Ebola: What the CDC Isn't Telling Americans

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has an undeserved cache.  Many view the CDC as the country's premiere health organization on the front lines of battling infectious diseases, like Ebola.  However, the truth is the CDC is just another dysfunctional government bureaucracy.

Most Americans would be shocked to learn that the CDC's main job is to dole out tax dollars to other agencies.  Eighty-five percent of the agency's 2014 annual budget of $6.8 billion will be dispatched in the form of grants to state and local health organizations, global health groups and communities.

The CDC, which opened its doors in Atlanta in 1946, has mushroomed from an agency with a $10 million budget and 400 employees to a federal behemoth. The agency has 10,000 full-time staff members, employs 6,000 contractors and maintains 14 locations throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Despite its size, agency is ill equipped to deal with a major outbreak such as the Ebola virus.  The CDC has carved out its niche in the areas of disease surveillance, research funding, statistical reporting and dissemination of information.  Response to infectious epidemics ranks far down its list of priorities.

That has become painfully obvious with each misstep and contradictory statement from CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, an appointee of President Obama who once ran the activist New York City Heath Department.  His claim to fame was banning trans fats in restaurants.

Pathetically, Dr. Frieden has clung to the notion that his job is not to panic Americans.  But in adhering to this mantra, he has failed in his duty to keep the nation fully informed with truthful information.
Here are some examples of what the CDC hasn't told Americans:

1.  This outbreak of Ebola is the deadliest in recorded history.   Ebola was first discovered in 1976 and the World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 25 outbreaks that have claimed 1,590 victims in the ensuing years.  The current pandemic has killed more people than all the others combined.  The most recent estimate from WHO is that 4,493 people have died from Ebola in seven countries since the latest epidemic began earlier this year.  The director of WHO calls Ebola one of the "deadliest pathogens on Earth."  Dr. Frieden told Americans not to worry because the U.S. medical system knows how to stop Ebola in its tracks.  

2.  The current Ebola epidemic is vastly different than past outbreaks.  Stanford University reports past Ebola outbreaks were initially spread by human contact with infected chimpanzees and fruit bats.  This time the pathogen has been transmitted in nearly all cases by human-to-human contact with bodily fluids and tissue. The mortality rate for those who contract the virus has been extremely high.  Out of 8,997 confirmed cases of Ebola, nearly one-half (49.93%) have died, according to WHO.  However, WHO predicts the mortality rate is likely to soar to 70 percent as the number of cases multiplies.

3.  The U.S. allowed Ebola to come to its shores because it had no travel ban.  The disease was confined to West Africa in the past.  The hardest hit countries this year are Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. No one on U.S. soil had ever contracted Ebola until now.  Once the virus arrived, America lost its status as a safe haven from Ebola. There are no medically approved vaccines to prevent the spread of Ebola.  Two vaccines are being tested at this time but are not commercially available.  Blood transfusions have proven effective in helping recent patients fight the virus.  However, the blood donors have been Ebola survivors, a very small universe. Despite Dr. Frieden's assurances, once the virus is unleashed it is difficult to contain and to effectively treat.

4.  Most U.S. hospitals are not equipped to deal with Ebola.  A study this year by the American Journal of Infection Control found that more than one-third of all U.S. hospitals have no certified infection prevention specialist on staff.  In addition, state and federal regulators issued citations for infection control deficiencies to more than 250 hospitals during an investigation conducted from 2011 through June of this year.  As the Dallas hospital experience with Ebola patients has shown, special training, hazmat equipment and strict protocols are needed to deal with the infectious virus.  One or more of those are lacking in most hospitals.  Yet Dr. Frieden lectured Americans like little children, informing them that the U.S. medical system was prepared to handle Ebola cases.

4.  The CDC has not made funding of infectious disease programs a priority.  Desperate Democrats are bellyaching that Republicans cut appropriations to fight Ebola.  In fact, President Obama's 2014 budget proposal for the CDC was $270 million less than the agency's funding request.  The problem is the CDC has diverted funds from its program to fight infectious disease outbreaks to non-essential items.  Under provisions in Obamacare, the CDC has received nearly $3 billion in additional funds in the last five years.  Just six percent was earmarked for expanding epidemiology and lab capacity, two critical building blocks in the effort to curb infectious diseases.  Meanwhile the agency has spent $517.3 million during those five years on community grant programs to improve sidewalks for walkers and bikers, increase access to grocery stores and to support local farmers. Yet Dr. Frieden maintains fighting infectious diseases is the agency's priority

The Pollyanna approach of the CDC and its director Dr. Frieden have made Americans less vigilant and more vulnerable.  Allowing West Africans to travel freely to the U.S. was a mistake that led directly to the spread of the disease in this country.  Continuing that policy is unconscionable.  At last count, 30 nations had instituted travel bans while the Obama Administration has stubbornly refused.

Americans have been lulled into a false sense of security by the CDC, the president and their shills in the media, who keep reminding everyone that more people die of influenza than Ebola.  Unlike the flu virus, Ebola is a deadly pathogen that is expanding and accelerating geographically.  WHO predicts the number of cases may zoom to 10,000 a week in West Africa by December.

Now that Ebola has arrived in the U.S., an urgent response is demanded.  Reassuring bromides from Dr. Frieden are not a deterrence to the spread of Ebola.  Neither is the president's appointment of a Washington political hack to be Ebola Czar.  That move is nothing more than window dressing.  

The contagion that poses the biggest threat to Americans is the ineptness of the current administration, the CDC and the federal government in responding to this crisis.