Ebola on US shores

[BoostedD1]

I'd be freaking the fuck out if I were on that flight. Could you imagine sitting next to that dude? FUCK THAT, give me a parachute!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUYbGrKU_bw[/ame]

[Forever_frost]

No worries though

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=7c996cd7-cbb4-4018-baf8-8825eada7aa2&ID=1646&RootFolder=%2Fblog%2FLists%2FPosts

FEMA Preparing for Possible Shortages of Bio-Hazard Gear as Ebola Fears Rise
By Stew Magnuson
 




The Obama administration is looking into evoking the Defense Production Act to stem possible shortages of bio-hazard protective gear as fears of an Ebola outbreak grow, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official said Oct. 15.



Jim Kish, deputy assistant administrator for response at FEMA, said that there is currently no shortage of gear that would protect personnel from the deadly Ebola virus, but the administration is looking into the possibility that there could be a run on such items if the contagion spreads.



“As the situation matures inside the United States … private sector organizations, local jurisdictions, federal agencies are all going to recognize the need to procure and field and expend personnel protective equipment,” Kish said at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C.



“I’m not stating that there is a shortage today, but the notion about how we are going to address any potential [shortage] in that area, in terms of planning activity, we’d be negligent if we weren’t thinking about it right now,” he added.
 


The Obama administration may evoke the Defense Production Act, Kish said. That authorizes the president to require businesses to give federal contracts priority over previously existing contracts "to promote the national defense," according to the law.
 


Kish criticized the collective Ebola response so far: “Things are maybe not set quite right in the public health arena,” he said.
 


Over the weekend, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tasked FEMA to be the integrator of information and operational coordination for DHS’ response to the Ebola cases.
 


The lead federal agency remains Health and Human Services, through its agency the Centers for Disease Control, Kish said. But DHS has a widening role. 



“As of this morning, we found out that there might be a growing need for that kind of thing as well,” he said, referring to the case of the Dallas-area nurse who flew on a commercial flight after treating an Ebola victim.
 


In light of that case, the Transportation Security Administration may be called in to carry out some kind of measures, he said. Customs and Border Protection, which screens inbound passengers, already has a role in the response, he said.
 


Along with the nurse who was allowed to fly, another who treated the patient has come down with the virus. The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, had flown from Liberia, and had a high fever, but was sent home from the Dallas-area Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. He has since succumbed to the disease.




In terms of integrating DHS’ Ebola information, Kish said, “We have a fairly good template and a good battle rhythm going.”
 


“We feel like we are probably looking at something we haven’t seen the edge of yet because we are learning as a nation, and seeing more every day,” he added.
 


HHS’ office of refuge resettlement would be responsible for screening any large number of immigrants coming over from Ebola-stricken countries, he noted.
 


Meanwhile, Republican leaders on the House Homeland Security Committee Oct. 15 called on DHS’ Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry to suspend visas from Ebola-stricken countries such as Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
 


“While we remain confident in CBP’s ability to adequately screen individuals with overt signs of disease, given the virus’ long incubation period of up to 21 days, individuals carrying the virus may not show symptoms when they leave West Africa or upon entry in the United States,” the letter said.



“Taking such action to temporarily suspend some of the 13,500 visas would improve the American public’s confidence of public health officials to limit the spread of Ebola to the United States, while simultaneously permitting a robust effort by the U.S. government and global health agencies to combat this vicious disease in West Africa,” read the letter signed by the chairman of the committee Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas, and the chairs of the five subcommittees.

Photo Credit: Defense Dept.

[GhostTX]

Props to Belize for actually doing something to prevent their country from getting infected. Unlike ours that's letting people travel willy nilly.

[talisman]

I'm surprised so many of you are suddenly willing to give up your civil liberties in the name of safety. Especially based on past posting habits, and the outrage regularly leveled at the TSA over giving up freedom for the illusion of safety, and even the aftermath of the Boston Bombings and the entire city getting shut down. You guys keep on talking like this and I'm going to reach Seb levels of paranoia about what is really going on.

[juiceweezl]

I'm surprised so many of you are suddenly willing to give up your civil liberties in the name of safety. Especially based on past posting habits, and the outrage regularly leveled at the TSA over giving up freedom for the illusion of safety, and even the aftermath of the Boston Bombings and the entire city getting shut down. You guys keep on talking like this and I'm going to reach Seb levels of paranoia about what is really going on.

So, you're saying there's some hypocrisy in here?

[CJ]

so much hypocrisy!

[Nash B.]

I'm surprised so many of you are suddenly willing to give up your civil liberties in the name of safety. Especially based on past posting habits, and the outrage regularly leveled at the TSA over giving up freedom for the illusion of safety, and even the aftermath of the Boston Bombings and the entire city getting shut down. You guys keep on talking like this and I'm going to reach Seb levels of paranoia about what is really going on.

So, yeah, where in the Constitution does it give the CDC the power to tell people they can't leave their homes because they might be sick?

[UserX]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/16/alarm-a...igeria-to-jfk/

A plane from Nigeria landed at JFK Airport Thursday with a male passenger aboard who had died during the flight after a fit of vomiting — and CDC officials conducted a “cursory” exam before announcing there was no Ebola and turning the corpse over to Port Authority cops to remove, Rep. Peter King said on Thursday.

The congressman was so alarmed by the incident — and by what he and employees see as troubling Ebola vulnerabilities at JFK — that he fired off a letter to the federal Department of Homeland Security demanding more training and tougher protocols for handling possible cases there.

The unnamed, 63-year-old passenger had boarded an Arik Air plane out of Lagos, Nigeria, on Wednesday night, a federal law enforcement source said.

During the flight, the man had been vomiting in his seat, the source said. Some time before the plane landed, he passed away. Flight crew contacted the CDC, federal customs officials and Port Authority police, who all boarded the plane at around 6 a.m. as about 145 worried passengers remained on board, the source said.

“The door [to the terminal] was left open, which a lot of the first responders found alarming,” said the source.
Modal Trigger

Rep. King called the protocol followed after the passenger died “alarming.”Photo: Getty Images

“My understanding was that the passenger was vomiting in the seat,” King (R-LI) said.

“The CDC went on the plane, examined the dead body and said the person did not have Ebola,” King said.

“It was what I was told a cursory examination. The Port Authority cops and personnel from Customs and Border Protection were there, and they were told there was no danger because the person did not have Ebola,” King said.

“But their concern was, how could you tell so quickly? And what adds to the concern is how wrong the CDC has been over the past few weeks.”

Rep. Peter T. King letter to Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Between 70 and 100 passengers a day arrive at JFK from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three West African countries that are the epicenter of the outbreak, King said.

“These individuals transit the airport with the rest of the traveling population, including using the restrooms,” King wrote to Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in a letter Thursday.

“Only after they arrive at the Customs and Border Patrol primary screening location that they are separated and sent to secondary inspection for a medical check and to complete the questionnaire,” he wrote Johnson.

King’s letter demands that Homeland Security immediately beef up protocols for what happens to potentially infected passengers in flight and at the terminal itself, prior to their reaching the screening location.
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Rep. Billy Long holds up a copy of a magazine with an Ebola headline as public health officials testify before a House subcommittee about the outbreak.Photo: Reuters

The letter also demands that training and safety equipment improve for the Port Authority police and Customs and Border Patrol officials who can come into contact with high-risk passengers.

“I believe there should be a suspension of direct flights and connecting flights from these three countries,” King said. “And maybe anyone with a visa from those countries, and who has been living in those countries, should be barred” from entering the US, he added.

No other information was immediately available about the deceased Nigerian passenger.

Nigeria is 1,000 miles east of the three West African countries suffering from an Ebola outbreak, but has had 19 confirmed cases of the deadly virus. The country has had no new cases over the past month; the World Health Organization has said that if there are still no new cases of Ebola by Monday, they will officially declare the country “Ebola-free.”

I've heard no other reports of this story... not sure if legit.

[lowthreeohz]

I've heard no other reports of this story... not sure if legit.

I heard that this morning on the radio

[UserX]

I heard that this morning on the radio

You heard it's true or fake?

[lowthreeohz]

Sorry, that it was true.

[4king]

West nile is a less invasive form of Ebola. Should an outbreak start mosquito's are the most likely spreaders of the plague

[Forever_frost]

Dallas hospital that treated three Ebola patients had machine that can detect disease in just minutes ...but couldn't use it because it wasn't FDA approved

By Michael Zennie for MailOnline

Published: 08:57 EST, 17 October 2014 | Updated: 09:28 EST, 17 October 2014

The Dallas hospital that sent home Thomas Eric Duncan the first time he showed up at the emergency room has a machine that could have detected Ebola in less than an hour - but doctors were barred from using it because of federal regulations.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has treated three Ebola patients - Duncan, who died last week, and two of its own nurses who contracted the disease from Duncan. In each case, the hospital had to wait up to two days for confirmation that that patients were infected with the virus.

The Associated Press has also reported the medical records reveal nurses didn't wear full protective gear while treating Duncan for two days while they awaited the results of his Ebola test.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital had one of the devices but was barred from using it for Ebola detection because of Food and Drug Administration rules


However, military news site Defense One reports that doctors could have simply turned on a toaster-sized device called the Film Array and gotten a diagnosis within minutes.

US military doctors sent to West Africa to combat the disease are already using the Film Array, which has more than 90percent accuracy, according to Defense One.


The device costs $39,000 - a pittance by the standards of medical devices in hospitals - and was developed by Utah-based BioFire Diagnostics to test the genetic markers of a slew of gastrointestinal and respiratory viruses. It can use blood or saliva samples and it's proven adept at quickly detecting Ebola, as well.

Presbyterian Hospital acquired one two years ago, though it has been prohibited from using the device to diagnose patients because the Food and Drug Administration had approved it only for research use - and not for testing Ebola.

Thomas Eric Duncan was sent home from the hospital the first time he showed up with symptoms of Ebola. The Film Array could have detected the disease in minutes

The Film Array boasts easy, fast testing - but the FDA is not convinced it's effective enough to be used for diagnosis in hospitals

This, despite the fact that BioFire Diagnostics has received a $240million grant from the Defense Department's Joint Program Office for Chemical and Biological Defense to hone the device to detect Ebola and other deadly pathogens.

The FDA has now approved the device for Ebola screening for research and has allowed hospitals to buy the necessary modifications to allowed their Film Array systems to detect the virus.

Defense One also points out that the device could even be deployed at airports to screen travelers from West Africa.

With results in less than an hour, the Film Array could provide accurate tests to keep patients sick with Ebola out of the US. Currently, some airports are using temperature screening to check if travelers have a fever. Health experts have warned that taking a simple fever reducer could allow infected travelers to slip through security.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2797144/dallas-hospital-treated-three-ebola-patients-machine-detect-disease-just-minutes-couldn-t-use-wasn-t-fda-approved.html

[CJ]

Get the fuck out. Are you saying the government is so large and ineffective that it's own laws are working against speeding up results?

[Baba Ganoush]

Cluster Fuck = Confirmed

lmao @ "i blame dustin hoffman" tag