CDC under fire for Ebola missteps

Lawmakers in both parties are questioning the competence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as fears swell about the spread of Ebola in the United States.

Gathering for the first congressional hearing since the infections in Dallas, lawmakers took aim at CDC on Thursday, arguing the agency has bungled the response to a major health crisis.

{mosads}“Mistakes have been made,” Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said as he opened the hearing of House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. “Trust and credibility of the administration and government are waning. That trust must be restored.”

The CDC, tasked with protecting the nation from infectious diseases, faced attacks on all sides as lawmakers criticized its hospital protocols as dangerously lax. Others asked why a nurse who treated an Ebola patient had been allowed to board a commercial flight, putting more people at risk.

The nurse, Amber Vinson, began showing symptoms of Ebola just hours after arriving at the Dallas airport and was diagnosed the next day. Another nurse, Nina Pham, had been diagnosed over the weekend after also treating the first patient diagnosed in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said someone from his agency had told Vinson that she could travel because she “reported no symptoms to us.”

The CDC has acknowledged that it made errors, and Frieden tried to assure lawmakers that the agency will make things right.

“Even in Lagos, Nigeria, we have been able to contain the outbreak. We do that by tried and true measures,” Frieden said after listing off his credentials in public health. “But there are no shortcuts in the control of Ebola and it is not easy to control it.”

Frieden, who has held press briefings nearly every day since the case in Dallas was first reported, has become the public face of the response to the first cases of Ebola in U.S history.

As blame for the improper care of Duncan began to shift this week from the hospital to the CDC, Frieden has taken a hit, with a handful of lawmakers calling for his resignation.

Vinson and Pham both cared for Duncan from the day he was admitted to the hospital. Frieden said Thursday that the nurses did not wear special protective gear until after Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola, though it had been “suspected” that he had the virus.

The Obama administration has been scrambling to try and ease concerns that it is losing control over the crisis.

President Obama twice cleared his schedule this week to directly oversee the response, meeting multiple times with his top health and security officials, including the CDC director, and members of his Cabinet.

Ebola has become the election cycle’s “October surprise,” offering the GOP another chance to attack Obama’s leadership at a time when Democrats are struggling to escape his shadow.

Republicans have blamed the CDC for its lack of oversight in Dallas, where the hospital failed to initially diagnose Duncan and failed to communicate safety protocols to nurses. Democrats have echoed the concerns, though they’ve directed some of their criticism at leaders in Dallas.

“It would be an understatement to say that the response to the first U.S.-based patient with Ebola has been mismanaged, causing risk to scores of additional people,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

Pointing to failures on the local and state level, DeGette said lawmakers needed to “make sure the CDC is filling these readiness gaps.”

Both Republicans and Democrats urged the administration to take new steps to control Ebola, including border restrictions, airport screenings or tighter hospital protocols.

Support for more extreme measures, such as total flight bans from Ebola-stricken countries, is falling along party lines. In the House, 50 Republicans and six Democrats support a flight ban, according to a list compiled by The Hill.

The second U.S. Ebola case was confirmed almost exactly one month after the White House announced its military-led global effort to stop Ebola, which has been slow to get off the ground. More than 4,500 people have died from the disease internationally in addition to one person in the U.S.

Ken Isaacs, the leader of a group treating victims of the virus in Liberia called Samaritan’s Purse, said this week that the U.S. response remains inadequate on all fronts.

He said his group is “not comfortable with CDC procedures” to protect its healthcare workers, and said the agency faces an optics problem as it struggles to contain the disease.

“The problem that I see is that a message of assurance is fine unless you don’t perform, then your message of assurance erodes trust,” said Isaacs, who has worked on-the-ground disaster relief in countries like Haiti, the Philippines and Bosnia.

“And when trust gets eroded in a public institution like CDC, it becomes more problematic.”