The public face of the Ebola epidemic, now that Thomas Eric Duncan has expired, is unquestionably Thomas Frieden, the current head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the media regularly tout his role in stemming a tuberculosis outbreak in India-and addressing a similar proliferation of the disease in New York City-there is little discussion of his actions as this city’s Health Commissioner, particularly the more controversial aspects of his tenure.
I only raise this because of the perplexing behavior and words of Dr. Frieden in recent days, which, if anything, have only
increased Americans’ suspicions that the government doesn’t know what it is doing. Perhaps the most bizarre statement to be issued by him thus far is the assertion that preventing foreign nationals from the three African nations decimated by the Ebola crisis from entering the United States would actually
cause the virus to spread. Over a hundred people from West Africa land in this country every day, and as the Daily Signal points out, the State Department is still
processing visas from non-American nationals in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, to the consternation of the current Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. This, despite the fact that those with Ebola continue to board flights-and
in one case, die in mid-flight-seeking medical treatment in the United States.
Only after a sustained public outcry has this administration even considered a possible
travel ban, which might or might not be enacted. Keep in mind, this is a federal government that exhausts its seemingly illimitable resources trying to prevent the importation of perilous
pumpkin seeds, deadly
Steinways, and
contraband queso. Yet people who might transmit one of the deadliest infectious diseases known to mankind are still being cavalierly waived through Customs...
