What's Up With Hillary Clinton?

What's Up With Hillary Clinton?

I have been paying attention to Hillary Clinton my whole adult life. No politician I have ever watched has ever gone through what I see her going through and yet she is still standing.

 

Ebola Today 11/12

The Ebola Virus

US is Ebola Free
Today, the news is better than last week, or the week before, but the struggle continues.

We’ll start with some good news, in fact, the best news. The only patient with Ebola in the United States, for the last couple of weeks or so, has been the subway riding, bowling doctor, who traipsed around New York City after returning from working with Ebola patients in Guinea. Spencer, 33, was infected with Ebola while working for Doctors Without Borders.

Well today, after receiving excellent care at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, Dr. Craig Spencer has been deemed free of the Ebola virus, and was released from Bellevue to much hugging and fanfare.

“It’s a very, very good day,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference Tuesday. “Dr. Spencer is Ebola-free, and New York City is Ebola-free.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio hugging Dr. Craig Spencer
Ebola Survivor.

As a reminder, although Spencer wandered around the city that doesn’t sleep, he did so feeling and showing no symptoms. Only after feeling and then reporting symptoms of Ebola on Thursday, Oct. 23rd, was he transported to an isolation ward by ambulance, later testing positive for the virus.

"I’m elated,” said Ram Raju, M.D., president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, “because we were able to treat and cure a hero.”

That news out of New York brings the grand total of Ebola cases currently in the U.S. back down to zero. ZERO. In the United States, there are currently ZERO cases of Ebola. It bears repeating.

For now, the hysteria that began with the arrival, diagnosis, and subsequent death, of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas is resembling so many other Fox “news” crises of the moment, in with a bang and out with a “squirrel!” While the U.S. response faltered at the outset, with the misdiagnosis of Duncan and sending him home, and then with existing federal and state public-health protocols being inconsistent, the nation’s superior medical care ultimately prevailed: All three Ebola patients, whose infections were quickly and properly diagnosed, have been cured, and no one they came into contact with has reported symptoms.

Struggling with the losses.

Back In Africa
What’s happening in the rest of the world? So far, almost 5000 have died from Ebola during this outbreak. The death toll will go higher once they discover all the small villages and towns completely wiped out by the virus, ones that could not get to help that was 2 or more hours away. According to the CDC, the disease itself has been around since 1976, killing 431 that year. What you need to understand, is that there is a reason that Doctors Without Borders exists. This Ebola virus is just one of many diseases that have taken hold in the western part of Africa over the decades. And to understand Ebola, you need to understand that.

For instance, let’s talk about measles for just a moment. Ya know, the disease no one gets anymore. It has a .2% fatality rate, and since the endemic spread of measles was eliminated in the United States (2000), rates of measles had been fairly low. However, before the routine use of the measles vaccine (1963) and the MMR vaccine (1971), measles cases — and complications from those cases — were really high. There used to be about 500,000 cases of measles and 500 measles deaths each year in the United States.

Today, with vaccinations, no one needs to die from the measles. Or even suffer from it. Nonetheless, this year, in the United States, we had 600 cases of the vaccine-preventable disease, and no reports of deaths from measles. In comparison, in the poorest regions of Africa, 122,000 people died of the measles in 2012. DIED. 122,000 people died of a vaccine-preventable disease in one year. Let that soak in. Although that sounds like an incredibly grim death toll, health experts hail the figures as a sign of success of the U.N.’s mass vaccination programs, since the number has plummeted since the 1990s, when more than 500,000 people a year, or about 1,300 a day, died of measles.

What’s our point? We’ve lost 5000 total in this epidemic. Not 5000 a day. To put things in perspective, this isn’t our first rodeo, and it’s not as bad as many others we’ve fought before. And every one who has come to the United States, except for poor Thomas Eric Duncan, has been cured, so we are getting a hold on it.

Ebola Robot Zaps Virus To Instantly Clean.

Technological Solutions
What makes these patients so dangerous to treat is the big messes that are made. Liquids everywhere have to be cleaned up, and removed safely. We’ve found some help in that area from the technology sector.

The Xenex robot, from a company in San Antonio, was first introduced years ago, and it is capable of using ultraviolet light to mess with the virus’s DNA, thereby damaging it enough to essentially make it harmless. This is a clean up robot and, now that healthcare workers have a way to quickly kill off the virus in certain locations, entire parts of hospitals can be cleaned with it. This robot has been sent to 250 hospitals, and is actively being used at this time to keep medical workers out of harms way when cleaning up after one of these highly contagious patients.

When most people hear the word Ebola, they envision hazmat suits and quarantined hospital rooms. But UC Berkeley engineering professor Ken Goldberg envisions robots also helping with specific tasks. In fact, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reached out for Goldberg’s expertise in robotics, encouraging him and three other researchers and research centers to hold brainstorming sessions on ways to enlist robots in the fight against this deadly disease.

“People have an expectation that the robots are going to go in and do something dramatic.” Goldberg explained. “The capabilities are limited right now. There’s a lot of research that needs to be done. These are some tools that we hope will be useful in both the near term and long term.”

Goldberg sees at least two ways robots may be redeployed in the next three to six months to help contain the spread of Ebola. First, telepresence robots, with cameras and screens that allow doctors to remotely communicate and get a visual read of patients, could be useful in the diagnosis phase.

“When you’re trying to diagnose a patient, there’s a lot of nuance,” Goldberg said. “You want to be able to look from different angles, look at different parts of the patient. You also want to be able to have some kind of intervention. You want to be able to zoom in or hopefully touch, palpate part of a patient. So, there’s a lot of interesting research. How can you do that from a distance?”

Goldberg also sees robots being helpful in the near term with clean up and decontamination. But there’s one major obstacle to overcome: most robots have wheels that would immediately get contaminated. Goldberg explains,

“We don’t know, actually, how to sterilize them. There’s too many intricate, moving parts. So essentially, you’d have to throw the robot out afterward.”

First, engineers need to improve robots’ abilities to perceive clear objects. All the glassware used in labs, like test tubes, beakers and slides, can currently confuse robots.

The second way Goldberg says robots can play a part in the Ebola fight in the long term is by inserting IVs either for drawing blood or providing intravenous hydration. Technology could help cut down on the occurrences of patients being poked multiple times to tap a good vein.

“We use new imaging techniques to be able to find the vein more accurately,” Goldberg said, “and a robotic device that would be able to position the needle more accurately.”

According to Goldberg,

“It could be a couple of years before robots play an expanded role in the fight against Ebola. We’re looking beyond this current health crisis so we’re ready for the next one. Some of us feel this is the end of the world. But those on the forefront of technology know this stuff comes in waves, it has before, it will again, and this is not the biggest monster we’ve defeated.”

Ebola Affecting World Events
In Africa, because of the drastic numbers, there are also drastic results. When talking about soccer (football) “drastic” might be a big word, but not if you live in Africa. Well, things have gotten so bad there that the Moroccan government urged African soccer’s governing body to delay its flagship bi-annual continental competition over Ebola fears. To be clear, Morocco is reported to be Ebola free at this time.

Morocco was slated to host the African Cup of Nations, organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), from Jan. 17th to Feb. 8th 2015. The 16 team competition has run since 1957, and the north African country has already spent millions of dollars upgrading its stadiums for this event and December’s FIFA Club World Cup. But the outbreak of Ebola in west Africa has raised fears in Morocco that traveling fans and players could help spread the disease further, so Morocco wanted the cup delayed until June 2015 or early 2016.

As of today, Morocco has been removed as host of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations and expelled from participating in the biennial championship. No replacement host has yet been named for the 3 week tournament. Any postponement could be financially crippling for the CAF. So, that happened.

Back In Maine
The boyfriend of Kaci Hickox, the nurse who defiantly refused to self-quarantine after she returned from West Africa, says the couple will move out of Maine this week after a state court order restricting their movement expires. Ted Wilbur, Kaci’s brave boyfriend, withdrew from his nursing program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, where the couple lives, and said Friday that he and Hickox were “going to try to get our lives back on track” by leaving the state. So, as of now, her saga is over. Although, we wouldn’t be too surprised if she ended up testifying before Congress one day.

What Is Ebola Again?
Don’t be ashamed to ask. If you haven’t had to time to really learn about this particular disease, this is your chance, as Scientific American has published some insights under What You Need To Know that might be handy. If not, just skip down to the next section, if you please.

How does Ebola actually get a hold of your health? The Ebola virus gives itself a head start when it first slips into a human body by disabling parts of the immune system that should be leading the charge against the invader. It hijacks the functions of certain defense warriors known as dendritic cells—whose primary function is to alert the immune system of the incoming threat. Other targets include monocytes and macrophages, types of white blood cells whose job is to absorb and clear away foreign organisms. These are the first cells Ebola infects, and bends to the process of making more Ebola viruses. The maneuver is the viral version of invading a country by hypnotizing the army, and turning it against its own people. Then, having kicked the immune system’s feet out from under it, Ebola takes off in a run.

Although it only has seven genes, Ebola is an exquisitely effective killer of humans, once it enters a body. Unlike the spiky sea urchin that is influenza, or the golf-ball shaped poliovirus, Ebola resembles noosed ropes under the electron microscopes used to capture viral images. Classified as a filovirus, Ebola is one of two members of that family; the other is Marburg virus, named after the German city where it was first seen in researchers who caught it from imported non-human primates. Both pathogens are among the most lethal viruses that afflict people, but it is Ebola that has become the recognized and dreaded face of the filovirus family.

According to the Mayo Clinic, these are the symptoms, and they happen quickly once a high fever is detected.

• Nausea and vomiting.
• Diarrhea (may be bloody)
• Red eyes.
• Raised rash.
• Chest pain and cough.
• Stomach pain.
• Severe weight loss.
• Bleeding, usually from the eyes, and bruising (people near death may bleed from other orifices, such as ears, nose and rectum)

One of the things that makes the spread in Africa travel so fast is their burial customs. Once someone with Ebola dies, they are still quite toxic. It is customary to hold the dead person, to embrace them, etc. before burial, and that behavior, unsafe burial practices, is one of the major things that our military, and the west African governments are working to educate the public on at this time.

Can’t Africa Do Something On Their Own?
Africa’s wealthiest companies and individuals have clubbed together to raise $28.5 million for a fund to fight Ebola. African Union officials and business executives gathered in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Saturday, Nov. 8th to launch the emergency response fund, which they said would be distributed immediately.

New York's Keeping Track Of Those Possibly Exposed.

Really? No More Cases In The United States?
Monitor operations are working round the clock to keep track of West African visitors who have returned to The States. The New York Times reports today, November 11th:

“Hundreds of workers drawn from all corners of NY City’s Health Department are brought together on the 12th floor of the dept.’s headquarters to doggedly call one telephone number after another like telemarketers in an effort to find anyone who may have recently come to New York City from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. As you walk across the room, you can hear them speaking French, and at least five dialects of West African languages like Mandingo and Pulaar, to track these people down. This is a 24 hour a day operation now keeping track of almost 300 people, and is believed to be the largest monitoring effort in the country. Up to now, no one being monitored has registered any symptoms worrisome enough to prompt testing for Ebola.”

And that’s just one city, and one team. There are monitoring operations like this happening all over the country, and again, at this time, we have no active cases of Ebola in the United States.

That’s something to celebrate. Even if it might just be a brief respite.

Stay with us daily as we report what we find, and vet what we can.

Ebola Today: 10/27

One of the things that drives a Policy Geek crazy is, when it comes to Ebola, people irrationally blaming the President. Of course, one gets used to POTUS being blamed for everything. Benghazi, sure, Fast and Furious, yep, The IRS, ok, Immigration, yeah, it just goes on and on. But Ebola??? That one makes no sense at all.

In an effort to cut through the stupid, once again, we present: Ebola Today, 10/27.

People are going crazy about every detail of this PR nightmare. We call it a PR nightmare, because if everyone was just reacting to facts, this wouldn’t even be more than a blip on page 4 of any newspaper, a 2 minute segment at most on the Evening News. But no, we have a bunch of nonsense coming from all directions.

The Sign Language Guy
New York City Mayor De Blasio, in a press conference on Ebola, was accompanied by a man to the side of him who was translating for the deaf. CBS New York claimed the sign language interpreter for Oct. 24th press conference was “faking it.” There is video, and speculation. Tweets said he was signing song lyrics. Blogs written quoting CBS, etc. So is that true?

Of course, not. That poor guy is signing his ass off. The message is important, and deaf signers say he was getting that across, accurately. Here is a perfect example of what we are talking about. Here is a meaningful press conference, being given by a caring Mayor, being interpreted by a devoted sign language guy, with information people need to hear, and the only take away is that the CDC is “faking it.”

This is particularly troubling, the part where it is assumed that the CDC and the NIH are lying to us, or making things up. For instance, when Thomas Eric Duncan’s Texas nurse Amber Joy Vinson flew in and out of Texas, before being diagnosed with Ebola, there were reports that she had called the CDC about a fever before flying back from Akron to Dallas, and been given the go ahead. News stations were shocked. How could she have been contagious with Ebola, and have been cleared by the CDC to fly? Not surprisingly, that’s not exactly how it happened. Amber was contacted by Texas Presbyterian while in Akron, and asked how she was doing, which is standard protocol. She had a temperature of 99.5. The healthcare worker at Texas Presbyterian called that info into the CDC, who said she was cleared for travel, and that info was relayed to Amber. According to the CDC, a 100.4 temperature is symptomatic of Ebola. When she arrived back in Texas, she recorded a higher fever, immediately called it in, and sought treatment and quarantine.

The Poor French Speaking Children from Senegal
According to The Root, NBC New York, and Buzz Feed, last Friday, Oct. 24th, two Senegalese-American middle school students, 11 and 13-year-old brothers, were taken to the hospital on Friday after suffering a beating at the hands of their classmates, while the attackers chanted “Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!” The beatings were apparently motivated by some sort of fear of the Ebola virus, but local lawmakers are saying it is a hate crime. These bullies haven’t been taught any better, but whose fault is that? Where were the administrators? Where was the supervision?

Monday press conference at Harlem headquarters
of Association of Senegalese in America

Ousmane Drame, the boys’ father, explained that the children were born in the United States, but had been sent to Senegal to learn French. The boys arrived in the The Bronx three weeks ago (the proverbial 21 days), and were initially welcomed by their classmates. But as misinformation about the Ebola virus spread over the last two weeks, Drame said his sons had been cruelly harassed repeatedly leading up to the group attack.

“If they go to the gym, they don’t want them touching the ball – ‘Oh, you have Ebola, don’t play with us,'” Drame said.

Then, on Friday at lunchtime, a large group of students approached Abdou, the younger brother, and began the chanting, Ebola! Ebola! The group then attacked the boy, the father said, kicking and punching him in the face. When Amedou came to help his younger brother, he was also beaten. It must have been so frightening, and so unexpected. But are these children just reflecting their parents paranoia?

Should those middle school bullies living in The Bronx be scared of people from Senegal? Should we all be afraid?

The truth is only one case has been documented in Senegal, the country of origin of the children that were regularly bullied, and then attacked. That one Senegal case was reported almost two months ago, so on Oct. 18th the World Health Organization declared the nation of Senegal to be free of Ebola. No new cases have been documented in the 51 days since, more than twice the virus’s incubation period. Needless to say, these children weren’t anywhere near the one patient reported in Senegal at any time. But that doesn’t stop the hate, or the fear, or the ignorance, from spreading.

NY State Senator Bill Perkins was appalled, saying,
Already Ebola is a bullying crisis in our public schools, and in our charter schools. Our mayor needs to take some steps so that children in our public schools know what Ebola really is, and don’t go out and attack their fellow students.

If you ask us, Mayors everywhere need to hold public health meetings, as well as school assemblies, to talk about the truth, and hammer home the point that really, there is nothing to fear but fear itself. A teachable moment.

Can You Get Ebola When Someone Sneezes?
When your body first starts fighting Ebola, the body reacts by causing a fever. To be infectious with this virus you must have a really high number of copies of the virus in your blood. At that point, all of your blood vessels are spiderwebbing, practically disappearing, a process that can not be reversed. To be safe, if you have been exposed, and you develop a fever, call your local hospital. But running a low fever does not mean that there is enough of the virus in your blood to actually be able to infect anybody. Since all but one of the current Ebola patients in the United States are health officials, we need to have a certain amount of trust that they will sequester themselves the moment they show any fever. Again, those flying on the planes with the patients we are treating in the United States have not come down with it, and they were in a closed environment for hours and hours with those who are actually infected.

President Barack Obama gives a hug to Dallas nurse Nina Pham in the Oval Office

As for Thomas Eric Duncan, apparently you need a great deal of exposure, and exposure from a patient who is in the highly contagious stage, to catch the virus. That means exposed to feces, vomit, blood, etc. Duncan caught it while in Liberia helping a poor pregnant woman who was very ill. You can imagine the fluids there. When a person is in the later stages of the disease, as Mr. Duncan was when treated in Texas, liquid comes out of every part of them, and alot of it. That’s how Duncan caught it. Unfortunately, poorly trained staff in Texas allowed Duncan to go home, and then didn’t diagnose him immediately when he returned to the emergency room. That’s how his nurses got it. Bear in mind, Duncan is the only one that has died in the United States. He did not receive any plasma from a previously recovered Ebola patient, and he died. He’s the only patient treated in the United States for Ebola that did not receive that type of plasma infusion.

So feces from an Ebola patient, bad, and plasma from a recovered Ebola patient, good. A recovered Ebola patient can not get the virus again. So their plasma, once shared, is saving lives. This is very important. That’s why Obama made a point of inviting Nina Pham, that nurse from Texas who has recovered, to the oval office for a hug. She’s a hero. We can’t say that enough. And as of the writing of this article, both of Duncan’s nurses, Amber Joy Vinson and Nina Pham, have recovered, and have been released from hospital.

What we have to keep in mind, today, of all days, on Jonas Salk’s birthday, is we have a treatment. So as long as we have protocols, and those exposed monitor themselves for a fever, immediately quarantining themselves if they have one, we should be o.k. (Jonas Edward Salk was the American medical researcher and virologist, from New York City, who discovered and developed the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. Happy Birthday, Jonas.)

But We Hear That These Workers Took Precautions And Caught It Anyway
We have to remember that the process of medical care means that you are literally touching patients, regularly, and in that respect, it’s very difficult to come away with something like this. In fact, Thomas Eric Duncan’s family, who took care of him at home for a bit, have not contracted the disease. And those who spent time with Dr. Craig Spencer in New York, also have not shown any symptoms. So simply touching a patient, or sitting next to one, doesn’t do it.

So, again, how did the health workers catch it? We have to remember our doctors are rapping themselves with a lot of protective gear. That gear is very difficult to put on and off, as Dr. Gupta demonstrated recently on CNN. Especially, if you are trying to do it by yourself, without a partner, or without training. Some of these challenges can lead to unfortunate infections, but that’s what happens when people put themselves in harm’s way, and are willing to take care of patients with this disease. Health care workers are human too, and there are no reports of them having done all of the protocols perfectly. Although, if you listen to people on the street, they all say, “She did everything, and she still caught it. Time to freak out!! Ahhhhgggggg!!!”

Obama and recovered Dallas nurse Nina Pham in the Oval Office

The hysteria is building, and the worst thing we can do is start to attack each other over, what?, 5 cases of Ebola in the United States. Really? More people report seeing UFO’s every day in the U.S. What we have to do is keep level heads, teach our children to be kind, remind our friends not to spread misinformation and gossip, and perhaps, not travel to West Africa unless you are a health professional. Most importantly, we have to treat our health care workers as the heroes they are, and not like some zombies from Resident Evil.

Unfortunately, fear is in charge now, and fear gets what it wants.

Harry Cheadle of Vice magazine put it best today:

“I’m not sure when Americans got scared. Maybe the indigenous tribes of the plains spent evenings huddled in their teepees telling stories of twisted night creatures, maybe the nomads who trekked across that bridge from Russia to Alaska were running away from something. Whatever the case, by the time the white people showed up from across the sea and started putting women on trial for witchcraft and convincing themselves the natives were conspiring with Satan, fear was firmly established as the ruler of the continent and it hasn’t left since. The national anthem, like most of what you learn in elementary school, is mostly lies, forget the brave and the free, we’re the land of the terrorized, the home of the perpetually panicked.”

There is some good news. In New Jersey, nurse Kaci Hickox, who we wrote about yesterday, was discharged after testing negative for Ebola. So cooler heads prevailed there. After all, she was not symptomatic, and she tested negative twice.

What’s today’s takeaway? We have 316 million people in this country, more or less. And 5 cases of Ebola. Sure as shootin’, there are political operatives out there who know that fear can keep voters home on Nov. 4th. That’s a week from today.

Let’s keep it all in perspective, and not let them fear us into failure. So keep calm. And read this column. We’ll try to bring you everything we can, daily.

The Policy Geek


UPDATE: The director of the CDC said that active 21-day monitoring began Monday in seven states for air travelers who enter the United States from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the hardest hit countries in West Africa. Those states with fear driven Governors are New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Illinois, and Georgia.

Also, on Monday, a 5-year-old boy who recently visited West Africa, and had a fever, tested negative for the virus in New York, according to health officials. So if you hear about the young child in New York, you can tell your friends, he’s fine. Just a little kid with a fever. Like we see every winter, everywhere.

Lastly, according to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, it seems we are also putting our Army troops, those who have just completed a mission to set up Medical Facilities in Liberia, into 21 day quarantines In Italy, no visitors, even though they were never in contact with any Ebola patients while on the African continent. Again, fear is winning. Along with those troops, we have also quarantined our two star Major General Williams who is head of U.S. Army, Africa. That’s right, the man in charge of the Army in the entire continent of Africa is also in quarantine. This is policy that makes no sense. And we predict will cause more damage, than not.

Ebola Today 10/26

(John Ehrenfeld, 2014)

The Story of Nurse Kaci Hickox and Ebola
Saturday, New York, and New Jersey, in a joint press conference, gleefully announced that any hero health technician returning from helping to STOP the threat of Ebola in West Africa, will now be quarantined for 21 days upon arrival. Well, at first, that might not sound like such a bad idea. Except these are healthcare professionals, and, as far as we can tell, none of them have allowed themselves to transmit the disease to anyone in the U.S. As soon as they felt sick, they cut themselves off, self quarantined, and got themselves into a hospital, safely, for treatment. Also, none of the professionals who have gone symptomatic here in the United States has died of the disease. Plasma from a recovered Ebola patient seems to be the key to a cure, and, of course, early detection and treatment.

Nonetheless, when nurse Kaci Hickox returned Friday from going to Africa to help quell the Ebola outbreak, she was placed under mandatory quarantine in New Jersey. In her own words, Hickox had just come back from the most difficult months of her life. Hickox said she was stopped at Newark Liberty International and was questioned over several hours after touching down Friday. She said none of those who questioned her would explain what was going on or what would happen to her.

"One after another, people asked me questions. Some introduced themselves, some didn't. One man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal," ~~ Kaci Hickox

Hickox is a nurse who had been working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Officials said she was taken to a hospital after developing a fever, but Hickox said she was merely flushed because she was upset by the process.

Photo taken by Hickox with her iphone of the inside of her quarantine tent.

After a seven-hour wait at University Hospital in Newark, she was put in an isolation tent inside a building adjacent to the hospital (There are reports she is outside, in the winter of New York, but they are false) At this point, she's twice tested negative for Ebola, including a test at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

What makes this even crazier is that she has not shown any symptoms. At a news conference Saturday, the Gov. Christie of New Jersey said, "I'm sorry if in any way she was inconvenienced, but inconvenience that could occur from having folks that are symptomatic and ill out amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine. I hope she recovers quickly." Christie also asserted:

Kaci Hickox is “obviously ill. When I left this morning she still had a fever, and she was being tested for other illnesses after the Ebola test came back negative. She may to be tested for that again, because sometimes it takes a little bit longer to make a definitive determination,” adding, “There’s no question the woman is ill, the question is what is her illness.”

Of course, in the real world, Hickox is healthy, and has tested negative for Ebola, twice. In fact, Hickox says she has nothing to recover from. Her temperature is normal, and she feels fine.

"Everyone keeps asking how I'm feeling physically and of course I'm fine physically, but I don't think most people understand what it's like to be alone in a tent and decisions are being made that don't make sense, and show no compassion," Hickox said, starting to cry. "I heard my mother last night who called me concerned, and said, "Governor Christie just said in an interview that you were "obviously ill." And this is SOooo frustrating for me. First of all, I don't think he's a doctor, and second, he's never laid eyes on me, and thirdly, I have been asymptomatic since I've been here. I feel physically completely strong, and emotionally, completely exhausted."

Hickox said she worries that her experience will discourage other aid workers from going to West Africa to help quell the Ebola outbreak. And truth be told, so are we. The LAST thing we want to do is to have disincentives for health care workers to treat sick patients, either here at home, or in West Africa.

"To quarantine everyone, just in case, when you can not predict who may develop Ebola, or not, to put me through this emotional and physical stress, to not be with my family, is completely unacceptable." ~~ Kaci Hickox

Basically, there is a great deal of misinformation out there on this one. If it was so easy to catch, we would have case after case appearing from the plane ride that Eric Duncan took here from Africa. Members of Duncan's family, who took care of him, would have symptoms. But they don't. And we would have case after case from the planes that Amber Vinson took back and forth from Texas. But we don't. If it was so easy to catch, we would be hearing about case after case in New York, where Dr. Craig Spencer traipsed around the city. But we don't.

What's A Citizen To Do?
There is just altogether too much noise coming out about Ebola. I wake up thinking, wow, my friends who just catch a glimpse of headlines now and then, and who don't study the news like we do, are probably scared to death. In Oregon, we've seen people shopping at the grocery store with blue surgical gloves on. In Los Angeles, my mother saw someone at a restaurant with a surgical mask on. Now that doesn't even make sense.

In an attempt to keep our busy friends up to date on the realities of Ebola, and what it does or could mean to you, we plan on gathering today's headlines henceforth from vetted sources, and presenting them here. The hardest part about this, is that what we consider main stream news is making a mockery of passing along information. Long winded politicians talking about things they actually no nothing about, whatsoever, who Soapbox by blowing fear bubbles out into the electorate are much more troublesome than the virus itself. Selling fear should not be one of those things listed under special skills on an elected official's resume. But there it is. We've elected a bunch of callous, shortsighted, thoughtless money grabbers into the higher offices of our government, and most of our news pundits, also selling fear, don't help at all when they give equal time to these "officials."

As a result, this column will also probably show some of the stupid and the crazy, in order to squash the fantasy football version of Ebola in its tracks. It's the best vaccine for fear we can think of.

Gov. Cuomo of NY, and Gov. Christie of NJ announcing the 21 day quarantine.

Today's Course Correction
On Saturday, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and Governor Chis Christie of New Jersey proudly announced in a joint press conference a mandatory 21 day quarantine on any Ebola medical workers coming from the western part of Africa. Of course, there are no flights that go directly from Africa to any part of the United States, so these need to be self identifying health care workers, without symptoms.

Point of order, Dr. Craig Spencer, who self monitored, and called the hospital when he had a temperature of 100.3, was fully capable of diagnosing himself, and getting in a safe place for all as soon as was needed. Today, after his plasma infusion, all reports say that he "looks better."

Sunday, Mayor De Blasio of New York said in a press conference with health officials that the treatment of Kaci Hickox has been shameful, and vowed that "New York City will do all it can do to honor the work of the health care workers here and those who go to help fight the epidemic in West Africa," adding, "The problem here is this hero coming back from the front, having done the right things, was treated with disrespect."

Interestingly enough, just in, the New York Times is reporting Sunday evening that, under pressure, Gov. Cuomo has stepped back from his comments on Saturday. New York's revised plan allows all returning health care workers who have had contact with Ebola patients, but have no symptoms of illness, to return to their homes where they will be confined and monitored for 21 days. This new plan includes transporting the health official home in private transportation by the NY State Dept. of Health, or the local health department. Food and medicine, if needed, will be provided, as well as financial assistance for those who need it. "If the health officials organization does not pay for the three weeks, we will." said Governor Cuomo.

There is some vagueness surrounding what will be done with those returning from West Africa who have not been in contact with Ebola patients. Something about keeping track of them, and getting their temperature twice a day, for 21 days, but no quarantine. It is unclear if that is only for health care workers, or for everyone who traveled to west Africa recently.

"We have to be guided by facts, not fear." That's what POTUS said. And we'd have to agree.

Bioethicist Arthur Caplan contends that quarantining those without symptoms is not the way to combat Ebola. So far, nonsymptomatic quarantines have been declared in New York, New Jersey and Illinois. In Connecticut, nine people are in quarantine: two students at Yale; a worker from AmeriCARES; and a West African family.

At this rate, many others are or soon will be.

Caplan's 7 reasons for not isolating people without symptoms are clear. Quarantining people without symptoms makes no scientific sense because they are not infectious. The only way to get Ebola is to have someone vomit on you, bleed on you, share spit with you, have sex with you or get fecal matter on you when they have a high viral load. How do we know this? Because there is data going back to 1975 from outbreaks in the Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Gabon, Ivory Coast, South Africa, not to mention current experience in the United States, Spain and other nations. That's right, despite all the current interest in this disease, it has been around for more than a quarter century. If a patient is given the right care, and a little antivirus plasma from a recovered patient, it seems to work. But there are not the facilities, or the right public awareness campaigns, in Africa to adequately treat victims, and so the spread is vicious, and the death rate is high. Misinformation in Africa has led to locals breaking in to hospitals to break out patients, fearing the hospitals themselves are using the disease as an excuse to kill people. Of course, that is not logical, but this is also an area that believed having sex with a virgin could cure Aids.

Quarantine is next to impossible to enforce. Unless you are a health professional with an edict to do no harm, if you don't want to stay in your home, or wherever you are supposed to stay for three weeks, then what? Do we shoot you, taser you, drag you back into your house in a protective suit, or what? And who is responsible for watching you 24-7? Quarantine relies on the honor system. That essentially is what we count on when we tell people with symptoms to call 911, or the health department.

Large-scale quarantine has not been thought through, in terms of making it bearable for those confined. If government does not make it tolerable — and they show no signs of doing so, other than succeeding in stigmatizing people who are not dangerous — then people will not honor quarantine. Kaci Hickox has only had 3 days, she's a nurse, and she is hating every minute of it as it is. No shower where they put her. No flushing toilet. Facts are facts, and those are dismal.

Health care workers who take care of those who really do have Ebola at big hospitals, such as Bellevue or Emory, are at the greatest risk. If you quarantine them, you are taking your best professionals offline for three weeks — and there are not a lot of replacements. Most importantly, who will volunteer to go to West Africa to stamp out the epidemic, if they know they face three weeks of confinement when they get back? Those who go are heroes who face hell on earth. Can’t they be trusted to do the right thing and self-monitor when they get back?

When elected "officials" respond to panic with quarantine they are basically saying they can't trust our public health experts, or science, or even the ethics of doctors and nurses. Fox News broadcasts comments 24-7 from talking heads saying we can't trust doctors. There is no substitute for that trust. None. If state and city officials undermine trust out of panic or politics, then they destroy the best weapon we have to control Ebola — good science implemented by heroes.

Stay tuned for more info daily.

A Very Healthy Policy Geek

When Self Confidence Becomes Narcissism: The Selfie

It's National Hot Dog Day!!
(Phoodie, 2013)

Sometimes things come through the news cycle, and you would rather it fly under or over your radar. And some news items just can't be ignored. Especially when it's the only thing the mainstream outlets can talk about in a 24 hours period. 

Today we would rather have typed about the American phenomenon we call National Hot Dog Day. Eating contests, picnic images. and stuffing our faces summer style.

Hot Diggity Dog!
(Crisproot, 2010)

The Little Prince
(Royal Caller, 2013)

Heck, today, we'd rather talk about pink little toes, and pink little hands, and what will the Prince and Princess call their beautiful new pink baby boy (aka The Prince of Cambridge). But no. On this National Hot Dog Day, the pinkness inserted in our collective memory is far from something to be nationally proud of. And our pink bundle of joy actually has a name already. Carlos Danger, the sexting twitter handle used by New York Mayorial Candidate Anthony Weiner. No, this announcement is nothing to be proud of. Not in England, not in the U.S., and definitely not in New York.

As you must know by now, Anthony Weiner, who left Congress in disgrace over tweeted crotch shots a couple of years ago, has thrown his hat back in the ring running for Mayor in Manhattan. A beatiful People magazine spread (July 2012) praised his contrition and redemption. Unfortunately, today he announced that, as late as November 2012, he was still throwing a little something else out there, tripping over himself, as it were.

A weiner controversy? Seriously? On National Hot Dog Day??!?!?!?!  This particular hot dog's brilliant wife Huma stood by his side, god bless her. The couple had so much potential. The public can forgive, of course we can. We love comeback kids. But the public hates liars. Political savvy be damned, it was also their timing that just was odd. Today, it should have been about a block party with grilled hot dogs all around. Instead, a very famous Weiner was being grilled, Anthony. And it left us all empty.

Lovin The Selfie? #DangerBoy
(Weiner, 2012)

His baloney has a first name.

Man oh man. You want to love him. His talking points match up. He married up. He was up in the polls. And magically his political theatrics always seemed to err on the side of humanity. Just unfortunate that he chooses to show his loooooove for humanity in a way that he could be ashamed of. There are so many other outlets for that kind of love. But to do it in a way that allows him to be so embarrassed, in a way that so embarrasses his amazing wife (who should leave him), and to embarrass all those progressives that supported him, it just shows poor judgement. Really poor judgement.

Warning, Warning.
(Lost In Space Creed, 2007)

Of course, worst of all, he didn't just get swept away in the moment, he continued the on-line masturbation exercises, let's call it what it is, and then lied about it. Badly. The simplicity with which he lies, is simply too transparent. How effective could he be, moving forward, if he's always bluffing in the buff? (see details available online: he offered to help 22 year old woman get a job in Chicago, apartment, etc.)

We wanted to believe in you, Anthony. But you can't seem to keep it in your pants, sweetie. You're a meme now. Just search 'Carlos Danger' on twitter, and that should help. At least you can bow out knowing you gave us a good laugh.

BREAKING NEWS: New York Times Editorial Board, at this time, 7:10 pm PST, has announced their headline tomorrow will be asking for Mr. Weiner (and Carlos Danger) to drop out of the race.

Hey! Ho! Let's Go!
(Politico, 2012)

Progressives need all the voices they can get going into 2014 and beyond. They need their representatives HONEST, they need them VIRTUOUS, and they need them BRAVE. Most of all, they need politicians intelligent enough to show good judgement in their life choices. What a waste. What a shame.

One step forward, two steps back.

The Policy Geek