Ebola in The USA

Dibs on your 55" flat screen!

so true, but english is his native language, not mine.

Erick Erickson: “Fat lesbians got all the Ebola dollars”
The conservative commentator excuses the GOP's cuts to research funds by launching another homophobic attack
Luke Brinker



Erick Erickson: "Fat lesbians got all the Ebola dollars"Erick Erickson (Credit: Fox News)

Conservative pundit Erick Erickson knows just who’s to blame for the dearth of research funds devoted to combating Ebola: “fat lesbians.”

In a post for his RedState.com blog this morning, Erickson assails a new ad highlighting the GOP’s support for budget cuts that crippled the agencies charged with leading the response to Ebola. Over the weekend, National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins told the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein that 10 years of stagnant spending on the agency has “slowed down” critical research. As Stein reports, the NIH’s budget in fiscal year 2004 was $28.03 billion. In 2013, it was just $29.31 billion — “barely a change, even before adjusting for inflation,” Stein notes. A Democratic bill to boost the NIH’s budget to $46 billion by 2021 isn’t likely to advance anytime soon.

But Erickson pooh-poohs the budget cuts to agencies like the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control. All the evidence you need that the agencies have plenty of cash, he argues, is in some of the research items they’ve funded.
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Erickson’s post, titled “Fat Lesbians Got All the Ebola Dollars, But Blame the GOP,” cites an NIH-funded study examining why lesbians confront higher rates of obesity; the research is in line with other demographic studies examining public health challenges, but Erickson seized on the study to wage a demagogic attack on the agency for frivolously “studying the propensity of lesbians to be fat.” He also attacked CDC research on gun violence and smoking cessation.

Erickson ranks among the most obnoxiously homophobic conservative commentators. The Fox News contributor has asserted that gay people are on the “road to hell” and accused businesses that serve LGBT consumers of “aiding and abetting” sin.

Luke Brinker is Salon's deputy politics editor. Follow him on Twitter at @LukeBrinker.

Does Erick Erickson object to businesses that serve adulterers, playboys, drunks, swindlers, gossips, etc.? I'd hate to live under a theocracy, especially of the kind envisioned by this hypocrite.

‘I’m Doing Well,’ Dallas Nurse With Ebola Says

By JACK HEALYOCT. 14, 2014


Nina Pham is being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she works. Credit Jennifer Joseph

DALLAS — Nina Pham, the critical care nurse who contracted Ebola from a Liberian man who died of the disease, said on Tuesday that she was doing well and thanked people for their prayers and support, according to a statement issued by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where she works and is now being treated.

“I am blessed by the support of family and friends and am blessed to be cared for by the best team of doctors and nurses in the world,” Ms. Pham said in the statement.

It was the first comment from the nurse, who became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States and is now being cared for in isolation. Since her name was publicly released on Monday, friends and community members have responded with a flood of support. Congregants from her family’s Vietnamese Catholic church in Fort Worth have formed small prayer groups, and on Twitter, strangers are offering support under the hashtag #PrayersForNina.
Continue reading the main story
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C.D.C. Rethinking Methods to Stop Spread of EbolaOCT. 13, 2014
Hazardous-material workers on Sunday cleaned up at the apartment building where a second patient with an Ebola diagnosis lived.
For Infected Nurse’s Neighbors, Ebola Brings Worry to DoorstepOCT. 12, 2014
Josephus Weeks, a nephew of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola victim, spoke to reporters on Saturday.
Ebola Victim’s Family Blames Hospital and StateOCT. 11, 2014
Thomas Duncan in 2011.
Ebola Patient Sent Home Despite Fever, Records ShowOCT. 10, 2014

Ms. Pham’s statement sounded a note of support for Texas Health Presbyterian, where she worked as a critical-care nurse and was part of a team of dozens of doctors, nurses and other workers who treated or had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola last Wednesday.

The hospital has been widely criticized for how it handled Mr. Duncan’s case — he was initially sent home after visiting the emergency room with a fever that spiked at 103 degrees. The hospital is now facing renewed scrutiny over how one of its nurses became infected with Ebola despite wearing gloves, a mask and protective gear.

On Tuesday, Barclay Berdan, the chief executive of Texas Health Resources, the organization that oversees the hospital, added a coda to Ms. Pham’s statement, saying: “The hearts and prayers of everyone at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas are with Nina Pham, and we are working tirelessly to help her in this courageous fight. The doctors and nurses involved with her treatment remain hopeful, and we ask for the prayers of the entire country.”

Maybe not crazy, maybe just a producer of chump bait, and he's got a big one.. hook, line n sinker. It's ironic that these believers slam mainstream media for its phoniness, but eat up anything that's provocative, counter to mainstream reporting and most importantly, on their favorite crackpot websites


Among the problems with conspiracy theories, two stand at the front of my mind. One being that big media wants to profit off of the 'skeered' just as much as the fake news guys, and are well aware of these tales. So naturally after they looked in to the stories (and you know they have), had they found any legitimacy, they'd run with it and overshadow the likes of Alex Jones and nomorefakenews altogether..

Which brings me to the second problem: the big secret. It's nothing short of laughable to presume that any group of more than one person can keep a really juicy secret for long, let alone entire branches of government and media. The theorists are giving the people within these organizations credit of superhuman proportions

You are soooo wrong and ill informed.

Let's take this one:



Now, please do some research into this ,. because you clearly HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.


Meybe you think you, but you don't, not even one yota!!!


And you don't even see how stupid irrational a-logical and extremely biased this posting of you is.

very good one, thanks!!

That nitwit is RW troller. This isn't even the worst of it.

I assume this is a flippant comment. There is one (living) Ebola patient in DFW. There are over 25,000 cases in West Africa, and , according to the WHO, there may be as many as 10,000 new cases a week being reported by early December. Any logic for banning flights from affected areas in Africa would, obviously, not apply to DFW. I'm not sure that banning these flights is necessary or a good idea, but I would like to hear a medical reason rather than a political or politically correct one, from the medical experts. I've yet to hear or see one so far.

The closest thing to a straight answer I've heard was someone saying that if the flights were banned, the people who wanted to get to the US would find a way. They could travel to a country where there isn't a ban and then fly to the US. This is true, but there are daily, and on average, 150 people travelling from these areas to the US. That's 1,050 a week and 4,500 a month. The number of people who would make the effort to go around a ban would, of course, be something less. How much less? Who knows. Obviously not every one of these 150 travelers a day are Ebola carriers, but reducing the chances of bringing the disease into the US can make sense. For it to make sense though, we need to know what the consequences would be if there is a ban. Assuming the ban would not include the travel of medical personnel who are making the trip to help those with the disease in these areas, there would be no consequences for those already suffering from Ebola or who might yet come down with the disease.

I'm sure there would be some economic consequences, but I would like to see even a rough estimate. The disease itself has probably killed all tourism to these areas, so a ban wouldn't affect that source of revenue any more than the disease already has.

The only argument that seems to have any merit has to do with the notion that these people will find a way into the US by travelling elsewhere. By banning the flights we would, in essence, be assisting in potentially spreading the disease to other countries. This is a pretty thin argument though if one believes there isn't much of a risk allowing them to come here. If one believes they aren't a threat to the US than they can't be much of a threat to France or England or wherever it is they go to first before travelling to the US.

Again, banning travel from these areas might not be appropriate, but we should be able to get an answer that is more substantive than "Because..."

I don't think anyone from the CDC did say that Ebola could not come here via commercial air travel; at least I never hear or read any such statement. The president though said it would not based on his apparent confidence that TSA officers were properly trained to identify people with the disease and separate them from the rest of the herd. Since medical personnel in a Dallas hospital were unable to initially identify Mr. Duncan as suffering from the disease it defies credulity that TSA staff could; anywhere near 100% of the time...especially since they obviously missed Mr. Duncan. That they did further underscores how silly the assurance was because Duncan was, apparently, asymptomatic when he landed in the US. Even a trained team from the CDC wouldn't have identified him without intrusive tests that TSA officers are just not going to administer.

Hmmmm... it is interesting that you say that. This is the argument I am making .. except you have it backwards.

The medical experts are speaking. This is what they are saying (emphasis mine)...



The politically correct course of action is to react to panic. The medical experts are saying "calm down". Ebola is difficult to spread in a developed country like the US and a decent public health effort will prevent an outbreak with extreme "politically correct" measures.

The medical experts or the government?

Someone needs to explain to Greg Abbott where babies come from
Margaret, I hear the fall colors up there in Maine rival the beauty of my spring wild flowers down here in Texas. Well, I find that hard to believe ’cause our wild flowers are mighty pretty. Maybe we’ll have to agree to disagree. But do you know what else I find hard to believe? That Texas could have a Governor more stupid than Rick Perry or even George Bush.

I shudder to think that Tweedle Dee followed Tweedle Dumb in our State Capitol, but this confederacy of dunces is only going to get worse if we elect Greg Abbott this fall. (For those of you who don’t live here, he’s our esteemed Attorney General who is running for Governor against Wendy Davis.)

Yesterday, Abbott argued that the state’s ban on same sex marriage would reduce the number of babies born out of wedlock. Evidently, heterosexuals won’t have unprotected sex as long as Ellen and Portia can’t file jointly in Texas on the off chance they move here. Thank goodness because I had given up on the idea that heterosexuals would ever get on the condom band wagon. Bless his heart. Abbott can’t help being stupid, but he could have stayed home.

More at http://margaretandhelen.com/2014/10/14/someone-needs-to-tell-greg-abbott-where-babies-come-from/

Both of course. Both the medical experts and the government are saying to calm down because there is no significant risk of an ebola epidemic in the US.

This knee-jerk hatred of everything government isn't sane.

It's just another unscrupulous plot to control the masses. The government has managed to dupe nearly the entire nation into not trusting it






wait that's no good..

Of course it was a flippant comment. What surprises me is that those who typically argue on behalf of free markets (in this case it's the airlines who could choose if they wanted to not to fly there) advocating for regulations to prevent free market enterprises to carry on their business as usual.

Erickson's comments are certainly rude but his basic point is solid. There are currently Democrats alleging that the "Ebola problem" is due to the GOP "slashing" CDC funding.

First of all these are probably the same sort of progressives as max, who have utmost faith in the ability of the skilled and educated elite in government to do what's best for the herd as it stampedes in panic and the mention of the virus, so it's interesting that they might actually be conceding that the CDC can't work miracles.

Secondly it is far more vulgar to try and score cheap political points on a deadly health crisis than mocking a study on lesbian obesity. In fact, Erickson’s prior comments on homosexuals are irrelevant to this issue and Brinker’s final shot at him is a great example of the us of ad hominum.

The first excuse any and all government agencies make when they are put on the spot is that they are not properly funded; need more money, and if they had it, no mistakes would be made and all problems would be solved. The Democrats reliably grab this baton and use it to beat the GOP about its collective head.

Contrary to the wishes of agency directors and the legions of bureaucrats they lead, their organizations cannot have unlimited budgets and they don’t require annually increased funding rates simply because they managed to remain in existence for the prior 12 months. Dr. Collins described what Democrats like to call “slashing:” an actual increase.

According to the NIH’s website (http://report.nih.gov/PFSummaryTable.aspx) it spent $14,228,500,000 in 2013 and is projected to spend $14,607,073,000 on defined, categorized conditions and disease. The minimum reporting threshold for a specific disease/condition is $500,000. If the NIH’s budget for 2013 was “just” $29.31 billion, this means it either spent more money ($15,081,500,000) on undefined/uncategorized matters that those included in the linked list or it didn’t spend all it received. (The latter is highly unlikely).

The linked list is interesting, because some of the same disease/conditions show up more than once. For instance, “Women’s Health” is a category (Interestingly enough there is no corresponding “Men’s Health” category) and in 2013, the NIH spent $3,845,000,000 on it, but it also spent $133 million on “Ovarian Cancer;” $98 million on Cervical Cancer;” $39 million on “Uterine Cancer;” $10 million on “Fibroid Tumors (Uterine);” $7 million on Endometriosis;” $31 million on “Violence Against Women;” $17 million on “Teenage Pregnancy;” $408 million on “Contraception/Reproduction;” and $657 million for “Breast Cancer” for a total of $5.2 billion. One can only imagine what is considered within “Women’s Health.”

By contrast, $4.91 billion was spend on children’s health issues (There is no separate category for “Children’s Health”) and this includes $342,000,000 for two separate categories having to do with the perinatal period and, arguably, fall under “Women’s Health” as well. By further contrast, there is only one specific category that is unique to men: Prostate Cancer and NIH spent $286 million on it, the most common cancer in the US.

Erickson’s point is that NIH and CDC don’t have a problem with lack of funds, they have a problem with what they are spending money on. R&D around not only Ebola but a host of other infectious diseases is obviously important and indeed, NIH spent $9.73 billion on them in 2013, even more than on Women’s Health! But apparently Dr. Collins and some Democrats contend that wasn’t enough. So where could they have gotten even more money within their woefully inadequate budget to prevent Mr. Duncan from dying and the young nurse from catching the virus? Maybe the $151 million spent on “Climate Change,” the $11 million spent on “Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease,” the $19 million spent on “Arctic,” some of the $49 million spent of “ADD?” Maybe some of the $643 million spent on “Tobacco,” and “Smoking & Health?” Everyone already knows tobacco and smoking are very bad for you, so who really needs that much money spent on additional research? Could it be Trial Lawyers who may also need $11 million being spent on researching “Fibromyalgia” of which there is an epidemic in the alleged injuries of millions of suing plaintiffs?

Maybe some of the $3.6 billion spent on AIDs. After all the number of estimated AIDS cases in the US is 1.8 million, while the number of people with Alzheimer’s is 5.2 million and yet NIH spent only $504 million on it in 2013. And while 1 in 4 of every death in the US is due to heart disease, NIH spent only $404 million on it. How about diverting some of the $380 million spent on “Complementary and Alternative Medicine?” Or even a little bit of the $4.7 billion spent on “Behaviors & Social Science?” $812 million was spent in 2013 on Michele Obama’s signature “cause.” Obesity is a serious health issue of course and I’m sure it’s no less of a problem for lesbians, but one has to wonder why it was necessary to spend $3 million specifically studying lesbian obesity.

The point, no matter how inartfully made, is that NIH and CDC spends a lot of money, and while much (and probably the majority) of the work they do is of great benefit to the public, like every other government agency there is waste in their spending. Spending $3 million on studying lesbian obesity may not have been a waste (and particularly not if it generated important new information that can be applied to the general obese population, but before we accept the NIH’s cry of penury, and certainly before we accept ridiculous claims that the GOP is responsible for the Ebola outbreak in the US, we should take a look at how much money they get and what they are spending it on. The taxpayers’ pockets are not bottomless. If and when the Republicans reduce the rate of increased spending (Called “slashing” in the Wonderland of DC) they are not taking that money and diverting it to their re-election campaigns or even to the coffers of the Koch Brothers, who, as we all know, own them. They are doing an, at best, feeble job of controlling and hopefully reducing the amount of money you and I have to give to the government. I don’t begrudge money well spent by the government but it is ridiculous to believe it is all well spent or that nothing can be done to control the enormous sums of money that are being wasted.

CDC used to think the lack of a seat belt was a disease. I wonder what they spent on that one.

Thank you for the compliment, Finn, and all of your kind words. You really don't need to flatter me that way.

Your numbers are interesting, but I afraid your argument (and that of Mr. Erickson) is missing something in mathematics. In a budget of %29 billion, 11 million represents less than 0.5 % (that is less than a half of a percent). Any argument that emphasizes 0.5% of a budget is a ridiculous argument indeed.

You are really nickel and diming here.

And that nickel and diming of the CDC and NIH is exactly the point. The CDC NIH budgets are being slashed by Republicans in Congress.

I am not sure that this belongs in this thread. But forgetting the little stuff in the list (i.e. anything less than 0.5%) what you are suggesting instead of investing more money in public health research, that we choose one over the other.

You post suggests that we take money out of cervical and breast cancer to pay for preparedness for the outbreak of an epidemic. I happen to think that the work government funded scientists do on all of these things is pretty damn important (seeing as I am rather fond of some people who have breasts).

In my view, the Democrats have a pretty good point here.