IS THE CDC EPITOMIZING ONE OF THE THREE GREAT LIES?

Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, flew to Dallas Sept. 20, five days after he helped an Ebola-stricken woman get to a local hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.  He died of Ebola this morning (10/08) in a Texas hospital after potentially infecting over 100 people.

He was going to visit his sister, Mr. Duncan said when he applied for a visa. He went to America in search of better health care, his former boss told a Liberian newspaper.

Many countries have restricted air travel from Ebola-ravaged countries. The Obama administration won’t. The Centers for Disease Control had proposed quarantine regulations that would have kept Mr. Duncan out of the U.S., but the administration dumped them in 2009.

"We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States," Barack Hussein Obama said during a visit to CDC headquarters in Atlanta Sept. 16.

Mr. Duncan’s "screening" consisted of being asked if he’d been exposed to Ebola. He said no. Airport checks in Monrovia are "completely useless," said virologist Heinz Feldmann.

"In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores…we’re working with hospitals to make sure they are prepared," President Obama said during his CDC visit.

He was from Liberia, Mr. Duncan told emergency room personnel at Texas Presbyterian hospital when he sought treatment there Sept. 25. He was diagnosed with the flu and sent home.

According to CDC guidelines, patients with low grade fevers and abdominal pain are to be considered essentially "asymptomatic" for purposes of Ebola isolation, even if they had traveled to Africa. Texas Presbyterian was complying with them when it sent Mr. Duncan home. He may have exposed "as many as 100" people before an ambulance brought him back to the hospital Sept. 28.

"I have no doubt that we will control…this case of Ebola so that it does not spread widely in this country," Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC director, told Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Oct. 1.

His assurance would have been more reassuring if Dr. Frieden hadn’t omitted critical details about how Ebola can be spread — and if a few days before the interview CDC hadn’t sent to funeral homes around the country guidelines on how to handle the remains of Ebola victims.

The only way epidemics have ever been contained is by quarantine. Restricting entry of those who’ve been exposed to Ebola is a must, said Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.

"The potential for devastating loss of life is real," she said. "The disease must be stopped before there are millions of persons exposed instead of 100."

If Mr. Duncan had remained in Liberia, "he was going to surely die," his former employer said. No one can blame him for wanting to improve his chances of survival. More than 13,000 others from Ebola-ravaged countries have been issued tourist visas. Doubtless those among them who’ve been exposed to the deadly virus feel the same way.

A Liberian man who vomited during his flight to the U.S. was taken off his plane at Newark airport Saturday (10/4) by a CDC team in Hazmat suits. If you have Ebola, "America is a better place to be," a friend who’d been waiting for him told the New York Post. Fortunately, tests at a local hospital were negative.

A travel ban would "backfire," Dr. Frieden said.

That’s ridiculous, said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who before entering elective politics headed the Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals, been an assistant secretary in HHS.

"How, exactly, would stopping the entry of people potentially carrying the Ebola virus be counterproductive?" he asked.

It may be counterproductive to policies President Obama thinks more important than protecting the American people, but the CDC’s mission is to protect us from epidemics. Travel restrictions are essential to performing it.

CDC is by no means the only federal agency to not be straight with us – for its priorities are to serve itself first, the president second, the public rarely if at all. But in no other is dereliction of duty more dangerous.

You know what are The Three Great Lies:

Your check is in the mail.
Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.
I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.

The CDC under President Zero is epitomizing the last.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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