[Sixstrings]

Doctor dons Ebola protection suit to protest CDC

Two days after a man in Texas was diagnosed with Ebola, a Missouri doctor Thursday morning showed up at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport dressed in protective gear to protest what he called mismanagement of the crisis by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Gil Mobley checked in and cleared airport security wearing a mask, goggles, gloves, boots and a hooded white jumpsuit emblazoned on the back with the words, “CDC is lying!”

“If they’re not lying, they are grossly incompetent,” said Mobley, a microbiologist and emergency trauma physician from Springfield, Mo.

Mobley said the CDC is “sugar-coating” the risk of the virus spreading in the United States.

“For them to say last week that the likelihood of importing an Ebola case was extremely small was a real bad call,” he said.

“Once this disease consumes every third world country, as surely it will, because they lack the same basic infrastructure as Sierra Leone and Liberia, at that point, we will be importing clusters of Ebola on a daily basis,” Mobley predicted. “That will overwhelm any advanced country’s ability to contain the clusters in isolation and quarantine. That spells bad news.”

Mobley, a Medical College of Georgia graduate who had an overnight layover after flying to Atlanta from Guatemala on Wednesday, said that he feels that the CDC is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to screening passengers arriving in the United States from other countries.

“Yesterday, I came through international customs at the Atlanta airport,” the doctor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The only question they asked arriving passengers is if they had tobacco or alcohol.”
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/doctor-boards-flight-in-ebola-protection-suit-to-p/nhZk8/

I think he's right. There's been a lot of screwups with this US ebola case. Doesn't sound like the guy was screened correctly, flying from Liberia to Belgium then DC then to Texas.

He was turned back by some hospitals, the last hospital sent him home with just a antibiotics script -- the fact he's Liberian and just came from Liberia and showing up sick didn't raise any red flags, apparently.

And now, this quarantine. The man's girlfriend and family are quarantined by law to stay in their apartment for the next 21 days. From watching CNN on this, looks like here's a sheriff's deputy stationed outside.

So anyway, Anderson Cooper interviews her and she says the CDC hasn't told her how to handle things. Nobody came to take away all the linens and towels the man got sick on. Nobody told her what do do with them. Worst of all, they're locked up in their apartment but have no way to get food in.

CDC just brought them some sandwiches the night before and that was it.

So while CNN is on air talking about all of this, then they report someone from the CDC was watching CNN and says they will send a medical contractor out to get the linens and towels out of the house.

Whole thing sounds bungled -- from a humanitarian perspective, if authorities are going to lock people up in their house then they need to be in better contact with them, and common sense things like bring them some darn food.

I don't what the rules are, if someone is quarantined in their house, whether family could bring food over (if you're quarantined, are you even allowed to step outside your door at all to get supplies that's dropped off?).

The CNN anchors were incredulous about it, pointing out that in Africa they are burning soiled linens and towels but here we've got this case in Texas where the CDC didn't even do anything and these people are just locked up in their apartment for 21 days to see if they get sick.

So this doctor that's protesting.. he's right.. if we can't even handle one case then imagine the impact of an epidemic, it could overwhelm even our medical system. And podunk hospitals in Texas that aren't up to standards, aren't on the lookout for it and aren't isolating people or even bothering to ask some questions about a sick Liberian in the ER waiting room.

Now imagine a place like India, with all those tightly packed slums -- 500 million Indians don't even have toilet access, and defecate in the street! Incredibly unsanitary, how will they handle ebola? Half a billion people crapping in the street is HELL of a lot of people.

[PrestonSturges]

One thing we can thank the Tea Party for is showing us how many of our doctors are batshit insane.

Also we get to see the GOPs favorite strategy again - cut funding over and over to fight Ebola, then scream that the system is broken. Maybe this is the excuse we need to eliminate funding altogether.

But I think it's great that conservatives are all of a sudden taking a fresh interest in science and evolution and math and stuff. They even found out that Africa is whole continent, not a country! Who knew?

But hey thank God that Texas has some of the worst access to health care in the nation, right? Because health insurance just encourages people to get sick, and the best solution to an epidemic is the free market, right?

And where is Governor Shit-For-Brains? Oh he's discovering that he likes big government after all! But I notice they are mostly keeping him a safe distance from microphones.

[Sixstrings]

One thing we can thank the Tea Party for is showing us how many of our doctors are batshit insane.

Where are you getting a political angle out of this, that article is in the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper not breitbart.

Also we get to see the GOPs favorite strategy again - cut funding over and over to fight Ebola, then scream that the system is broken. Maybe this is the excuse we need to eliminate funding altogether.

You are very right about that. Those old gov shutdowns were INCREDIBLY irresponsible. You had people going without their cancer meds in drug trials -- kind of messes up the point of a study there, to just stop giving folks their meds, and it's tantamount to manslaughter if the meds would have been lifesaving.

Yes you are right, cuts to the CDC are insane -- CDC needs more funding, BUT it also needs a shakeup. Something is wrong in the Obama admin Preston, I think it's too many political appointments and patronage and we've got the same old "heck of a job Brownie" problem as we did in the Bush years.

Look at Obama's apointee to Secret Service director and how screwed up they got, and now she's finally asked to resign. Apparently she was not competent for the job. And now the CDC, perhaps upper management is not competent there either.

Perhaps these were political patronage appoints. That's destructive and wrong whether it's the Bush admin or Obama admin, but right now it's Obama in there and from what I can tell he's done the same thing Bush did with irresponsible appointments. SOMEBODY is not managing things right, and it's somebody's fault -- and the ebola virus doesn't care if you're R or D.

But I think it's great that conservatives are all of a sudden taking a fresh interest in science and evolution and math and stuff. They even found out that Africa is whole continent, not a country! Who knew?

Again, how do you come to assume this doctor is a Tea Party guy. Read the article, he sounds right to me, and I'm just watching CNN and seeing screwups unfold live on TV. They didn't even get the dirty sheets and towels out of that apartment. Wtf? What's going on at the CDC?

[dissident]

Those so-called values of theirs are total fraud. They love big government and regulations as long as their corporate pals and patrons make out like pirates. Every time I hear the term "fiscal conservative" I cringe. It is these "fiscal conservatives" that run up the debt and operate with enormous budget deficits. The system is broken alright, thanks to these criminal clowns.

[Sixstrings]

Those so-called values of theirs are total fraud. They love big government and regulations as long as their corporate pals and patrons make out like pirates.

Conservatives have a *reactionary* bent -- if there is some big problem, THEN they're for "doing something." It's not about more laws and regulation so much as just good management. The criticism about the Obama admin is a poor management issue.

You don't need a good law so much as a good executive, sometimes. And the former is useless without the latter.

I disagree with you that conservatives are for regulation, generally they are not -- they want everything deregulated and business free to screw people over. Or, sometimes the privatization works better (i.e. SpaceX) where gov was bloated and mismanaged. It's the old delicate balance there, private sector screwing you or too much socialism and the gov screwing you.

Every time I hear the term "fiscal conservative" I cringe. It is these "fiscal conservatives" that run up the debt and operate with enormous budget deficits. The system is broken alright, thanks to these criminal clowns.

I don't know how things are in Russia, but you're right in general there about over here -- conservatives like to pass PRIVATE costs onto the PUBLIC -- government. That's when they love big government.

So, a Walmart etc. pays its employees slave wages and has them using government welfare. It's passing business cost onto the government, and makes great profit sense if you can get away with it.

Getting back on topic here -- notice how the CDC is sending "medical contractors" to go get the frickin' ebola sheets and towels out of this apartment. Hopefully they'll disinfect the place while they are there.

But who knows? They're frickin' contractors. And that's a whole other problem with the conservative model -- I admit this is a neverending balance to get right, but on some things it's best to be all government and no darn contractors and just have good executives running the gov programs.

Generally -- things like police, fire departments, water utilities, highways, the armed forces, intelligence and core gov functions shouldn't be privatized.

This is like when the army uses contractors. Nobody is accountable. Sh*t happens. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Look at Snowden -- he was a contractor, and he went and defected to Russia.

I take a dim view on gov using so many contractors these days, but it is also true you still need good management in government. In hurricane katrina, we had all the resources available to handle that but it broke down because of screwed up political leadership in Louisiana and an unqualified political appointee in charge of FEMA.

I think a place like Germany does a good job getting this balance right. If they get ebola over in Germany, I bet they don't have contractors, I bet they've got a good technocrat gov medical system that's able to get some frickin' dirty linens out of someone's house.

[PrestonSturges]

Look at Obama's apointee to Secret Service director and how screwed up they got, and now she's finally asked to resign. Apparently she was not competent for the job. And now the CDC, perhaps upper management is not competent there either.

With the GOP trying to build momentum by claiming "It's all connected!" it sounds like they forgot their lithium.

[Sixstrings]

With the GOP trying to build momentum by claiming "It's all connected!" it sounds like they forgot their lithium.

Oh, Preston, GOP is just serving the loyal opposition role here AND IT IS NEEDED.

Do you wanna get frickin' ebola? SOMEBODY needs to be a watchdog, right????

I think we need more TECHNOCRATS in this country. Just do a damn good job, forget about the politics, get the dirty ebola sheets and towels out of that apartment and whoever overlooked that should get fired.

It's ridiculous. The anchor on CNN (I think it was Ashley Banfield) was saying "what's going on here, I imagined there would be guys in CDC hazmat suits all over that apartment but the woman says she's locked in without any food and there's dirty sheets and towels and nobody came to disinfect."

And there IS some connection here -- it's mismanagement. These are facts. Secret Service has gotten all screwed up for the last few years, it's just one incident and screwup after another, so maybe we've got a "heckuva job Brownie" problem in the Obama admin. With political patronage appointees that are not qualified.

I don't know if that's the case with the CDC, but that will come out, what these screwups are about and who is to blame.

(you say it's lack of funding, but Preston I'm pretty sure these federal gov managers and directors are getting paid very well -- it's not like good qualified directors and managers and executives can't be found because we're not paying them)

[dohboi]

"One thing we can thank the Tea Party for is showing us how many of our doctors are batshit insane."

That would be in the "takes one to know one" category.

By the way, shouldn't this be merged with the ebola thread already in progress?

[Sixstrings]

"One thing we can thank the Tea Party for is showing us how many of our doctors are batshit insane."

Uh, Preston isn't tea party. Are you replying without reading and you thought I wrote that?

I'm not tea party either, I'm a registered Democrat and Obama voter. And really I'm independent swing vote and it's the minority of Americans like me that decide every election.

Back on topic -- none of us wants to get frickin' ebola, CDC is screwing up, that doctor is right.

Look at this quarantined apartment -- how can anyone excuse that family just being left locked up in there with dirty ebola sheets and towels. They were just supposed to sit there for 21 days and see if they get sick?

Thank goodness the media interviewed her, and CDC had CNN on to find out about it.

[PrestonSturges]

With the GOP trying to build momentum by claiming "It's all connected!" it sounds like they forgot their lithium.

Oh, Preston, GOP is just serving the loyal opposition role here AND IT IS NEEDED.

Hey, you know what else sounds odd? Ranting thousands of words on the internet to people who don't care.

But seriously, "loyal?" Is the GOP still in mourning over the death of Bin Laden? Are they not terrorists biggest cheerleaders? Terrorist blows up a hot dog cart in Baghdad and the GOP demands the overthrow of the US government. Every time there is a terrorist incident, the GOP amplifies it a thousand fold and tries to carry the ball over the goal line for the terrorists.

How about this guy on the Armed Services Committee who says GOP members of Congress have been urging generals to throw public hissy-fits and resign?

A Republican congressman from Colorado was not trying to undermine President Barack Obama's military actions in the Middle East by urging generals who disagreed with the president to resign "in a blaze of glory," a spokesman said Monday.

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn made the remarks last week in response to a question at a small gathering in Colorado Springs. One man urged Lamborn to support generals given "the Muslim Brotherhood in the White House" — a comparison of the president to the Islamic group that briefly ran Egypt until this year's coup.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStor ... t-25840999

[Sixstrings]

Hey, you know what else sounds odd? Ranting thousands of words on the internet to people who don't care.

Why is this bothering you so much? Are you so political that you will to toe the party line and shut down any criticism of the administration even when it's about a national emergency?

PrestonSturges, you do not want to catch ebola do you? Or the next pandemic, maybe that one will be the real deal?

Democrat or Republican I don't care, the CDC is screwing up and someone needs to say something about it.

But seriously, "loyal?" Is the GOP still in mourning over the death of Bin Laden? Are they not terrorists biggest cheerleaders? Terrorist blows up a hot dog cart in Baghdad and the GOP demands the overthrow of the US government. Every time there is a terrorist incident, the GOP amplifies it a thousand fold and tries to carry the ball over the goal line for the terrorists.

How about this guy on the Armed Services Committee who says GOP members of Congress have been urging generals to throw public hissy-fits and resign?

You're just all politics. I try to be fair and balanced, but you don't want to hear it if it leads to criticism of the Obama administration.

I'm talking about political patronage problems -- that was "heckuva job brownie" in the Bush admin, and it looks like we may have that problem in the Obama admin too.

Let's stay on topic -- ebola is in the US, and CDC is screwing some things up, and other people are screwing up like that hospital that just gave a sick feverish vomitting Liberian some antibiotics and sent him back out into the community for a week.

And I don't know if it's Obama's fault or not, but it's somebody's fault that nothing was ever done about people just hopping a plane from Liberia willy nilly.

That man admittedly held a pregnant woman dying of ebola in his arms, and then he gets on planes travelling to: Belgium, then Washington DC, then Dallas.

[Sixstrings]

This thread is already all over the map and that's my fault. I won't respond to any more way off topic stuff.

You all can discuss that if you want, I made my points I think the Obama admin has mishandled it and I think there may be a political patronage problem and unqualified people in charge. We're seeing that with the Secret Service, now with CDC. But I'm dropping it and staying on topic.

The point of this thread is ebola in the US, and gov response to it.

Mishandling of U.S. Ebola patient prompts CDC alert to hospitals

DALLAS — A Texas emergency room’s mishandling of the country’s first Ebola patient prompted the CDC to issue a nationwide alert to all hospitals updating them of how to appropriately respond to possible cases of the deadly disease.

“It’s a teachable moment, as we say,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Thursday press conference.

The latest guidance includes a poster with quick rules for evaluating returned travelers and a checklist.

The move comes nearly a week after Thomas Eric Duncan showed up at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with what officials described as fever and abdominal pain. Duncan, who had just moved to Dallas from West Africa, reportedly told hospital workers that he was recently in Liberia, one of the hardest hit areas of the deadly Ebola crisis.
http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-mishap-prompts-cdc-alert-to-hospitals-205334851.html

Cleanup efforts hampered by workers not wanting to get anywhere near ebola:

Delay in Dallas Ebola Cleanup as Workers Balk at Task

The Texas health commissioner, Dr. David Lakey, told reporters during an afternoon news conference that health workers should have moved more swiftly to clean the apartment but that they had had trouble finding an outside medical team to do the work. They encountered “a little bit of hesitancy,” he said.

“We are arranging for that apartment to be cleaned,” he said. “The house conditions need to be improved.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/dallas-ebola-case-thomas-duncan-contacts.html

Aha! So that's what happened. They couldn't find any CONTRACTORS that would take the job to go in that apartment and clean it up!

So wtf is up with the CDC, that gets billions of dollars, where are the men in spacesuits that should have swooped in and done this?

Something is bad wrong here, people, you cannot leave this stuff up to state governments like Texas or a Louisiana, you know?

The initial contagion should have federal CDC all over it like white on rice, NOT state governments "trying to find a contractor."

[PrestonSturges]

Perry doesn't care about Ebola, all he cares about is closing all the abortion clinics.

And when I say "abortion clinics" I mean Planned Parenthood, which is the only healthcare resource for many of Texas' 6,000,000 uninsured people.

That's where they can go for contraception and venereal disease testing, but Perry is shutting them down, because Texas loves illegitimate babies and syphilis.

Yeehaw, Texas loooves syphilis!

Seriously though, it's hard to control possible epidemics when the government is busy pandering to illiterate religious cultists. Maybe their brains are rotted by syphilis.

This is what happens when syphilis rots your skull. Who would he would have voted for?

[Sixstrings]

As interesting as the above topics are, planned parenthood and syphilis, it's got nothing to do with ebola.

Preston: If you want to make some political hay then do some research because you actually have a good on topic target on this one, with Rick Perry and the Texas state government.

It was up to them to do this ebola cleanup. I happen to think that's insane and the CDC should have been all over this and not leaving it up to Rick Perry.

But anyhow, apparently it's Perry's job to handle ebola, so.. do some research.. cuz he didn't handle it either.

"We can't find any contractors that want to get anywhere near ebola" is the line coming out of the Texas state department of health.

So what about that vaunted national guard? Can nobody draft someone to get a hazmat suit on and burn the dirty sheets and towels?

I say federal gov and CDC needed to do this, but alternatively, Rick Perry could have too and he hasn't handled it right either.

[PrestonSturges]

As interesting as the above topics are, planned parenthood and syphilis, it's got nothing to do with ebola.

Yes it does, because public health departments (and Planned Parenthood) have the greatest benefit in fighting venereal disease, TB, and unwanted pregnancies. But the GOP hates public health programs, and they also hate local governments that provide drinkable water right out of your faucet. Because the GOP wants you to have cholera and syphilis.

When the GOP destroys the public health system to get the vote of the religious cultists, the country is wide open to disease like ebola. And then you want help with that? Oh I'm sorry, we're all home reading our Bibles. Try painting your door with lamb's blood like Exodus and then do the rest of us a favor and go die. Because honestly, you're just holding everyone else back. Fly to Iraq and fight with ISIS, we'll buy you a ticket.

[Loki]

Because the GOP wants you to have cholera and syphilis.

Come on man, cholera and syphilis? Typhoid and the clap, maybe. But a little typhoid and clap never hurt anyone.

Portland just voted down one of the Bircher's old favorite canards, fluoride in drinking water. Maybe the right wingers have taken over Portlandia

The pre-science worldview is alive and well among both lefties and righties in America. Check out vaccination rates among certain segments of the "educated" white middle-class, many of whom no doubt vote Democrat, or even Green Party.

As for Ebola, ridiculously overblown would be a vast understatement. Based on my calculations, if you live in the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, etc., you have a 187 quadrillion percent greater chance of dying in a car accident than you do of dying from Ebola.

It is, however, entertaining to see "small government conservatives" demanding immediate big government action. OBS (Obama Butthurt Syndrome) has really fried their brains

[dohboi]

Maybe, just maybe, if the repugs hadn't slashed CDC's budget by over half a billion dollars, they'd be a bit more able to react to this thing more effectively...just maybe: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/0 ... 13844.html

"It is, however, entertaining to see "small government conservatives" demanding immediate big government action."

Perfectly put!

The fact that they contracted out the cleanup duty is another example of capitalism gone bat-shit crazy and threatening the general health--this is just not something that should be pawned off to the lowest bidder. The free market does not solve all (or any, really) problems.

[Loki]

The free market does not solve all (or any, really) problems.

The free market solves plenty of problems within its bounds. Coming up with new gadgets and widgets and distributing them relatively efficiently without coercion. Amazon vs. Stalin.

But contrary to the claims made by the Ayn Rand acolytes, there are some areas where the free market falls short. Public health is one. Most folks have no appreciation for the massive advances in public health in the last 100+ years, due primarily to local governments building sewers, water treatment plants, and the like.

Of course these public health achievements have come at a high price. Nature used to have a way to cull the human population, not so much any more. 7 billion and counting.

Maybe we would be better off with a free market dictatorship and cholera in our drinking water

[ralfy]

A free market can do that if there is more than enough oil and other resources to manufacture and transport goods easily. More important, if the incentive for doing so involves more profits and returns on investment, then even more material resources will be needed to back up increasing credit.

Unfortunately, there's peak oil, and that coupled with global warming and environmental damage.

[Beery1]

the fact he's Liberian and just came from Liberia and showing up sick didn't raise any red flags, apparently.

Hardly surprising, since Fox News tells everyone that facts don't matter and opinion is everything. The nurse probably thought Liberia is the really cold part of Russia where they keep all the political prisoners.

This is what happens when a nation is mired in a culture of pig ignorance. Personally I'll be surprised if we get to 2015 without a major outbreak. And what will cause it? Mostly the fact that poor and middle income people won't go to the doctor if they get sick because they are too scared of getting a massive medical bill even if they're insured. Whose fault is that? Republicans and Tea Party nutcases who don't want socialized medicine and who fight universal healthcare at every step. If we get an Ebola epidemic here, we can blame it on the political right. That might be a bitter pill to swallow while your family is dying, but you folks made your choice, and now we may all have to pay for it with our lives and those of our loved ones.

Trust me, when it comes here, Ebola is going to get to you and your Republican and Tea Party pals through the folks who deliver your mail and groceries, because you were too cheap to get them the health care safety net that they need for ALL of us to be safe. The revolution that will level the playing field is coming in the form of a deadly virus that will finally teach the folks on the political right that we live in a society where the health of the poorest of us matters even to the richest of us.