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Ebola Does Not Require an "Ebola Czar," Nor Calling Up the National Guard
Lasrick writes: David Ropeik explores risk-perception psychology and Ebola in the U.S. "[O]fficials are up against the inherently emotional and instinctive nature of risk-perception psychology. Pioneering research on this subject by Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischhoff, and others, vast research on human cognition by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues, and research on the brain's fear response by neuroscientists Joseph LeDoux, Elizabeth Phelps, and others, all make abundantly clear that the perception of risk is not simply a matter of the facts, but more a matter of how those facts feel. ... People worry more about risks that are new and unfamiliar. People worry more about risks that cause greater pain and suffering. People worry more about threats against which we feel powerless, like a disease for which there is no vaccine and which has a high fatality rate if you get it. And people worry more about threats the more available they are to their consciousness—that is, the more aware people are of them."
The Obama Administration (and Bush / McCain / Romney would have been no better) looked around and were thinking ... hmmm... who could we appoint for this? An expert in epidemiology? Somebody with experience in coordinating the logistics of an emergency response? A useless public relations shill? Or an even more useless lawyer crony with connections to that epic success Solyndra?
Yeah, that last one sounds about right. We'll go with that.
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The NRA won't approve Obama's candidate for office because he wants to add black box warnings to guns "WARNING: The Surgeon General reports that guns can kill you".
If they had just stated the truth, that Ebola is hard to spread with proper controls, and can be contained...
For the public, notions of safety went out the window after the clusterfsck in Texas.
- A patient went to the ER with symptoms, and was sent home
- People in government-mandated quarantine didn't honor the quarantine, and went to public places. It took armed guards to enforce the quarantine.
- Two nurses, wearing the recommended protective equipment became infected, and are being treated now.
- One of the nurses went on an airline flight after treating the Ebola patient, in violation of a number of CDC policies
- Personnel treating the first ebola patient were in constant contact with hundreds of others, including other hospital patients
Restated facts (or "truth") about how difficult it is to transmit can no longer combat the fear that has brewed up.
A pattern of mistake after mistake has emerged - things that should have never happened did. People who knew better didn't do the right thing, over and over.
It's a PR disaster, pure and simple. Any goodwill or trust the public had was burned up in Texas.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
The only reason why he is "not qualified" is that NRA decided they will "Score" this vote. Congress critters are afraid to tarnish their 100% NRA approved record. *sigh*
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
The only qualifications the man whom Obama has nominated for the post has for the post is that he has unwaveringly supported Obama. In doing so, he has advocated for politicizing a position which has traditionally been as non-political as possible (there have been Surgeon-Generals in the past who took political stances on public health issues, but everyone agreed that they were public health issues, this guy appears to want to use "public health" to advance his political agenda). As a result, the Democrats in the Senate are unwilling to support his nomination (the Republicans positions are irrelevant since they cannot stop the Democrats from confirming him no matter what they do).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You mean the republicans in the senate where the democrats changed the rules so the republicans cannot block appointments any more? The current nomination for the Surgeon General cannot even pass with a majority democrat senate (with the new lower vote requirement).
But Obama himself has stated several times we do not need a Czar for this. He finally had to do something because of all the screw ups making it appear like no one could find their own ass in Texas. I do not think they two situations could be remotely linked together given those two facts.
Dude, you are stupid as shit.
First of all, we already have a "Czar" for this sort of thing. Her name is Dr. Nicole Lurie. That's the real reason we don't need a "Czar" - we already have one.
Secondly, the president can't give the CDC more funding. That's Congress's job.
Thirdly, in the last fifteen years the CDC budget has doubled, so they already have plenty of money. In fact, they have too much money, which has allowed them to ignore their primary mission and go off and do things like stump for gun control, study why lesbians get fat and gay men don't, and determine most monkeys are right handed.
The rules were changed so certain judicial nominations couldn't be filibustered but I don't think that applies to appointments like Surgeon General.
This being an airborne strain is absolute bullshit. There is NO evidence whatsoever to point to it being an airborne pathogen, and there is only a single strain of ebola in the past that has gone airborne and it doesn;t even effect humans. Furthermore that airborne strain of ebola is not the strain of ebola that our current ourbreak has evolved from. This current outbreak is from an older 1980's strain also from africa. Believe me, if this were airborne you would know. People are looking to african nations that are battling the ebola virus right now and they think "Oh shit thousands upon thousands infected in only a few months, HAS TO BE AIRBORNE". That might be true if that was happening here in America where extremely tight quarantine measures are (SUPPOSED) to be observed properly but Africa is a completely different ballgame. Quarantine measures were NOT observed by the majority of the africans infected (only quarantine measures taken were pitiful and only existed in certain places where the people where afraid to go) and to make it even worse education in african nations about the ebola virus was met with suspicion and doubt. The current infection rate in africa, while it may match that of an airborne pathogen, is only due to these horrible conditions. When the majority of people in africa start observing proper safety protocol, when education of the people has actually worked and people arent touching their dead and shit anymore, and when proper medical equipment and staff can get there you will see the infection rate come down to levels appropriate of a virus that spreads only through bodily fluids.
tl;dr This isnt an airborne strain, there is absolutely no evidence of that. The currently high infection rate in Africa is from many other reasons all working together to cause a horrible situation thats almost unmanageable for the people currently in charge.
If this whole outbreak had been in america instead of africa the dead would be less than a thousand easily.
Reid has 55 (D) votes and it only needs 51 to confirm, so put the blame where it belongs.
Why is there no surgeon general?
Short answer: Obama's nominee is a political disaster; a highly partisan anti-gun obamacare cheerleader that the Dems know better than to expose to the confirmation process in an election year.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I was just arguing that this is pointless. When I traveled to Israel, I requested that my visa be stamped on a removable sheet of paper to be stapled into my passport. I did this because I didn't want evidence of a trip to Israel when one of my next stops was Malaysia. If someone is trying to get from Liberia to the US, they will do so with no evidence of recently having been in Liberia.
It's not as if there are huge numbers of flights to and from Liberia.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
LOL. No. Written by Democrats and "Progressive" lobbyists, and voted for by Democrats. The Democrats own it lock, stock, and barrel.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Part of the problem with the recent agency flubs is lack of focus on the part of the agency, something that is the responsibility of Congress.
For example the Secret Service was once a part of the Treasury Department, and had a relatively narrow set of missions. However with the creation of the monumental cluster fuck known as the DHS, the Secret Service was uprooted and badly placed under the DHS, then saddled with all sorts of diversions.
Similarly the CDC has been loaded up with all sorts of ridiculous crap like being made responsible for bicycle lane safety and policing of farmers markets. This is a world leading organization that must function at the highest level possible. Loading it up with cruft will destroy it.
Recently I've seen a lot of yammering about some of the people that are seen on TV including Freidman and Fauci, to the effect that they are incompetent and should be shown the door.
I'm sorry but this makes me want to throw up. Anthony Fauci is one of the greatest Americans of this age. His work on HIV/AIDS has saved millions of lives. He is one of the most cited scientists in the world. It is disgusting that he should be subjected to the hysterical politics of the moment.
News flash: Romney was never elected President. (I do understand the logic, you can't 'blame" this on Bush, can you?)
I'll just leave this right here for you.
I can understand trying to weasel out from being blamed for that turkey, but it isn't going to happen. You can try to make all the excuses you want, but at the end of the day Obamacare was written by Democrats and "Progressive" lobbyists, amended with juicy pork to bribe Democrats to not bail on it, passed by Democratic votes, and signed by a Democratic president. Ownership: Democrats - lock, stock, and barrel. Blame: Democrats - start to finish.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The onion nailed this two and a half months ago:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-ebola-vaccine-at-least-50-white-people-awa,36580/
You can fix anything with duct tape and sticks.
Africa is not a country. Its a continent you can fit the USA, China, India and the entire EU into with room to spare. Generalization like yours is just as inaccurate. I live in an African country and our infection rates are actually lower than the US (3 there 1 here and he was a traveler who got it in Liberia who died in quarantine here). Hell our quarantine protocols are probably stricter than yours because we don't have many libertarians so nobody thinks personal liberties extends to risking public safety.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *