimental treatments, Frieden said, though no decision has been made.
President Barack Obama was briefed about the patient by Frieden, the White House said in a statement. They discussed the patient’s treatment and what was being done to trace the people the man might have contacted.
U.S. authorities didn’t disclose the flights or airlines the patient took from Liberia. No airlines serve Africa from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the main domestic and foreign gateway to North Texas, and none of the major U.S. carriers with overseas networks -- American Airlines Group Inc., United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. -- flies to Liberia. Delta dropped operations last month in Monrovia, the country’s capital.
Traveler’s Itinerary
That left open the possibility the traveler arrived in the U.S. from somewhere else in Africa or via a connection in Europe, and may have stopped elsewhere on a domestic flight before reaching Dallas.

Another suspected Ebola case is being evaluated at a National Institutes of Health facility, U.S. officials said, the 13th such possible infection in the U.S. All others have tested negative.
A traveler from Africa showing up in the U.S. with Ebola “is not at all surprising,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “We are going to see more cases show up around the world.”
Osterholm said that while it is possible the patient may have infected other family members or close contacts before he was diagnosed, it is unlikely there will be any more people infected with Ebola in the U.S. as a result of the case, thanks to good infection control procedures here.
West Africa
“There shouldn’t be any new infections from this point on,” Osterholm said. “We are going to shut this down.”
The Ebola outbreak has been concentrated in the West Africa countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The outbreak has infected 6,574 and killed 3,091 people so far, according to the World Health Organization. U.S. public health officials have been isolating and testing travelers who returned from the region with symptoms of the disease.
“This incident shows the vast differences between our health system and what’s available in West Africa,” said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease doctor and a former assistant commissioner in the New York City Department of Mental Health and Hygiene. “The patient was isolated quickly. By isolating the contacts, we can eliminate risk of further spread.”
Ebola has left Africa before, but only under controlled conditions. Aid workers who have fallen ill in the current outbreak have been flown to the U.S., the U.K., Spain and France for treatment. A researcher who fell ill in 1994 in Ivory Coast was taken to Switzerland for care.
Developing Vaccines
At least three American aid workers who were diagnosed with Ebola in Africa during this outbreak were evacuated to U.S. hospitals, treated and discharged.
There is no approved treatment for Ebola, though drugmakers are attempting to develop vaccines or medicines that could be used in this or a future outbreak. Current care involves isolating the patient so they can’t infect others, and providing supportive treatment such as intravenous fluids and antibiotics to fight opportunistic infections.
U.S. health officials have downplayed the chance of a major outbreak of the disease in the U.S., saying the country’s superior medical infrastructure would be able to quickly isolate the disease.

“It’s not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S.,” Frieden said on a July 31 conference call with reporters. “That is not in the cards.”
U.S. and European governments have been criticized for being slow to respond to the situation in Africa, and much of fight against the outbreak has been conducted by missionary and charitable groups with personnel on the ground, including Doctors Without Borders, Samaritans Purse and SIM USA. The groups have said they are overwhelmed, don’t have enough beds to treat patients and the outbreak is rapidly growing out of control.
Troop Effort
The U.S. Department of Defense has authorized sending 1,400 troops to Liberia to help fight Ebola in Western Africa, where the virus has crippled existing medical infrastructure.
The troops will supervise the construction of Ebola treatment units, conduct site surveys and provide engineering expertise, John Kirby, a press secretary for the department said yesterday at a news briefing. Half of the troops will come from the 101st Airborne Division while the remaining 700 will come from different parts of the Army.
The pledge to send troops was part of the U.S. effort to contain the spread of Ebola virus, and governments and international aid groups are sending money and personnel to help fight help outbreak. Leaders in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea urged the international community to do more to keep the epidemic, the worst in history, from killing their people and harming their economies.

Anyone Coming From Liberia, Nigeria Or Other Areas With Ebola Outbreaks, Should Be Quarantined For The Requisite Time Before Being Allowed To Enter The US.

BREAKING: EBOLA CONFIRMED INSIDE U.S.

Hospital reports patient in 'strict isolation'

Published: 18 hours ago

JEROME R. CORSI About | Email | Archive

Text smaller
Text bigger

The Centers for Disease Control have confirmed a “critically ill” person in Dallas, Texas, has contracted the Ebola virus – and the individual had been in the country for eight days before being hospitalized.

Officials say the first case of Ebola in the United States, not brought for special treatment, has been identified and the patient is in “strict isolation” at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Doctors refused to answer questions about whether the patient is a U.S. citizen, saying only that “he’s visiting family who live in this country.”

“We got the result back at 1:22 p.m. CT this afternoon that the patient has Ebola, and we want to emphasize at this point, we have no other information any other person is affected,” said Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. David Lakey. “We are committed to make sure Texas is safe.”

On Sept. 20, the patient arrived in the U.S. on a flight from Liberia, officials with the CDC reported.

In a press conference Tuesday, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said, “He began developing symptoms several days after arriving in the United States and was hospitalized. Today we determined the patient has Ebola.”

Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the focus of the unprecedented outbreak, which has already taken 2,800 lives and could kill as many as 1.4 million by the end of January, according to the CDC. WND has reported on the danger of spreading Ebola by international air travel, given that Ebola symptoms can take up to 21 days to manifest after a person has been infected.

The patient reportedly showed no symptoms while traveling, which, the CDC said, meant “zero risk” of infecting other passengers on the same flight. The government agency refused to say whether the individual flew on a commercial airplane or to identify the patient’s flight number. Physicians said only a “handful” of people in the U.S. had been in contact with the infected person prior to symptoms becoming evident.

“The next steps are threefold,” Frieden said. “First, the care for the patient must be provided at the highest level possible and as safely as possible to keep at an absolute minimum the possibility anybody else could become infected and to maximize the chances that the patient might recover. Second, we identify all people who may have had contact with the patient while he could have been infectious. …

“Once all the persons the patient contacted are identified, they are monitored for 21 days after exposure to see if they develop fever. If they develop fever, the same criteria are used to isolate them and make sure they are cared for as well as possible so they maximize their chances of recovery and to minimize or eliminate the chance that they might infect other people.”

Frieden said he has “no doubt” physicians and health officials “will control this case of Ebola so it does not spread widely in this country.”

“It is certainly possible that someone who has contact with this individual – a family member or other individual – could develop Ebola in the coming weeks,” he said. “But there is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here.”

Frieden concluded, “Ultimately, we are all connected by the air we breathe,” raising concern Ebola could become an airborne virus.

“Ebola is not transmitted by air,” said Dr. Edward Goodman, hospital epidemiologist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, noting that he wanted to immediately correct Dr. Frieden’s statement “that may have been misinterpreted.”

What do YOU think? Sound off on CDC’s assurances that Ebola is hard to transmit

Goodman added, “We have had a plan in place for some time now in the event of a patient presenting us with possible Ebola. Ironically enough, in the week before this patient presented, we had a meeting of all the stakeholders that might be involved in the care of such a patient. Because of that, we were well prepared to deal with this patient and this crisis.”

The Ebola symptoms began to appear on Sept. 24. The patient sought medical care on Sept. 26 and was admitted to the hospital on Sept. 28. Doctors provided no specific details about the patient’s symptoms or the medical treatment being provided.

The Dallas physicians said there are currently no plans to move the patient from Dallas to another Ebola-ready health facility elsewhere in the U.S.

Listen to a recording of the Ebola teleconference:

Frieden confirmed the CDC has dispatched an epidemiology team to assist the Dallas medical team in treating the Ebola patient.

The CDC indicated that “from information available to us at this point,” the person infected with Ebola was not involved in providing health-care services to Ebola-infected patients in Liberia.

Only days ago, WND reported the Obama administration’s unwillingness to ban air travel from the West African nations hit by the Ebola outbreak was leaving the United States vulnerable to the disease.

“Until it’s clear that the outbreak has stopped, no one from those three countries should be permitted to enter the U.S. and all visa issuance should be suspended,” contended Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

As WND reported, the United Nations World Health Organization has argued vigorously that cutting commercial airline service to the affected West African nations would only intensify the severity of the Ebola epidemic by restricting the ability of international health organizations to send qualified health professionals and supplies to the region to help combat the disease.

WND also reported that Dr. Lee Hieb, former president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, warned that quarantine and fly restriction measures should be taken to prevent Ebola from coming to America.

“You don’t get Ebola from Europe,” she told WND. “You get Ebola from Africa. And it’s a really simple formula: Don’t let people fly to America if they’ve been to areas where there’s an outbreak. When there’s an outbreak, stop air [traffic] flow.”

The CDC has issued a traveler’s alert for all U.S. residents “to avoid travel to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leon because of unprecedented outbreaks of Ebola in those countries.”

In the press conference Tuesday, the CDC stressed that all passengers traveling from West Africa would be screened prior to getting on any airplanes to make ensure they’re not showing any symptoms of Ebola before flying.

“As long as Ebola continues as an epidemic in Africa, the reality is that people travel and, like in this case, individuals may travel before they have any symptoms,” Frieden said. “One of the things that CDC has done in the affected West African countries is to work with the airport authorities so 100 percent of the individuals getting on airplanes are screened for fever before they get on an airplane.

“If they have fever, they are pulled out of the line and not permitted to fly. No one flies until Ebola is ruled out, so the other passengers are safe in transit and the airlines are willing to keep flying. But that doesn’t rule out a situation like this one where someone was exposed, but they went flying while they were incubating the disease, and were not yet showing symptoms.”

The CDC said existing procedures for air travel are safe, and there is no current plan to terminate or curtail air travel from West Africa.

Anyone concerned about possible exposure may call 800-CDC-INFO for more information.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/breaking-ebola-case-inside-u-s/#eD5eP4D8YieTgI6c.99