Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a preventive medical specialist who practices in Texas and Arizona, who has served as Adjunct Associate Professor in Family Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Assistant Professor in Family Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Medical Director for the Women’s Program at Maryview Hospital accused the government of “underplaying the risk” of the Ebola virus, and seemed to argue that flights from countries with large Ebola outbreaks should not be allowed into the US on Thursday’s broadcast of “The Laura Ingraham Show.”
Dr. Vliet said that the government is not doing everything it could to protect Americans from the virus. Speaking on the prospect of a flight ban and the contention that only individuals who are showing symptoms of the virus can transmit it, she said “viruses mutate and change, and so to say anything with 100% certainty when you are dealing with viruses that change is medically irresponsible.” And that “no one can say with 100% certainty” when someone becomes infectious, and this is the reason why European nations have halted flights from countries like Liberia.
She further wondered why the American recently diagnosed with Ebola was not stopped, asking “why wasn’t he stopped at customs, why wasn’t he screened then, why wasn’t he quarantined as they’re doing in other countries?”
Dr. Vliet also declared that President Obama is “underplaying the risk to Americans, and I think when we have evidence going back to the Reston lab accident in Virginia a couple decades ago, of potential airborne transmission, the Canadian government has said that airborne transmission was strongly suspected [we should be more cautious].”
She reported that Canadian health advisories on the virus scrubbed their mentions of the potential for airborne transmission of the virus even though the data did not change, “I printed out the Canadian public health advisory back in June. There is a statement in their report that airborne transmission was strongly suspected based upon the 2012 Canadian study with a transmission between two species [pigs and monkeys] that were not in physical contact…I just re-printed the Canadian advisory this week, lo and behold, that statement has been taken out…the medical data did not change,” she said.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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