Americans are losing confidence in the government's ability to contain the spread of Ebola, Rep. Tim Murphy said Friday afternoon, and doesn't need "another expert in politics" through the appointment of Vice President Joe Biden's former chief of staff,
Ron Klain, as the nation's Ebola czar.
Murphy, who met with several top health experts on Thursday, told Fox News'
Neil Cavuto Friday that during the hearing, "three hours of some great experts in the areas of health care, disease management, etcetra, not one of them said, 'could you please appoint a campaign worker and a political operative to govern this issue?'"
Instead, the Pennsylvania Republican said, "it would have been helpful to have someone who knows something about infectious disease, disease management, quarantines, all those issues, to help here."
The Ebola crisis is "not a political issue, but a medical issue," Murphy continued, saying he has nothing personal or political against Klain.
"This is an issue about what America needs," said Murphy. "Do we have quarantines and isolations or not? Do we restrict travel from Africa or not? Do we need more planes to bring people over who may be sick who may be American citizens? How is the military going to handle the infectious disease aspect?"
Someone like Klain, who has "zero experience in this" does nothing to add confidence to Americans, he said.
Meanwhile, Murphy said he still backs a ban on travel from West Africa into the United States and says people will be deceptive to get into the country.
There are people who would lie to get to a "top-notch U.S. hospital versus a village in Africa for treatment," and taking temperatures, such as is going on at U.S. airports, "is not adequate."
There is a 21-day period in which a person could harbor the disease, said Murphy, and that person's fever may not yet have been climbing.
The CDC standards on fevers have been "fluctuating," said Murphy, noting that Dallas nurse Amber Vinson, who flew from Cleveland to Dallas, did not have a high temperature, and Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who died in Dallas, did not have a high temperature when he left Africa.
"When the administration and others say, we wouldn't be able to get enough help into Africa where it's needed, that's total nonsense," said Murphy. "We can bring whatever military flights, cargo flights, we can do that. And I want to do that. I want to be supportive of what we need to do in Africa."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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