Other fear-mongers such as a few on DU. This is the push back against what Christie has done.

throughout the country who do take proper precautions. It isn't just the PFE gear, it is how the gear is put on and taken off. They were NOT TRAINED appropriately in Texas. Duncan would be alive today if he was sent to one of the facilities who knew what they were doing

those who refuse to accept scientific facts.

American public. The DWB folks come off as privileged arrogant assholes who are above good practice when it comes to their own inconvenience.

Doctors Without Borders are arrogant privileged assholes???

They could very easily set up their own "rest area" for returning employees back to the US, to satisfy the need for caution, because there simply aren't that many of them over there. A few dozen, I believe. But instead they'd rather do nothing but criticize US and state policy, protect their own interests, and defend their doctor going all over the biggest city in America right before he developed symptoms. There's lots of charities that I wouldn't give a perfect score to, it's not really worth a from you. They're not sacrosanct or above all reproach.

and scares me when we give up our rights and freedoms in the name of safety. for no good reason.

Fear and paranoia may end up making situations like the Ebola health "crisis" a whole lot worse if trained medical professionals begin to refuse to go into hot spots to bring these outbreaks under control. Common sense would indicate that it is better to deal with a health crisis at the scene of origination and hope to keep it contained. If the paranoid make the lives of the health care workers hell for just trying to do their job, they may stop going and the end result could be a contagion that spreads in an uncontrolled manner.

"A few dozen" would be accurate for the number who have been infected. 7 have recovered. Or for those working in DRC, where there is another outbreak.

back here in the near future? Either way, since I believe they pay for three weeks of rest post-deployment, maybe they should put them up somewhere out of the hot zone before repatriating. That, instead of dismissing American public's concerns, would go a long way.

They have come back to a country IGNORING science and acting from a place of fear (fanned by gross....s public ignorance) and political expediency.

too "distracted" by our own cases of ebola (that being Pham and Vinson) and not worried enough about Africa. That's bad public relations. I understand it's not an American charity, but dismissing ordinary Americans' fears of the disease occurring here is arrogant and a big mistake. There was a big bizarre rush to praise Spencer for his "self monitoring" behavior, in stark contrast to what was done to Amber Vinson and the lab tech from Dallas who was on a cruise. That's because Vinson and the Dallas workers are nobodies to the CDC and the government. Had they been SOMEBODIES, with some CLOUT, their treatment would have been different.

... it did come out later she asked the Texas Department of Health for advice (but also claimed she believed it was tied into her menstrual cycle). Obviously the moment Dr. Spencer developed a low grade fever (100.3) ... he immediately understood what was going on, called health authorities and was immediately transported to the hospital. I will assume that if Vinson understood she was risking her life she would not have made the choices she made (she flew while symptomatic).

Spencer posed no risk until he became symptomatic ... the Doctors Without Borders staff are generally far more knowledgeable about ebola than many of the doctors treating them.

Pandering to American ignorance is not the answer (I am talking about politicians engaging in fear mongering based on ignorance and members of the public running with misinformation) .... educating the public is the answer.

treat ebola patients, an ebola patient came to her unit and the hospital was out of its depth and let down by the CDC in allowing her to care for Duncan. Vinson was a victim, who was trashed in public, even though her fever was below 100 (hell, I don't consider 99.5 as really a fever at all, except in elderly patients who tend not to run high fevers). Spencer ignored feeling "sluggish" two days before his GI symptoms started, same as Vinson ignored "feeling funny" before her other symptoms arose. One's not a zero and the other a hero. The difference between them is that Spencer belongs to a valued class by the government, that of medical volunteer for ebola, and Vinson's just some unlucky nurse in TX who ended up hiring legal representation because she was taking blame for a situation not of her choosing.

I completely blame the hospital and not any of the nurses (or other staff). They were not prepared ... actually from the nurses (collective) statement to the press the hospital was not prepared to treat any infectious disease much less ebola.

I have great sympathy for Vinson ... she was thrown into a situation by a healthcare center that did not appear to value their patients or their staff.

We have a lot to learn from people that have experience treating people with ebola.

I certainly credit Vinson for volunteering. I hope the mis-steps in Dallas have been noted by every health care facility in the US.

I used to work in ICU, you don't want to look chickenshit or unwilling to take the hard patients for your assignment. I'll bet she had no idea she'd be expected to cancel her visit to pick out bridesmaid's dresses just in caring for Duncan, for example--let alone end up infected herself.

I graduated in 1984 (Universal precautions were instituted while I was in nursing school) ... I worked with AIDS patients (I volunteered, I made damned sure I knew everything I could about AIDS and infection control (I had great institutional backing for isolation and infection control ). Implying that Vinson was ignorant is doing her a great disservice (regardless of the hospital not providing training, equipment and support) she had to have understood INFECTION CONTROL and had to have understood how effed she was by the hospital.

basics about it, the critical care related to it--but it's been established that even experienced personnel working in Africa can't adequately protect themselves even though well-versed in the PPE required. She also didn't have the PPE required for at least one of her shifts, and probably wasn't supervised in gowning up and taking off the PPE. And no one told her she couldn't leave town, from what I understand. There were no protocols in place, post-exposure, beyond self-monitoring of temps. No one in the US had ever been infected by this until she and Pham came down with it--everyone will learn from those mistakes, though.

I didn't mean to suggest you were calling her that. I don't think she was, she was acting within the scope of her previous work experience and duties. The nation's hospitals, and indeed the CDC, were ignorant (or had unfounded faith in our knowledge) to believe our health care system didn't require special preparation and training for dealing with this. The CDC itself admitted that it didn't fully grasp the close contact and intensive hands-on care that American hospital nurses are expected to perform, which made their prior protocols inadequate.

The CDC should have never trusted that all hospitals would do what was necessary (and costly) to make sure they were prepared. My daughter is 21 now and I "retired from" nursing after her birth ... I have been amazed to find out that some hospitals do not have active infection control teams and that many hospitals (though the major urban hospitals in my area reportedly still do) do not have trauma and hazmat/ infectious disease drills ... my understanding is that the Dallas hospital had neither.

I would honestly like to see the hospital held criminally negligent (never going to happen)

One.

Do you know how many of the 10,000 have been infected this year were infected by an asymptomatic person? Zero.

I encourage you to conduct research, seek out information and facts. Or, you know, do what you're doing.

spread the virus. FYI.

15,000 cases. Yes, t is ruled out.

persons (or dogs) transmit the disease. The reason? For every asymptomatic person, there's at least one or more symptomatic persons who can be designated as being responsible for spreading the infection.

In past outbreaks, researchers have assumed that asymptomatic people weren't huge carriers/spreaders of the virus, but that was only based on how quickly the outbreak would burn out. That clearly has not been the case this time.

this time?

There is no evidence of an infection by an asymptomatic person. None. Ever. There are situations like Duncan and Vinson who were infected and did not infect anyone while asymptomatic.

Except that the first couple of days, they weren't wearing full protective gear -

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/17/nurse-speaks-out-hospital-unprepared-ebola/17422649/

system and recommendations.

in these circumstances.

so, that is what could result. Another result is people refusing to volunteer in the areas that need help

nothing makes me angrier than people who are potentially infected with a deadly disease (and let's face it, a number of these people are falling ill despite their protocols, and they don't know how they contracted the disease) who insist that the rest of the "ignorant" public can TRUST THEM. Except when they lie, of course. What fucking assholes. Just stay out of New Jersey, go home and stay there for at least a couple weeks, why is that so hard? Had Mr. Spencer just stayed home for 12 full days, there would have been no "contact tracing" and panicked businesses cleaning their bathrooms professionally.

Making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001). The Dr. is giving very bad advice. Advice which could lead to the stripping of medical licenses.

There is NO REASON to keep these healthcare workers in mandatory isolation for 21 days. WHY DON'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW EBOLA IS TRANSMITTED?

I really can't take the ignorance anymore. When you treat experts like they know nothing, and then treat them like criminals, I would probably do exactly what Dr. MacGregor-Skinner is doing. He has every right to rebel against the idiocy.

We still don't know how Spencer, Brantly, or the other doctors and nurses got the virus. I find Dr. MacGregor-Skinner's arrogance alarming.

to the feds about it risks losing their license to practice medicine. Hope it's worth it. How about fly into another state if they want to avoid NY or NJ.

This guy is giving people some very bad advice.

with Nina Pham? Very different treatment of different groups of people by the CDC and the government in general. Duncan's contacts: OMG QUARANTINE!! DWB doctor: SELF MONITOR. The CDC knows who it can restrict, defame, and piss off, and pluck off of cruise ships--and whose asses it has to kiss.

It's not easy to lie about your travels.

curate.

But I'm SURE the borders of Western African nations are MUCH stricter on passport controls than Western Europe. Hahahahaha!

Stamps on a passport don't mean anything. When's the last time a passport has been stamped anyway? Passports are tracked somehow by computer with date of travel from what point to what point, what airline, time of flight, flight number, etc., etc. and is easily pulled up from computer. Who knows, maybe they also store info on what meal you had on the plane, the chicken or the fish.

Physical stamps for a long time haven't been necessary and more like a souvenir for the traveler. I know my one brother that travels overseas a lot is rather bummed that he hasn't gotten an actual stamping in ages just because of the souvenir aspect. He doesn't even do all that much foreign travel anyway, but over the years by now he'd need a few replacements for running out of room for all the stamps. Those people that do a lot of foreign regular traveling would need a new passport often for running out of stamping room in it.

It's not just necessary for this country either but to be able to be on the lookout for anyone that some other country reports a person to Interpol for whatever reason that might show up so they can be caught and handed over or even to immediately identify and intercept someone to tell them of some crisis or family emergency or whatever.

If you think about it, just a physical stamp in a passport in these days of modern technology is unbearably primitive.

My brother misses his passport stamps so much. They were like a keepsake of all the places he's been and how many times.

Me, I've never traveled outside the country, so I wouldn't know. Well, except for Canada when I was a little kid, but you didn't need a passport to go there then (don't know if that's changed). Don't have a passport, and hate, hate, hate flying. I get rubber knees just going to the airport to pick someone up. Haven't been on a plane since I was 12, and if for any reason I had to I'd want someone to throw a big brick at my head so I would be unconscious for the whole thing.

So far I've seen people named and called criminals and liars and their competence questioned. People are running down great charities.

I'm going to be amazed if Skinner doesn't start getting nasty letters from lawyers if you kids don't rein it in already. Jesus.

And you're accusing other people of panic?

picked up at school. I took care of those kids, did their laundry and cooked for the rest of the family without anyone else getting sick. If I can do that in the face of easily transmitted cases of stomach flu, why are people freaking out so much about Ebola, which is much harder to transmit? I'll grant you Ebola is pretty serious, but that's the PPE is all about.

Everything we know about Ebola says you can not transmit it until you are sick, as evidenced by fever or other symptoms. I would infer that even then, you can't transmit Ebola until you are so sick other people have to physically care for you. No one is going to be out wandering in public with explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting.

Even though the information is available. Do they not have the ability to comprehend, or maybe they think the information is wrong?

It takes awhile for the virus to 'grow' enough to make a person sick...the virus replicates exponentially and eventually the entire body is teeming with Ebola virus; there can be millions of viral particles in one pinhead drop of blood at end stage disease. The body quite literally expels its contents; vomit, diarrhea, and sometimes bleeding out everywhere. Even after the patient dies, the body remains highly infectious for days. All those body fluids remain infectious too and clean up is risky. Very very messy.

It isn't easy to become infected. There must be direct contact with another person who is really sick, or their body fluids. Not just sitting next to someone with a fever.

before engaging with the OP so the doctor's actual words can be discussed, not the OP's selective interpretation.

That was sort of my point.

I read it the same way you did.

Does not trump my families safety. Sorry but they CHOSE to go to Africa and help and that is great but they don't have the right to endanger my family or yours because of their choices.