Thursday, September 18, 2014

Yesterday had Hearing before the House Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs (Africa) chaired by Chris Smith. On the GOP side were: Stockman, meadows, Burgess, Royce (Chair of Full Committee). On Dems side was: Bass, Cicilline, Engel, and McCollum. My co-witnesses were Nancy Lindborg (USAID), Luciana (Lu) Borio (FDA), Beth Bell (CDC). Recurring question was “Who is in charge?” Real answer is that multiple agencies/people are in charge depending whether it is health, infection control, logistics, etc. Kent Brantley again was on the second panel. Still much interest and interviews with written press and blogs over the ongoing “disagreement” between Osterholm and me on the issue of the virus mutating to respiratory spread. Ian Lipkin gave an interview on CNN agreeing with me and putting down Osterholm. Meanwhile, the House voted to give POTUS authority to arm the Syrian Free Army to fight ISIS. The situation continues to heat up with various mathematical models projecting anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 to a soon to be published CDC model that would indicate if we do not have a highly effective control program, the number of cases could reach 500,000 within several months.