Wednesday
Oct152014
The Commentariat -- Oct. 16, 2014
Internal links, illustration, defunct video & related text removed.
They kind of blew me off. -- Dr. Sean Kaufman, when he warned the CDC that its Ebola control protocol was too lax
... Donald McNeil of the New York Times: "Many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday. Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines for American hospitals with Ebola patients. They are now closer to the procedures of Doctors Without Borders, which has decades of experience in fighting Ebola in Africa. Sean G. Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first two American Ebola patients, called the earlier C.D.C. guidelines 'absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.'” ...
... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "President Obama [said] Wednesday that the dangers of a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States are 'extraordinarily low,' pointing to his own contact with medical personnel treating a patient infected with the virus":
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "After a two-hour meeting of cabinet-level officials who are in charge of the government's response to the virus, Mr. Obama promised that a review of the recent Ebola cases in Dallas would determine what went wrong that allowed two nurses to be infected. With a video link to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, the president said he had ordered health officials to determine, 'How we are going to make sure that something like this isn't repeated.'" ...
... Manny Fernandez & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "A second nurse at a hospital [in Dallas] tested positive for Ebola on Wednesday, the third case of disease confirmed in Dallas in the span of 15 days and the first to heighten fears far beyond the city. The nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, 29, took a flight earlier this week from Ohio to Texas, a trip that federal health officials said should not have been taken.... The C.D.C. asked all 132 passengers on Frontier Flight 1143 to call a C.D.C. hotline.... Officials said Ms. Vinson ... was to be transferred Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, one of four hospitals in the United States that have special high-containment units for isolating patients with dangerous infectious diseases." This story has been updated....
... Oh My. Here's an Update of Interest. Mark Berman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Before she boarded that flight..., Amber Joy Vinson, 29, informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she was running a temperature of 99.5 degrees, a federal official told The Washington Post. That was below the 100.4-degree threshold in CDC guidelines for screening travelers who have been in Ebola-affected countries, and which triggers a secondary screening. The CDC did not prohibit Vinson from traveling on the plane back to Dallas, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue." ...
... CW: In both cases in which nurses contracted Ebola at the Dallas hospital, Dr. Thomas Friedan, director of the CDC, first played "blame the victim" before admitting the Ebola victim was not at fault. In the earlier case, he accused the nurse (or hospital??) of some unknown "breach of protocol." I do believe Dr. Friedan needs to have a check-up for Infallible God Syndrome, a psychological condition common among medical doctors. ...
... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: Dr. Thomas Friedan "has become the face of the Obama administration's flawed response to Ebola in the United States, and on Thursday he is likely to face withering questions about his record during a congressional hearing." ...
... Katie Zavadski of New York: "Local Dallas reporter Lauren Zakalik tweeted that CDC officials told her there is a 'do not board' list that will evolve to cover potentially exposed people." ...
... Dianna Hunt of the Dallas Morning News: "Health care workers treating Thomas Eric Duncan in a hospital isolation unit didn't wear protective hazardous-material suits for two days until tests confirmed the Liberian man had Ebola -- a delay that potentially exposed perhaps dozens of hospital workers to the virus, according to medical records." ...
... Geoffrey Mohan, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Nurses at a Texas hospital where a Liberian man died of Ebola described a confused and chaotic response to his arrival in the emergency room, alleging in a statement Tuesday that he languished for hours in a room with other patients and that hospital authorities resisted isolating him.... In addition, they said, the nurses tending him had flimsy protective gear and no proper training from hospital administrators in handling such a patient." ...
... Alan Zarembo of the Los Angeles Times: "The nation's largest union of registered nurses Wednesday called on President Obama to mandate uniform standards at U.S. hospitals to protect healthcare workers from the Ebola virus. 'Not one more patient, nurse or healthcare worker should be put at risk due to a lack of healthcare facility preparedness,' National Nurses United wrote in a letter to the president. 'The United States should be setting the example on how to contain and eradicate the Ebola virus.'" ...
... Steve M.: "I'm amused ... to see this union and its officers being quoted favorably by outraged conservatives at Right Wing News, CNS News, Free Republic, and other sites on the right. Do these righties know anything about their new favorite whistleblowers? [The union's co-president Deborah] Burger advocates single-payer and opposes the Keystone pipeline, as does [union director RoseAnn] DeMoro. They also advocate a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street financial transactions. In a Washington Post op-ed published Monday, DeMoro tied our Ebola problems to the private, for-profit nature of our health care system." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... it's hard to avoid noting that Texas -- the very sovereign State of Texas, I should clarify, where the federal government is generally not welcome -- was at a loss in dealing with a single Ebola case until the feds stepped in (per a WaPo tick-tock on the Dallas situation) [linked yesterday in the Commentariat]. ...
... Benedict Carey of the New York Times: "As health officials scramble to explain how two nurses in Dallas became infected with Ebola, psychologists are increasingly concerned about another kind of contagion, whose symptoms range from heightened anxiety to avoidance of public places to full-blown hysteria." ...
... Joe Coscarelli of New York: "Fox News conscience Shepard Smith brought a rare moment of sanity to the network this afternoon when he shut down a colleague's report that there was a 'widespread panic across the country' over Ebola. 'Oh my God, Doug, I appreciate it, but I think we both know there's no widespread panic across the country,' Smith said. 'And I think we also know that if there's a widespread panic, it's not based in fact and it's not based in reason.'" ...
... Here's Smith talking sense about Ebola to Foxbots. His advice: "Get a flu shot." Flu, & associated pneumonia, killed 52,000 Americans last year:
... THEN There's Fox "News"'s Medical Expert & Obama Shrink Keith Ablow. Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Dr. Keith Ablow, a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, on Tuesday said that Obama won't protect Americans from Ebola because 'his affinities' are with Africa, not the U.S. 'He's their leader.' 'He has it in for us as disappointing people. People who've been a scourge on the face of the Earth," Ablow said on Fox News Radio's The John Gibson show. 'In his mind, if only unconsciously, he's thinking, "Really? We're going to prevent folks suffering with illnesses from coming across the border flying into our airports when we have visited a plague of colonialism that has devastated much of the world, on the world? What is the fairness in that?'"... He also compared Obama to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein while claiming that Americans elected Obama because he hates the U.S." ...
... CW: Here's my question: Would Fox "News" allow this guy go on the air while he was wearing his Klan hood? What exactly is the network's journalistic threshold? See also Akhilleus's comment/rant in yesterday's thread. ...
... Brendan Nyhan in the New York Times: "... public concerns are likely to increase about whether the United States health care system can properly respond to an outbreak [of Ebola]. Data from surveys suggest, however, that those views -- like so many others -- are being shaped by people's partisan affilations as much as by news about the outbreak itself."
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "In his first major policy speech as director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey on Thursday plans to ... say that encryption technologies used on ... devices, like the new iPhone, have become so sophisticated that crimes will go unsolved because law enforcement officers will not be able to get information from them, according to a senior F.B.I. official who provided a preview of the speech."
Linda Greenhouse: "In the space of eight days, the [Supreme Court] justices managed to touch on American society's hottest of hot-button issues
... Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A day after the Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that had forced abortion clinics to close, some of the shuttered facilities prepared to reopen, pleased at the reprieve but mindful that the legal fight was far from over. Tuesday's order increased the chances, legal experts said, of a major face-off in the Supreme Court over a crucial question: What restrictions add up to an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to abortion?"
W. J. Hennigan of the Los Angeles Times: "The Pentagon has finally given a name to the international military effort against Islamic State militants: 'Operation Inherent Resolve.'” ...
... CW: Can we expect the same people who came up with "Operation Inherent Resolve" to defeat ISIS? Or anybody? Were they going for esoteric? Seriously, what percentage of American knows what "inherent" means? Prior to the Pentagon's settling on this brilliant handle, Paul Waldman suggested "Operation Pulverizing Power" or "Operation Glittering Justice." I myself prefer acronymical names, so something like Operation Bombs Away Motherfuckin' Assholes would be both inherently inspirational AND easy to remember. Also, it would make John McCain even crazier.
November Elections
Dana Milbank: "Republicans are so confident of anti-Obama sentiments that they aren’t making an effort to present an alternative agenda, the way they did with 1994’s 'Contract With America' or 2010’s 'Pledge to America.' The Republican National Committee drafted only vaguely worded 'principles' '“Our Constitution should be preserved, valued and honored')."
Greg Sargent: "... a total of six GOP Senate candidates [are] injecting Ebola into their races." ...
... Paul Waldman: "It's not your Senator's job to stop Ebola."
Alaska & South Dakota. Tim Egan: "... the fact that all the money and manipulations of the Koch brothers could be undone by a handful of native voters living in some of the poorest and most remote parts of the land is a tribute to our teetering democracy.... In Alaska and South Dakota, where the native vote could be the only thing that stands in the way of a Republican-controlled Senate."
Arkansas. Michael Winter of USA Today: "In a ruling that could affect a key U.S. Senate race, the Arkansas Supreme Court on Wednesday declared the state's voter-identification law unconstitutional. The unanimous decision, which upheld a lower court, came just days before early balloting begins Monday for the Nov. 4 election. The justices ruled that Act 595, which required voters to show government-issued photo identification, 'imposes a requirement that falls outside' the four qualifications outlined in the state constitution: A voter must be a U.S. citizen, an Arkansas resident, 18 years old and registered to vote."
Colorado. Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post: "Ebola emerged Wednesday night as a new issue in Colorado's U.S. Senate debate with Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Cory Gardner, but much of their hour-long exchange focused on familiar themes. The two exchanged jabs for nearly an hour in 9News' studio as moderators Kyle Clark and Brandon Rittiman pushed the candidates to answer questions on everything from climate change to reproductive rights to health-care reform." ...
... In case you think Gardner might be right, this FactCheck.org article -- written way back in mid-August, giving Gardner literally months to come up with a better story or renounce the House bill -- debunks his ludicrous claim that the House personhood bill is merely a pro-life "statement." Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org: "... the wording of these [personhood] measures could be interpreted to mean hormonal forms of birth control, including the pill and intrauterine devices, would be outlawed. Other non-hormonal forms, such as condoms, wouldn’t be affected, but oral contraception (the pill) is the most popular form of birth control among U.S. women." Also via Sargent.
Florida. "Fangate"! Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times & Mark Caputo of the Miami Herald: "In the weirdest start of a gubernatorial debate, Florida Gov. Rick Scott initially refused to take the stage Wednesday night because Democrat Charlie Crist insisted on using a fan to keep him cool. The Republican governor finally emerged at least six minutes late as flummoxed moderators struggled on live TV to figure out what to do with a bemused Crist standing solo on stage at Broward College. 'Are we really going to debate about a fan? Or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state?' Crist asked. 'I mean, really.'"
... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "A Crist adviser posted a picture of the rules Crist signed on Twitter. They seem to indicate that a fan was allowed.... Later, the Scott campaign seemed to concede: a fan was fine by them after all." ...
... Charles Pierce: "It is now the conventional wisdom that Scott blew up his campaign with this stunt.... The visual was quite simply the most bizarre image to come out of a debate since Ned Coll waved a rubber rat at Edmund Muskie in 1972.... If you hung around and watched the rest of the debate, you fully understand now why the people of Florida are gagging on having to make a choice between either one of these jamokes." ...
... Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice posts the candidates' closing remarks. Scott's word salad is hard to watch. "You can go to C-SPAN and watch any random clip of Scott speaking last night, and it will be just as cringe-inducing." CW Note to Gov. Ricky: No voter gives a whip about your your "mom's watching from heaven."
Idaho. Jeff Singer of Daily Kos: Idaho's Gov. Butch Otter (R) is running only three points ahead of his ConservaDem opponent A. J. Balukoff, according to a PPP poll, forcing the Republican Governors Association to drop money into a race that most assumed would be an easy victory for Otter. Singer explains why there's a good chance Otter's numbers will improve.
Kentucky. Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned on Wednesday in Louisville, Ky., with Alison Lundergan Grimes, right, the Democratic candidate who is trying to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell....." ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post on Mitch McConnell's pretense that Kynect is "just a Website": "If he wants to rip out Obamacare 'root and branch,' then he has to explain what he would plant in the health-insurance garden instead. Otherwise his assurances on the future have little credibility."
Maine. The bigger issue right now is whether or not this individual had the proper papers. -- Gov. Paul LePage (RTP-Maine), on a person who tested negative for Ebola at a Maine hospital ...
... Portland Press Herald Editors: "Unbelievably, the governor used a potential public health crisis to point fingers at Maine’s largely African refugee and immigrant population. He’s encouraging scapegoating of those who are different, but he hasn’t bothered to point out that while the Ebola outbreak 'is strictly in West Africa' – as a Maine Med official has told the Portland Press Herald – most of the Africans in Maine are from the eastern part of the massive continent.... By making insinuations about whether the Maine Med patient was in the U.S. legally, the governor also has blatantly overstepped ethical boundaries. What’s more, it’s bad health policy to imply that a trip to the hospital for much-needed emergency care could result in being closely questioned about one’s immigration status." ...
... Linda Kintsler of the New Republic: "... thanks to the continued split between Maine Independents and Democrats, looks like it might very well result in the re-election of Republican Paul LePage, America’s craziest governor. Recent polls have the Democratic candidate, Congressman Michael Michaud, maintaining a thin lead over LePage, 40 percent to 38 percent, with the Independent, Eliot Cutler, trailing well behind at 15 percent. (Others have Michaud and Culter polling slightly higher.)... LePage, who should never have had a second shot at the governorship, now actually has a decent shot at winning. And he knows it, because this is how he got elected the first time around." ...
... If Maine is so proud of the "independence" of its voters, but the effect is to elect the wrong guys because reasonable people split their votes between or among the better candidates, there are easy & sensible solutions. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "In Louisiana, for example, all of the candidates run together in a 'jungle primary,' and then the top two candidates compete in a run-off if neither one wins a majority. Another system, known as 'instant runoff voting,' allows voters to rank their choices. Under this system, losing candidates are eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the voter’s next choice until one candidate emerges with a majority of the votes." CW: To me, the "instant runoff" seems preferable: the state doesn't have to foot the expense of two elections, & voters don't have to go to the polls twice.
FINALLY, why can't state-level debates be more like presidential debates? Via Daily Kos:
News Ledes
New York Times: "The chief clinical officer of the Texas hospital system that treated a Liberian Ebola patient apologized for what he said were mistakes made by the hospital in Dallas in the original diagnosis of Ebola and in providing inaccurate information. The remarks, part of prepared testimony for a congressional hearing later Thursday...." ...
... Hartford Courant: "Officials say Yale-New Haven Hospital expects to receive test results in the next 24 hours on a patient who recently traveled to Liberia and was admitted Wednesday night with a fever. The patient is one of two Yale University students who returned home last week after spending a month in Liberia researching the Ebola outbreak, according to the New Haven mayor's office." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead. ...
... New York Times: "Officials at school districts in Texas and Ohio shut schools on Thursday after they learned that two students traveled on the Cleveland-to-Dallas flight with Amber Joy Vinson, a nurse infected with Ebola, and that an employee may have later flown on the same plane."
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Reader Comments (22)
More from National Nurses United:
http://www.boston.com/health/2014/10/14/dallas-nurses-cite-sloppy-conditions-ebola-care/GqpH1p5wqvZWJdVA62T1lI/story.html
But according to an entry above, who should believe them. They seem to be a bunch of Communists who just happen to have nursing degrees.
It's bloody hot in Florida and it appears that Charlie Crist feels the heat more than most because he travels with a fan. Last night in his debate with Rick Scott, who I swear is just the oddest looking dude, he brought a fan that he secured under his podium (not the first time he has done this). Well! Governor Scott was not having any of that––unfair it was ––and refused to come out to debate. The moderators were flummoxed––what to do? Finally Ricky ambled out, took his position behind the podium and the fun began. Had to leave at that point so didn't get to view the debate but knew that one of dem guys were real cool.
If not "breach of protocol" or the nurse's own error, Marie, then to what do you attribute the transmission? Sorry to say that hospital probably was not ready for Ebola and Texas bravado got the better of them in initiating treatment of Mr. Duncan in the first place. The CDC director was correct in this case. I don't think he was chastising anyone, just stating a fact. The fact that Ms. Vinson was taken to Emory should be a clue that Dallas isn't ready.
As an aside, isn't it odd that after Duncan died, Rick Perry hightailed it out of town?
Read elsewhere on the internet this AM a suggestion for a new bumper sticker: "Prowd Member of Charlie Crist Fan Club."
@Nancy writes, "The CDC director was correct in this case. I don't think he was chastising anyone, just stating a fact."
I made my comment before the NYT published Donald McNeil's story (linked above), which I'm quoting here:
"Many American hospitals ... were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday. Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them."
So I stand by my comment. If the protocol is inadequate, a hospital administration & employees can follow it to the letter & the workers may still contract the disease. A "breach of protocol" means failure to follow the established procedures, whatever they may be. Friedan wasn't "stating a fact"; he was stating the opinion that it wasn't the CDC protocol that was at fault; it was the nurse or the hospital. I think he was wrong, & officials from the President on down have tacitly acknowledged that.
Marie
Those who don't want bad news, please stop reading this comment (of course, what I am about to say may not be "news" to many).
To continue: the NYT analysts have now accorded the Republicans a 72% chance of retaking the Senate, largely due to improving poll numbers of Pat Roberts in Kansas. This is so depressing to me, and I am sure, to many of you. The surprising strength of a party that has done nothing to further the interests of average Americans in years is so puzzling it's almost beyond my comprehension. On the other hand, it may reflect the confluence of a number of events that are beyond the President's control, but for which he is being blamed. The "spread" of Ebola in the U.S. , low wages, now the cratering of the stock market....even the mess in Syria can only be pinned on Obama if one is confident that the approach favored by McCain and other hawks would have worked.
But it seems that Americans are unwilling to analyze, are unwilling to look at facts, or to even inform themselves of the basics (such as which party controls the House) of how we have found ourselves gridlocked and unable to respond to events.
1464 people died in New Orleans during Katrina, many of whom could have been saved by proper assistance from the Republican administration. So far, one person has died of Ebola in the U.S., yet many Americans are not only panicked, but willing to blame Obama. Where's the proportionality and rationality of the public's response?
Despite the signs and prognostications of doom for Dems in the past months, I had been maintaining optimism that we might hold the Senate...now I am beginning to lose faith. It's time, perhaps, to follow the Brits advice: Keep calm and carry on! Also, look forward to 2016.
In conclusion, I must reiterate my gratitude for this site, both for the wonderful work on Marie's part and the inspiring and insightful comments of my fellow readers.
You can never prove this but I am personally confident that our Ebola
'crisis' is due to the simple fact that when Mr. Duncan entered the hospital the first time, the only thing anyone paid any attention to was the fact that he had no health insurance. For profit hospitals are for profit. Oh they occasionally save a life but that is just a coincidence.
And a s personal note when people ask me why I retired I tell them that I was originally under the impression that my position at a medical school had something to due with teaching, research and patient care. Not any more. Money, Money and more MONEY.
(You just developed a new diagnostic test for rare set of diseases. Who cares, they are rare so there will be no MONEY!)
"Dr. Thomas Friedan 'has become the face of the Obama administration’s flawed response to Ebola in the United States, and on Thursday he is likely to face withering questions about his record during a congressional hearing.'"
Quite. And so he should if, as it seems, the CDC protocols being touted by the good doctor were insufficiently rigorous.
But, as yet another congressional hearing is convened to paw over what the president may or may not be responsible for (I'm sure he'd be blamed for global warming if half of official Washington didn't think it was a hoax), we will be treated to more hysterics and more heat but no light.
I have no problem with grilling public officials who deserve it. We expect that those, especially in the area of public health, will be counted on to do a good job. But I'd feel a lot better about it if it wasn't about to become just another opportunity for Republicans (does anyone really believe they care about the health of the general public? Christ, they've spent the last 4 years pulling every trick in the book to deny millions of people adequate care) to grandstand and thump their chests in yet another show of simian intimidation, as they expectorate their outrage in the general direction of the White House.
And does anyone believe they'll be sitting down to try to determine a rational approach after the screaming stops?
Predictable, puerile, and feckless as ever.
@Marvin Schwalb: Josephus Weeks, Thomas Duncan's nephew, agrees with you. The op-ed piece which he wrote for the Dallas Morning News is a well-written indictment of a system in which "antibiotics and Tylenol [may be] the standard protocol for a patient without insurance.... From his botched release from the emergency room to his delayed testing and delayed treatment and the denial of experimental drugs that have been available to every other case of Ebola treated in the U.S., the hospital invited death every step of the way."
Marie
I had to look up Keith Ablow and then went back and reread Akhilleus' comment from yesterday on this guy. I remember the hoopla around designer Jenna Lyons in a J.Crew catalogue painting the toes of her young son "hot pink" and the outrage by Ablow muttering something about gender distinction being SO important in human beings and Lyons' act was encouraging that awful gay syndrome--ya da ya da... But I didn't connect that incident to the Ablow that has emerged once again as a complete looney of the first order. And this guy is a psychiatrist? although I'm sure there are loonies aplenty in that field as in others. The fact that Dr. Blowhard is swinging his dick around various and sundry and continues to spout this garbage is emblematic of a society that endures the crazy and embraces the right to speak tommyrot to their heart's content. Someone should please tell the doctor it's paper bag on head time as the Brits are wont to say. Wouldn't it be loverly if someone at Fox would be brave enough to leave the barnyard and take a chance–––fat chance? Yeah, I guess.
Is it too late to get those questioners in the Colorado debate to come to Wisconsin for tomorrow night's debate between Mary Burke and Scott Walker?
By the way, yesterday's newest Marquette poll shows the recent Walker 5-point lead, Walker's huge lead among men, and Burke's large lead among women have all vanished. In two weeks. What's up?
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-and-mary-burke-tied-among-likely-voters-marquette/article_74bddaae-f606-5a0e-875e-e21e2c1b8cf1.html
A fight over a fan? Really?
So, okay, I thought that was pretty silly--no wait--stupid, yeah, stupid, until I watched the clip Marie has embedded.
It appears the ground rules for the debate, according to one of the moderators, clearly state "No Fans". Seriously? No fans? That's in the rules? Why not no brightly colored pocket squares? No number 3 pencils? No baseball cards on one's person, unless it's a player who once played for a Florida team between the years 1998 and 2003? No mismatched socks? How 'bout no impure thoughts?
No fan? Who came up with that? It must have been someone on Scott's team. Maybe he has a fear of fans. Maybe he thinks the fan is alive and is trying to disrupt his brain waves (those tinfoil hats aren't always reliable) or has a hidden device that links Crist's mind with a bank of computers.
If Jefferson could see us now he'd probably have to rethink that bit about everyone being created equal. Some are just created stupid
And never get better.
I believe the "No Fan" thing is at the core of Republican methods. They write rules designed force other people to live the way they do and then call the other people liars and cheats for doing something that in no way affects the other party. Listen to the crowd. Someone is yelling: "Follow The Rules!!" It wasn't completely clear if the rule was "No electronic devices" (which could make sense, no information-providing device) or "No fans" but it seems clear to me that is was designed to cause discomfort to one person and one person only.
The party of "small government" is reaching way beyond the bedroom in specifying such rules. And I'll bet you big money that, somewhere, there is a Republican that is using a fan to keep himself cool during a debate.
@Nisky Guy: In addition, as Sean Sullivan points out (linked above), the Crist campaign had handwritten into the rules the Crist campaign signed, "* with understanding that the debate hosts will address any temperature issues with a fan if necessary." Since the "debate hosts" allowed Crist to debate, we have to assume they accepted Crist's caveat. I suppose it's likely Rick Scott never saw the addendum, but so what? I do hope that extreme prima donna moment is the end of Scott's "public service" career.
Marie
Speaking of doctors with god complexes who may or not keep Klan costumes in their closets, what is it with all these wingnuts with medical degrees, like this asshole Keith Ablow? I know that being a doctor is no guarantee that you're a sane person, but it didn't used to be that dumb as rocks imbeciles could graduate medical school. I'm especially curious about the raving teabagger types. How were they ever able to balance their fundamentalism with something as fact-based as, oh, science?
And this isn't a recent phenomenon either. You all may recall how that amazingly talented Senator Dr. Bill Frist was able to diagnose a comatose patient from a thousand miles away by watching a five minute videotape. Is that talent, or what?
He was never in the same room with her (Terry Schiavo), never examined her, never read her chart or looked at her history. But, at least as far as Georgius Bushus, was concerned, his opinion was much more reliable than doctors who had been treating her. According to Dr. Bill, Ms. Schiavo, who had been in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years, was getting ready to hippity-hop out of bed and do a jig, any minute now. Thanks Bill! That was some swell diagnosis.
But if you thought Dr. Bill was bad, you never met Phil Gingery or Paul Broun, both doctors, sort of, I guess, and both representatives from Georgia (sorry Barbarossa). And both as loco as the proverbial shithouse rat. Shithouse rat number one, Paul Broun believes global warming ideas come straight from the devil, and hey, the devil must know a thing or two about warm places, right? Shithouse rat number two, Phil Gingery put his estimable Hippocratic cred on the line when he rushed to rescue of Legitimate Rape Man Todd Akin and declared him to be right on the money. He's seen it, dammit!
And for fans of wingnut royalty, there's Doctor Lord Charles Boustany from Louisiana, a guy with so many successful malpractice suits against him it's a wonder he's allowed to apply a bandaid without a lawyer present. He has crippled a number of former patients (oops) but is still invited to yap about what constitutes good healthcare. The lord part involves him buying himself a British title, him being such a noble chap and all. This is true, kids, I couldn't make this shit up. He saw an ad for it in the back of a magazine and handed over $18 grand to English con artists. Oops. Again. Didn't they invent the Darwin Awards for idiots like this?
After collecting millions in "fees" from the insurance industry, Republicans thought Lord Charles was the perfect guy to respond to President Obama's 2009 speech on reforming healthcare. Of course, he had to appear in an ermine fringed robe with a crown, holding a caduceus.
And leave us not forget Doctor Scott DesJarlais from Tennessee. Doc D is a big anti-choice guy. He won't support abortion in any form, no sirree bob, not even in life threatening situations. Oh...wait...unless it's an abortion for his wife or one the patients he'd been banging on the side. They just HAD to have abortions because family values, something, something. He's also against stem cell research, because Jesus, I guess. Too bad if it could help millions. Dr. Scott is a man of science AND honor. Whaddaguy.
Psycho Ted Yoho is a doctor too. Well, a veterinarian, but who's counting? Still he's a member of the GOP Doctor's Caucus anyway, a group that came together to fight healthcare. Does that sound weird? Maybe, unless you're a Republican doctor like Ben Carson who is being touted as presidential timber, a guy who believes healthcare reform is worse than slavery. Because.....oh, who the fuck knows?
We certainly can't leave out self-certified "doctors" like Li'l Randy, who will gladly stick a sharp object in your eye on those days in between flip flops. Better not schedule that procedure while he's mid-flip. It could get messy
All in all there are over 20 Republican doctors running around Washington telling people that the best thing they can do in the case of serious illness is to die quickly. And not call their offices.
They're too busy with the crazy
Last week out here in RC land, there was some discussion about the choice of guests on the Sunday morning gasbag extravaganzas. I suppose, the first qualification, the one that keeps a lot of intelligent people off those shows, is that one be a gasbag.
But Marie wondered, rhetorically, why people like Noam Chomsky weren't ever invited on to consider the issues of the day.
In addition to the other reasons stated last week, here's a good example of what Upchuck Todd and his ilk would NOT want on their shows:
Noam Chomsky, in an interview, discusses corporate indoctrination, ISIS, education, and the media.
Oh yeah, and the infamous Powell Memorandum, in which the seeds of modern scorched earth conservativism were planted.
Upchuck would have to go to a commercial break 30 seconds into this sort of discussion, before his pointy little head exploded in an eruption of dung.
I have just learned that a patient, a researcher that was in one of the countries with Ebola outbreak, has been admitted to Yale-New Haven hospital. He presented to his regular doctor a fever and immediately, because of his travel history, the doctor notified Yale-New Haven and he was transported via the special ambulance that is equipped for this. The blood work has been sent to a lab in Mass. and we will not know the results for 24 hrs. So far the patient has remained in stable condition. Yale-New Haven appears to be one of the hospitals that geared up for this outbreak some time ago. It is not known the name of the patient nor whether he has family here, but once the diagnosis is known, if indeed it is ebola, then feathers will fly if this man has family with school age children.
PD,
Don't worry about a thing. The wingnuts are on the way!
One if by ambulance, two if by sea.
Darrell Issa is getting out the spare gavel. Investigation! IRS, Benghazi, Yale-New Haven! Call out the Whiffenpoofs. He'll need some theme music. They can sing "I Get Ebola Out of You".
Dr. Schwalb is too kind. Contraindication of antibiotics for viroses is well established in cases without other risk. Likely bad call at best and a poor-folks brushoff at worst. A good question would be the pay ladder at Presb.
@Whyte Owen, to add a few things. Most ER's these days are staffed by physicians working for an outside company. They bill so no insurance, no money. And note that the CDC reports that 23,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. Cause? Use of antibiotics in the animal farm industry and in part the overuse by doctors. Oh, and don't forget the 55,000 deaths mostly from the lack of people getting flu shots. And of course, one dead person from Ebola virus.
Whyte and Marvin,
I had to do a quick check because last I knew, antibiotics were not typically prescribed for viral infections. Both the CDC and Mayo Clinic sites state right up front that not only don't they work on viruses, but that, as Marvin points out, such use has produced some very nasty, highly resistant little buggers.
Going that route seems to run contrary to the longstanding direction "first, do no harm". Not only does it harm that particular patient, but it poses some very bad problems for everyone else.
Another reason it sucks to be poor in this country. Not only do you have privileged assholes like Paul Ryan working day and night to stick it you even more, not only do you have an entire political party arrayed against your chance of continuing to enjoy improved quality of life through the ACA, and trying to take food from your kids' mouths, if you get sick, the first thing they do is go through your pockets.
On the subject of medical practice and profit motive, I came across this earlier today and thought it interesting.
“The foundation of evidence-based research has eroded, experts say, and the trend must be reversed so patients and clinicians can make wise shared decisions about their health. Authors of a new report [from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine] highlight five major problems set against a backdrop of 'obvious corruption.'”
http://tinyurl.com/nuczscv