Rand Paul: Obama and CDC Failing To Show Leadership On Ebola Outbreak

Senator Rand Paul has accused Barack Obama of downplaying the threat posed by Ebola for political purposes, alleging that the President has “failed to show leadership” on the issue.

In an interview this morning with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, the Kentucky Senator was asked by host Dom Giordano if the Ebola outbreak was morphing into an issue of incompetence and the White House “lying to the American people.”

“It adds to just a litany of things that the President has let us down on and failed to show leadership,” responded Paul. “So, I think it’s one thing after another, it’s not just one issue. The lack of leadership on Ebola, the equivocating, the downplaying, the underplaying, the, sort of, trying to calm everyone with really not being completely frank about the transmissibility of the disease, I think, doesn’t help any of them at the polls.”

The Senator attacked suggestions made by some on the left that budget cuts had left health authorities unprepared to deal with an Ebola outbreak in the United States.

“The waste that runs throughout [The National Institute of Health] is just appalling and for them to say they didn’t have enough money when their budget has gone up 220 percent for epidemics is really just an insult to the taxpayer,” said Paul.

This is not the first time Senator Paul has been vocal in his condemnation of the federal government’s reaction to the Ebola crisis.

Earlier this month, Paul appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show to complain that the situation was not being treated with enough seriousness, highlighting comments made before the first case in Dallas by CDC officials who said there was little chance of an outbreak occurring within the United States.

“I really think that it is being dominated by political correctness and I think because of political correctness we’re not really making sound, rational, scientific decisions on this,” said Paul, while suggesting that the transmissibility of the virus may be more aggressive than health authorities have acknowledged.

Two health workers who treated patient zero – Thomas Eric Duncan – have contracted the virus despite wearing full protective clothing, prompting questions as to whether the virus has gone airborne to some degree.

Confirmed! Ebola Outbreak In America

On the heels of patient zero Thomas Eric Duncan succumbing to Ebola, a nurse who treated him has now tested positive for the deadly virus.

We must contact our public servants and tell them they will be held accountable for not taking the same steps African countries are taking to contain the virus.

Texas Health Care Worker Diagnosed With Ebola

(Reuters) - A Texas health worker who provided care for the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has tested positive for the deadly virus in a preliminary examination, a state health official said on Sunday.
The health care worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital reported a low-grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.
"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the health service.
The first person in the United States diagnosed with Ebola, Liberia citizen Thomas Eric Duncan, died in an isolation ward of the Dallas hospital on Oct. 8, 11 days after being admitted.
The U.S. government has since ordered five airports to start screening passengers from West Africa for fever.
The number of people known to have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record has risen to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases in seven countries, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
Liberia has been the worst affected country with 2,316 victims, followed by 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and one in the United States, WHO said.