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U.S. Ebola Crisis Is A Media Myth, Claims Obama

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerBy Neil Munro.

President Barack Obama claimed Oct. 20 that the left-leaning established media invented the Ebola crisis that has deeply damaged his chances of keeping the Democratic majority in the Senate.

“The Ebola crisis… [which] has been the only story here in the United States for the last couple of weeks, is not an outbreak and epidemic here,” Obama complained to his donors at a Chicago fundraiser.

“To give you some sense of perspective, around 20,000 to 30,000 [American] people die of flu every year. So far we’ve got one person dying of Ebola.”

Even though the economy is growing, Obama claimed, “people are still anxious” about the Middle East, Russia’s slow-motion invasion of Ukraine, the Islamic jihadis in Iraq and the media-magnified fear of Ebola.

But “we’ve had one case of a person dying from Ebola that brought it in from outside,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Pentagon Orders 30-Member Ebola Response Team

By Luis Martinez.

The Pentagon has ordered that a 30-person military medical team be prepared to be put on standby to quickly assist the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with its Ebola response in the United States if needed.

The move followed a request to the Defense Department made Saturday by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon Press Secretary, said the move was “an added prudent measure to ensure our nation is ready to respond quickly, effectively, and safely in the event of additional Ebola cases in the United States.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered U.S. Northern Command Command “to prepare and train a 30-person expeditionary medical support team that could, if required, provide short-notice assistance to civilian medical professionals in the United States,” Kirby said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallUnreal: Medical Society of NY Tells Doctors to ‘Follow Twitter’ to Stay Informed on Ebola

By Cortney O’Brien.

In its weekly update for New York State physicians, the Medical Society of the State of New York wanted to ensure that the doctors within their network were well informed on the threat of Ebola. So, MSSNY President Andrew Kleinman, M.D., told them to make sure they were following the society on Twitter.

MSSNY is here to help you. As we communicate regularly with key New York State officials, and closely monitor the worldwide and U.S. efforts regarding efforts to contain the outbreak, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest scientific and other important information. Continuous updates are being posted to our Twitter and Facebook feeds when important new information arises, which is many times per day.

If you are not on Twitter or Facebook already, you need to follow us! (If you need help setting up an account, please contact [email protected]). And please “re-tweet” and “re-post” these important updates to those physicians and other care providers who follow you.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: John Moore / Getty ImagesEbola Doctors at Breaking Point: ‘This Constant Feeling That the Boat’s Sinking’

By Makiko Kitamura and Naomi Kresge.

At 3:30 a.m. in the world’s biggest Ebola treatment center, Daniel Lucey found the outbreak reduced to its essentials: patients lying on mattresses on the floor and vomiting in the dark, visible only by the wavering flashlight beam of a single volunteer doctor.

“I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Lucey, a physician and professor from Georgetown University who is halfway through a five-week tour in Liberia with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the medical charity known in English as Doctors Without Borders. “The epidemic is still getting worse,” he said by phone between shifts.

That’s an increasingly urgent challenge for MSF and the global health community. As fear spreads in the U.S. over transmission of the virus to two nurses in a modern Dallas hospital, the main fight against the outbreak is still being waged by volunteers like Lucey half a world away.

MSF has been the first — and often only — line of defense against Ebola in West Africa. The group raised the alarm on March 31, months ahead of the World Health Organization. Now, after treating almost a third of the roughly 9,000 confirmed Ebola cases in Africa — and faced with a WHO warning of perhaps 10,000 new infections a week by December — MSF is reaching its limits.

Read more from this story HERE.

101st Airborne Won’t Get Full Protective Hazmat Suits for Ebola Mission in West Africa

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Photo Credit: US Army By Jim Hoft.

The 101st Airborne is a U.S. Army modular light infantry division trained for air assault operations. The division was renowned for its role on D-Day. Major General David H. Petraeus (“Eagle 6″) led the Screaming Eagles to war in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The administration says they won’t need them.

Nashville Public Radio reported:

Troops from the 101st Airborne Division leading the military response to Ebola in West Africa will only need gloves and masks to protect themselves from the deadly virus, so said Gen. David Rodriguez at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: EPAMutant Ebola warning: Leading U.S. scientist warns deadly virus is already changing to become more contagious

By JENNIFER NEWTON.

The deadly Ebola virus could be mutating to become even more contagious, a leading U.S scientist has warned.

The disease has killed nearly 4,000 people, infecting in excess of 8,000 – the majority in the West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Communities lie in ruins, thousands of children have been orphaned, millions face starvation but the virus continues its unprecedented pace, invading and destroying vast swathes of these countries.

Meanwhile three nurses, two in the U.S. and one in Spain have caught the infection while treating Ebola patients, despite wearing protective suits.

Now U.S. scientist Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease believes the current Ebola outbreak may be caused by an infection that spreads more easily than it did before.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Allison Shelley / GettyIncompetence Meets Mendacity in Obama Administration’s Ebola Response

By Andrew C. McCarthy.

Ebola is causing such anxiety that even alarm over an outbreak of enterovirus D-68 — far more prevalent and linked to the deaths of at least four children — has been crowded out. Ditto news of the Islamic State’s rampage, a stock-price rollercoaster, and the impending midterm elections. Understandably, two concerns dominate the public discussion.

One is incompetence. Lulled into ever more dependence on government by the metastasis of regulation in what used to be the realm of private action, Americans are shaken by Washington’s inability to function. It is bungling elementary tasks. There is a sense of unraveling, a sense that officials are not merely out of their depth in addressing problems but incapable of spotting the problems in the first place — or, even worse, responsible for creating the very problems that then explode into crises.

Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. People expect politicians to spin and, at times, to out-and-out lie. I’ve been contending for a while now that our politics are no longer rational but tribal. Being right is secondary to being on the “right” side, as that side is perceived by the popular culture. That culture has largely tuned out the news and is swayed more by character assassination than by linear, fact-based argument. Official dishonesty is the natural result. When it is more important that “our side” wins than that the sensible thing be done, it is to be expected that the partisans, especially those in power, will say whatever they need to say to get through the news cycle. After all, fewer people than ever care about the news part of the news cycle; they care about the drama and their sympathies will be with their heroes — the fibs told to escape the latest jam are more admired for craftiness than condemned as breaches of trust.

Still, as we’ve previously observed, there is a breaking point. You can only abide politics as soap opera for so long because politics is actually about real life and real stakes. Reality cannot be scripted. Therefore, politics cannot forever be stage-managed as a “narrative” with “optics,” a daily show focused on how the lead character is affected by the latest crisis.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Sophia EvansEbola: Liberia deaths ‘far higher than reported’ as officials downplay epidemic

By Mark Townsend.

The true death toll from the Ebola epidemic is being masked by chaotic data collection and people’s reluctance to admit that their loved ones had the virus, according to one of west Africa’s most celebrated film-makers.

Sorious Samura, who has just returned from making a documentary on the crisis in Liberia, said it is very clear on the ground that the true number of dead is far higher than the official figures being reported by the World Health Organisation.

Liberia accounts for more than half of all the official Ebola deaths, with a total of 2,458. Overall, the number of dead across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has exceeded 4,500.

Samura, a television journalist originally from Sierra Leone, said the Liberian authorities appeared to be deliberately downplaying the true number of cases, for fear of increasing alarm in the west African country.

“People are dying in greater numbers than we know, according to MSF [Médecins sans Frontières] and WHO officials. Certain departments are refusing to give them the figures – because the lower it is, the more peace of mind they can give people. The truth is that it is still not under control.”

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Hospitals Gird for Ebola Panic as Flu Season Looms

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Photo Credit: Liberty VoiceA young woman complaining of abdominal pain and nausea who had traveled to Africa arrived at a Long Island hospital fearful that she had contracted Ebola. She did not have the virus, but the pregnancy test was positive.

The woman had been to South Africa, more than 3,400 miles (5,400 km) from the three West African countries enduring the worst Ebola outbreak on record, and the trip ended six weeks prior, or twice the potential incubation period for Ebola infection.

“It tells you how ready for panic we can get ourselves,” said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious diseases specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. “There’s a lot of anxiety and the answer to anxiety is information and training.”

The woman’s fear was emblematic of panic across the country since Liberian traveler Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States on Sept. 30. Two of the nurses who treated him at a Dallas, Texas hospital have since become infected, and several hundred more potential contacts, both direct and indirect, have been tracked.

Already dozens of false Ebola scares have been reported by hospitals even though the virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and the virus is not airborne.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: I Hugged and Kissed Emory Hospital Nurses and I Don't Have Ebola …

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Daniel Doherty.

White Press Secretary Josh Earnest answered questions today at the White House about why the president cancelled two out-of-state fundraising visits in order to meet with “cabinet agencies” about the growing Ebola threat. The president rarely if ever cancels fundraisers so the maneuver certainly raised some eyebrows in Washington.

“The president was not able to host that meeting and travel at the same time,” his spokesman said. “If the president determines it’s time to return to the White House to fulfil his responsibilities as president and commander in chief…he will alter his schedule accordingly.”

His spokesman, however, also sought to assuage concerns that a mass Ebola outbreak is imminent in the United States. He reminded the public that the chances of that happening are exceedingly slim.

“The way that Ebola is transmitted is very clear,” he said. “And is something that is not likely to happen in the United States. Ebola is not like the flu….the only way that a patient can get Ebola [is through bodily fluids].”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Handout photoSecond Texas nurse tests positive for Ebola

By EMILY SCHMALL and NOMAAN MERCHANT.

The Ebola crisis in the U.S. took another alarming turn Wednesday with word that a second Dallas nurse caught the disease from a patient and flew across the Midwest on an airliner the day before she fell ill, even though government guidelines should have kept her off the plane.

Amid growing concern, President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to address the outbreak and vowed that his administration would respond in a “much more aggressive way” to Ebola cases in the United States.

Though it was not clear how the nurse contracted the virus, the case represented the latest instance in which the disease that has ravaged one of the poorest corners of the earth — West Africa — also managed to find weak spots in one of the world’s most advanced medical systems.

The second nurse was identified as 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson. Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Thomas Eric Duncan’s family showed she inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with Duncan’s body fluids.

Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia, died Oct. 8.

Read more from this story HERE.

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21 Days Not A Long Enough Quarantine For Ebola, New Study Suggests

By Jon Fortenbury.

A 21 day quarantine, after being infected with the Ebola virus, has become the standard quarantine recommendation for avoiding the spread of the virus. That’s not long enough to eliminate the risk, suggested a new study published yesterday in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks.

By looking at data from past Ebola outbreaks, as well as the first nine months of the current Ebola outbreak, Drexel University environmental engineering professor Dr. Charles Haas pointed out that between 0.1 and 12 percent of the time, the incubation period for someone infected with Ebola was longer than 21 days. The 0.1 figure comes from the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire, which had far fewer cases analyzed than the other Ebola outbreaks looked at in this study that have had a higher number of cases with longer incubation periods, such as the Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1995 and the current outbreak in West Africa.

Read more from this story HERE.

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CDC Demands 132 Passengers That Flew With 2nd Ebola Patient Report For Testing

By Tyler Durden.

But, but, but they said it wasn’t contagious unless you came into contact with bodily fluids. According to the CDC, the 2nd health-care worker infected with Ebola traveled on Frontier Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on October 13th and are asking all 132 passengers on the flight to get tested. One question… what about the thousands of people that those 132 passengers came in contact with in the last 2 days?

NEW TEXAS EBOLA PATIENT FLEW DOMESTICALLY NIGHT BEFORE FEVER APPEARED — CDC

Via Bloomberg,

Second health-care worker with Ebola traveled on Frontier flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on Oct. 13, CDC says in e-mailed statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APMEDICAL RESEARCH ORG CIDRAP: EBOLA TRANSMITTABLE BY AIR

By CHRISS W. STREET.

The highly respected Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota just advised the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles,” including exhaled breath.

CIDRAP is warning that surgical facemasks do not prevent transmission of Ebola, and healthcare professionals (HCP) must immediately be outfitted with full-hooded protective gear and powered air-purifying respirators.

CIDRAP since 2001 has been a global leader in addressing public health preparedness regarding emerging infectious diseases and bio-security responses. CIDRAP’s opinion on Ebola virus is there are “No proven pre- or post-exposure treatment modalities;” “A high case-fatality rate;” and “Unclear modes of transmission.”

In April of 2014, CIDRAP published a commentary on Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that confirmed the disease “could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, especially in healthcare settings,” similar to the known aerosol transmission capability of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Although CIDRAP acknowledges that they were “first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease,” they are “now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Viral Suicide: Obama DHS Now Expediting Visa Requests From Ebola-Infected Countries

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Wondering how Thomas Eric Duncan was able to enter the U.S. while suffering from Ebola? He asked for a visa and received one in August.

In fact, the Department of Homeland Security is proudly advertising its “Ebola Outbreak-related Immigration Relief Measures to Nationals of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone Currently in the United States.”

You read that right. Not only are the Obama Democrats leaving our doors wide open to those seeking entry from Ebola-infected countries, they’re actually expediting visa requests!

Here’s a more legible version:

With a 70 percent mortality rate and an incubation period in excess of three weeks, what possible reason could the Obama Democrats have for banning travel from West Africa?

Oh, that’s right. Sorry, I forgot. They hate America.

Update: The inimitable Thomas Lifson notes that the notice “ONLY applies to nationals currently in the USA. IOW, no new arrivals. Mainly, I think to avoid kicking out people and forcing them to return to the hot zone.”

Thanking him for his note, I responded that: “…the problem with this notice is that there is no cutoff date. In other words, if I make it into the U.S. today, then I presumably still qualify.”

Consider the notice: it doesn’t say “…in the United States as of 16 August 2014…”; no, if you make it into the U.S., you can apply for an extended stay and see your request expedited. Perfect, just perfect.

Posted in-full courtesy of Doug Ross, blogger and cartoonist at Doug Ross @ Journal. Please visit his website for more updates, and check out his novella “Hard-Boiled” at Amazon.com

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Photo Credit: Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Judicial Watch: Obama to Admit Non-Citizens for Ebola Treatment

By Newsmax.

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch alleged Friday the Obama administration is formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment.

The group, which cited one unidentified source, said the administration would aim to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis, and that it’s not clear who’d pay either for the transportation or treatment.

The group alleged the plan for treatment includes special waivers of laws and regulations that ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease; Judicial Watch cited its source saying the administration has not told Congress about the plan.

Read more from this story HERE.

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URGENT: Congressman Comes Forward to Show How Obama is HELPING Ebola Come to the U.S.

By Conservative Tribune.

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting that his department take the “prudent measure” of ceasing to issue visas in Ebola-stricken countries for travel to the United States.

The chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee said that he was “deeply concerned” to learn that the U.S. Embassies in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are continuing to process about 100 visa applications daily, according to Western Journalism.

“I was surprised that the Department of State has not already exercised its authority to suspend consular services,” the California Republican wrote, “which is standard procedure in countries experiencing a major security disruption.”

Royce recommended that the U.S. suspend not only visa processing, but all consular services in the three West African nations.

“This would be a prudent measure to mitigate the risk of Ebola exposure and contain its spread—a bedrock principal [sic] of health crisis management.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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World fears mount that Ebola battle being lost

By Jonathan Fowler.

The World Bank warned Friday the fight to stop Ebola was being lost, as the UN pleaded for more money to combat the escalating epidemic and global travel fears mounted.

As the death toll from the world’s worst-ever outbreak of the virus shot past 4,500, a glimmer of hope came from Senegal, which was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.

The United States, meanwhile, named an “Ebola czar” to coordinate its response, after criticism of how a Texas hospital handled a Liberian victim, with two nurses who treated him now infected.

And a researcher at British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said a vaccine may not be ready for commercial use until late 2016.

“We are losing the battle,” World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned, blaming a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters/StringerBritish Big Pharma warns Ebola vaccine will come ‘too late’ to halt spread

By RT.

One of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies says a vaccine to tackle Ebola will “come too late” to curb the current epidemic, as the UK and other European countries begin screening passengers for the virus at international airports.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British multinational that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics and vaccines, said a working vaccine would not be readily available until late 2015, by which time the epidemic may have spread far beyond West Africa.

The statement follows warnings from the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) that there could soon be more than 10,000 new cases of Ebola per week if the spread of the disease is not curbed quickly.

“We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan,” said the UN’s Deputy Ebola Coordinator Anthony Banbury on Wednesday.

“The WHO advises within 60 days we must ensure 70 percent of infected people are in a care facility and 70 percent of burials are done without causing further infection,” he added.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Watchdog: Obama to bring non-American Ebola victims to U.S. for treatment

By PAUL BEDARD.

While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world’s Ebola patients to the United States to be treated.

Judicial Watch, the conservative public watchdog group, says in a shocking report that the president is “actively formulating plans” to admit Ebola-infected non-citizens just to be treated.

“Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis,” said the group.

Read more from this story HERE.

CDC Finally Admits that it Knows Little about How Ebola is Spread

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Photo Credit: KALLISTA / GETTY IMAGESBy Mike Lupica.

It was Ivy Baker Priest, former treasurer of the United States, who once said, “I’m often wrong, but never in doubt.” It is worth remembering the line now as you think of the conga line of famous doctors, led by Tom Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who kept assuring us they knew everything there was to know about transmission of the Ebola virus.

There was Frieden, who sadly starts to look like another government hack, going out night after night on television and offering tutorials on Ebola, even after the late Thomas Duncan had been diagnosed with it at Texas Health Presbyterian.

“We know how to stop Ebola,” Frieden said, with certainty on which cathedrals could be built.

Then two nurses at Texas Health, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, were diagnosed with Ebola; two of more than 70 people at that hospital who came into contact with Duncan before he died. Before long, Frieden was talking about a “breach in protocol,” even though any fool can see that the protocol should have been sending a SWAT team from the CDC to Dallas to monitor Duncan’s treatment.

Finally Frieden, who acted all along as if saying “I don’t know” was an act of treason, had to say this to a House panel on Thursday afternoon, talking about two trained nurses who supposedly followed all of the proper protocols and are sick with Ebola anyway: “While we do not yet know exactly how these transmissions occurred . . . .”

Read more from this story HERE.

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MSNBC Calls GOP Ebola Criticism ‘Not Even Thinly-Veiled Racism’

By ALEX GRISWOLD.

Want a selective travel ban? Think the Mexican border should be secured? Turns out you’re not concerned about the spread of Ebola, you’re actually a really horrible bigot. At least, that was the stance of MSNBC hosts Alex Wagner and Joy Reid. The host of “Now with Alex Wagner” played clips of Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators criticizing President Obama and the CDC’s handling of the Ebola crisis, accusing them of “not even thinly-veiled racism.”

“That stuff is incredible,” Wagner said, referring to criticisms from Republican lawmakers, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly. “He is their president, Joy. I mean, it’s not even thinly veiled racism at this point.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerTop Doctor: CDC’s Ebola Safety Instructions Are Wrong, Could Lead To Contamination

By PATRICK HOWLEY.

Respected George Washington University hospital laboratory director Dr. Jonathan Reiner exposed the Obama administration’s flawed and inaccurate health advice for citizens during the Ebola outbreak.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came under fire Wednesday after it was revealed that officials advised Dallas nurse Amber Vinson that she could board a Frontier Airlines flight to Ohio with a mild fever after she treated Ebola patient Thomas Duncan. Vinson was later diagnosed with Ebola.

Read more from this story HERE.

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NURSES: WE WERE TOLD TO CALL AUTHORITIES FOR EBOLA PROTOCOL

By Breibart TV.

A statement from National Nurses United on the treatment of Dallas Ebola patient said that “nurses were asked to call the Infectious Disease Department” to learn the policies on how to treat Duncan.

The statement, which was played in its entirety on CNN on Wednesday morning, also reports that Ebola training at the hospital was “optional,” “nurses have been left to train each other,” and that nurses who interacted with Duncan simply continued treating other patients.

According to the statement, “there was no advanced preparedness on what to do with the patient. There was no protocol, there was no system. The nurses were asked to call the Infectious Disease Department. The Infectious Disease Department did not have clear policies to provide either.”

The union added that “advanced preparation that had been done by the hospital primarily consisted of e-mailing us about one optional lecture or seminar on Ebola…

Read more from this story HERE.

Senior Republicans Criticize Ebola 'Czar' Choice for Lack of Medical Background

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, APBy Fox News.

Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill Friday criticized Ron Klain, President Obama’s choice to be “Ebola czar,” as a figurehead with no health background.

“Given the mounting failings in the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, it is right that the president has sought to task a single individual to coordinate its response, “said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But I have to ask why the president didn’t pick an individual with a noteworthy infectious disease or public health background?”

Klain, a longtime political hand, served as chief of staff to Al Gore and Vice President Joe Biden but has no apparent medical or health care background.

A White House official said Friday that Klain comes to the job with “strong management credentials, extensive federal government experience overseeing complex operations and good working relationships with leading members of Congress, as well as senior Obama administration officials, including the president.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called him an “excellent choice.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallGood News: Obama Appoints Ebola Czar

By Daniel Doherty.

Katie noted earlier today that the president has been toying with the idea of appointing an “Ebola Czar” to deal with this crisis – presumably because the CDC Director and others have failed to do so. Now he has.

According to CNN, the president has tapped Ron Klain for the job, a White House insider who was the point person on the stimulus act and has a reputation in Washington for managerial competence…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Associated PressObama Names Democratic Operative to Coordinate Ebola Response

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and MITCH SMITH.

President Obama named a trusted political adviser on Friday to take over the government’s response to the deadly Ebola virus, as health officials in two states worked to track a growing list of people who may have been exposed because of missteps in quarantine and containment.

The appointment of Ron Klain, a seasoned Democratic operative and White House veteran, spoke of the seriousness of the situation for the administration, which was eager to put the management of the crisis back on track in the midst of a tough election season. The response has been criticized as sloppy, with two intensive care nurses in a Dallas hospital falling ill after treating a Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan, who eventually died from the virus. One of the nurses had been allowed to take a commercial flight despite telling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she had a slight fever.

The appointment came a day after members of Congress lashed out at federal health officials and just hours after the disclosure by the State Department that yet another employee of the Dallas hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian, who had handled Ebola specimens in a lab, had traveled, boarding a Caribbean cruise ship. The government of Belize said the ship was in that country’s waters, but the authorities there have refused to allow American officials to evacuate the passenger. Mexico would not even allow the ship to dock, and it was headed back to Galveston, Tex., with the lab worker held in isolation. Officials said the risk of infection was very low, but the revelation deepened the impression that the administration was struggling to stay ahead of the virus and the public anxiety.

Read more from this story HERE.

Africa: Border Closures Saved Us

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Photo Credit: AP / The Canadian Press, Abdeljalil BounharBY TOM ODULA AND LYNSEY CHUTEL.

Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa have managed to limit its spread on the continent to five countries – and two of them appear to have snuffed out the disease.

The developments constitute a modest success in an otherwise bleak situation.

Officials credit tighter border controls, good patient-tracking and other medical practices, and just plain luck with keeping Ebola confined mostly to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak was first identified nearly seven months ago.

Senegal did so well in finding and isolating a man with Ebola who had slipped across the border from Guinea in August that the World Health Organization on Friday will declare the end of the disease in Senegal if no new cases surface.

Nigeria is another success story. It had 20 cases and eight deaths after the virus was brought by a Liberian-American who flew from Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital of 21 million people, in July. Nearly 900 people were potentially exposed to the virus by the traveler, who died, and the disease could have wreaked havoc in Africa’s most populous nation.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep: CDC worried travel ban over Ebola would hurt African economies

By Fox News.

A Republican lawmaker claims the real reason the Obama administration is opposing a travel ban for Ebola-stricken African countries is that U.S. officials are concerned about hurting their economies — a dollars-and-cents reason, the lawmaker says, doesn’t make much sense.

Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., whose House subcommittee held a high-profile hearing Thursday on the Ebola virus, told Fox News that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden is the one who gave him that explanation.

“He explained to me … the concern was that these are fledgling democracies and if we put a travel ban that that may affect their economy and harm them,” Murphy said.

Murphy reiterated the concerns at Thursday’s hearing, charging that public health policies may be “based upon a stated concern with cutting commercial ties with fledgling democracies rather than protecting public health in the United States.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Ahmed Jallanzo / EPA / NewscomUS Embassies in Ebola-Stricken Countries Are Still Processing Visas for Non-US Citizens

By Rob Bluey.

Despite the outbreak of Ebola, it is still possible to get a visa from the three West African countries at the heart of the outbreak, and a key congressman is demanding to know why.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, sent a sternly worded letter to Secretary of State John Kerry about the Obama administration’s handling of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Royce said he was “deeply concerned” U.S. embassies in those countries were continuing to process visas for non-U.S. nationals despite the outbreak of the deadly disease.

An estimated 100 people per day are applying for U.S. visas at the three embassies, according to Royce. “Of course,” he added, “once these individuals are issued a visa by the embassy, they are free to travel to the United States.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / GettyEbola Travel Bans Enacted by Nearly 30 Countries, but Not US

By Nick Sanchez.

Nearly every African nation has instituted travel bans on West African countries with significant Ebola outbreaks.

Though the Obama administration has insisted travel bans are not necessary, even countries outside of Africa are beginning to start such travel bans, with Colombia and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia on Wednesday adding their names to a growing list of nearly 30 countries that block travelers from virus-stricken Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

African nations including Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa make up the bulk of the countries that have instituted some kind of ban, and now that countries on the other side of the Atlantic have begun imposing restrictions, calls for the U.S. to follow suit have intensified.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Ebola Escalation Could Trigger Major Food Crisis

By EDITH M. LEDERER.

The global famine warning system is predicting a major food crisis if the Ebola outbreak continues to grow exponentially over the coming months, and the United Nations still hasn’t reached over 750,000 people in need of food in West Africa as prices spiral and farms are abandoned.

On the eve of World Food Day on Thursday, U.N agencies and non-governmental organizations are scrambling to scale up efforts to avert widespread hunger.

“The world is mobilizing and we need to reach the smallest villages in the most remote locations,” Denise Brown, the U.N. World Food Program’s regional director for West Africa, said in a statement Wednesday. “Indications are that things will get worse before they improve. How much worse depends on us all.”

WFP has said it needs to reach 1.3 million people in need in hardest-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

So far, the U.N. agency has provided food to 534,000 people, and it expects to reach between 600,000 and 700,000 this month, Bettina Luescher, WFP’s chief spokesperson in North America, told AP. “And we are working hard to reach and scale up to 1.3 million eventually.”

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New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Officials Predict

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Photo Credit: Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
By SOMINI SENGUPTA.

Schools have shut down, elections have been postponed, mining and logging companies have withdrawn, farmers have abandoned their fields. The Ebola virus ravaging West Africa has renewed the risk of political instability in a region barely recovering from civil war, United Nations officials said Tuesday, hours after the World Health Organization reported that new cases could reach 10,000 a week by December — 10 times the current rate.

The head of the new Ebola Emergency Response Mission, Anthony Banbury, told the Security Council that none of the three most heavily affected countries — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — is adequately prepared. Only 4,300 treatment beds will be available by Dec. 1, according to current projections, and even those would not have an adequate number of staff members. The acceleration of new cases, if not curbed, could easily overwhelm them.

Mr. Banbury painted a picture of substantial need. Only 50 safe-burial teams are on the ground, he said, but 500 are required. They need protective gear and about a thousand vehicles. So far, Mr. Banbury said, the mission has delivered 69 vehicles.

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Photo Credit: RicochetCDC, Rife with Political Correctness, Founders in Face of Real Crisis

By Paul A. Rahe.

I have lived long enough, now, to have seen it again and again. Something goes badly wrong involving a corporation, a university, a religious denomination, or a branch of government, and the executive in charge or a designated minion goes before the press to engage in what is euphemistically called “damage control.” The spokesman does not level with the public. He or she tries to be reassuring and — more often than not — by lying, succeeds in undermining confidence in the institution he or she represents.

This is what is now going on with the Centers for Disease Control. In recent years, this well-respected outfit has branched out, opining in a politically correct manner on one issue after another outside its proper remit. Now it is faced with a matter absolutely central to its responsibilities — actual disease control — and it flips and flops and flounders because the ultimate boss, the President of the United States, cannot bring himself to put limits on contacts between Americans and the citizens of the countries in Africa where there is an Ebola epidemic.

There is only one way to prevent the spread of an epidemic, and that is quarantine. No medical professional with any sense would suggest that we should admit individuals from Liberia to the United States at this time, and no medical professional worth his or her salt would say that we can test for the disease when the prospective visitor arrives at Immigration and Passport Control. Like most diseases, Ebola has an incubation period. Early on, there are no symptoms: none at all. There is no reliable way to tell whether those arriving at our ports of entry have contracted the disease or not. If we do not want it coming here, for a time, we have to keep everyone out who has been in that neck of the woods.

And what are we told by the authorities? That cutting off contact would contribute to the spread of the epidemic. “Just how?” we are entitled to ask. But no explanation is given because, of course, there is none. We were also told that the disease would not come here. And, when it did come here, we were told that it could easily be contained. And, when it was not contained and a medical professional wearing all the proper gear came down with the disease, we were told that he did not follow the protocol.

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Photo Credit: Mohammed Elshamy / Anadolu Agency / Getty Ebola death rate up to 70pc – World Health Organisation

The death rate in the current Ebola outbreak has increased to 70pc, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said.

WHO assistant director-general Dr Bruce Aylward said the 70pc death rate marked “a high mortality disease” in any circumstance.

He added that the UN health agency is still focused on trying to isolate sick people and provide treatment as early as possible.

Previously, the WHO had said the death rate was around 50pc.

The announcement came as an international member of the United Nations’ medical team who was infected with Ebola in Liberia has died despite “intensive medical procedures”, a German hospital said.

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Photo Credit: U.S. Army Africa Lt. Col. Michael IndovinaGeneral Says No Soldiers Have Asked Out of Ebola Deployments

By Richard Sisk.

The Army will stick to the plan to begin ramping up deployments to West Africa later this month despite concerns expressed by top health officials about increased risk to soldiers, Gen. Dan Allyn, the new Army vice chief of staff, said Monday.

“We’ve been taking an aggressive stance” in preparing units slated to deploy in terms of training and equipment, Allyn said, including “aggressively communicating” to families of the troops the steps taken by the Army to mitigate the risks.

To date, there have been no instances of soldiers refusing to deploy to West Africa or asking to be removed from the lists slated for deployment. “Absolutely not,” Allyn said, stressing that the troops “will not be in direct contact” with Ebola victims or those suspected of having contracted the virus.

About 450 troops, including 100 Marines from a Marine Air-Ground Task Force based in Moron, Spain, were currently on the ground in West Africa. Most of the troops were in Liberia to assist local authorities and prepare for the eventual deployment of up to 4,000 troops to contain the spread of the virus that has hit hardest in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

Headquarters elements of the 101st Airborne Division led by Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, the division commander, and specialized units of combat engineers, military police and nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialists were expected to begin moving to West Africa in late October.

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Ebola Catches Blame for S&P 500's Worst Three-Day Drop Since 2011

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Photo Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images via BloombergBy Joseph Ciolli and Oliver Renick.

U.S. stocks sank, erasing earlier gains and capping the worst three-day loss for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since 2011, as investors weighed prospects for slowing global growth and the spread of Ebola…

“It seemed like we were finally having a little slowing in selloff momentum, but obviously the bears won out here,” Joe Bell, a senior equity analyst in Cincinnati at Schaeffer’s Investment Research Inc., said by phone. Ebola is adding to “overall uncertainty and fear amongst Americans. Energy and oil are continuing to take a beating and are leading the market lower.”

Benchmark stock indexes fluctuated between gains and losses for much of the day before extending declines in the final two hours of trading as the S&P returned below its 200-day average. Medical crews surrounded an Emirates Airline plane at Boston’s Logan Airport and five passengers aboard the flight from Dubai were taken off, WCVB reported, though there was no indication the sick travelers had Ebola…

A rout in global equities wiped $1.54 trillion from shares last week, with the S&P 500 tumbling 3.1 percent for its worst drop in two years, amid growing concern of an international economic slowdown. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans today reiterated his concern that inflation may rise only slowly to the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent goal and said policy makers should be “exceptionally patient” in adjusting monetary policy…

The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global growth last week and said the euro area faces the risk of a recession. The IMF also said that the chances of equity losses in 2014 have risen and stock valuations may be “frothy.” European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week that there are signs the euro-area’s economic growth is slowing.

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Metro bus driver quarantined after passenger yells ‘I have Ebola!’

By VERONICA ROCHA.

A metro driver has been quarantined and the bus he was operated taken out of service after a masked passenger began yelling, “Don’t mess with me, I have Ebola!”

Metro officials said they are working with Los Angeles County sheriff’s transit authorities to review surveillance footage taken from inside the bus to determine the identity of the masked passenger, who was accompanied by a woman, Metro spokesman Marc Littman said.

The Monday afternoon incident is being investigated as a possible terrorist threat because of the fear it incited, he said.

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