Monday, October 6, 2014

White House meeting discussed increased entry screening, but no firm recommendations to date. Big 24 hour News topic is whether to close the borders to West African flights. I have been very vocally against this (as had Tom Frieden) since it will only isolate the West African countries and make them less able to deal with the epidemic. It could cause political instability and even government collapse. In my interviewers over the past 2 days I have said that to interviewers as good as Chris Wallace and as less experiences as Elizabeth Hasselbeck of FOX News. Two things have resulted:1) I am getting a lot of hate mail from crazy neo-Nazi types who say that we should not care about dysfunctional black Africans. In addition, bloggers are cheering me on about taking on the right wing news people about closing the borders. I do not feel that I have “taken them on”; I have just told them my opinion. Bloggers have been particularly hard on Elizabeth Hasselbeck saying she was completely over-matched in her interview with me. I did not know beforehand, but she apparently has been a star on “Survivor” and “The Voice” TV Shows. She clearly is very beautiful, and I do not think that she is stupid the way the bloggers are saying. Press appearances today: CNN New Day; Fox and Friends (Elizabeth Hasselbeck); Diane Rehm Show; MSNBC; PBS The NewsHour (Jeff Green) Seems that we (Cliff and I) have won the battle to convince people that we need to do an RCT for an Ebola Vaccine.