Vote, impeach, convict - Trumpziism must be defeated!

Cluster echo opinion letters published in the Dallas Morning News:  Calling for Country over Trumpziism!

Imprison, don't impeach

Impeachment for behavior that made him president is a ridiculous strategy when the real problem is a greedy Republican cohorts who view taxes as an infringement on their God-given inheritance and equal heath care as a socialist subsidy for the underprivileged and unfortunate. Despots who ban Muslims while pandering religious freedom can always rally their contradiction Christian base — those who preach riches, rifles and racism (did Christ prize money or weapons, or put children in cages?) while ignoring consort with prostitutes and 16 sexual assault claims.
The real crimes lie in ignoring our oil-choked planet and brain-washing blue-collar outsourcing victims to view knowledge as elite rather than the wealth-care indolent who devastate their unions and hype their $8 per hour jobs.

Imprison, don't impeach, but only after we give Americans another chance to vote for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness rather than a trust-fund tyrant who extols white supremacists as "good people."

Golder Wilson, Dallas Texas

Federal prison in Beaumont Texas
(I hope federal prison officials are clearing enough cells to hold all Trumpzi criminals)

Country over Party! Stand up for institutions
The core strength of our country is our political institutions and the Constitution. Coequal branches of government with checks and balances have been tested and are now again.

Now Congress has begun a political process, impeachment, which is historical and based firmly upon the principals of checks and balances. In order to fulfill their duty, Congress will investigate and adjudicate if the president used his power to advance his political campaign ahead of the security of an ally against Russian aggression.

Precedence holds that investigations be unhindered, and opposition to that is called obstruction.

Disregarding the oath to our Constitution is a crime, and unless Republicans stand up for those institutions, our strength will be destroyed and that crime will be unpunished.

The time has come for Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to choose their country over the president's self-interest.

From David Faidley, Plano

Wrongly loyal to Trump, not country

The possible impeachment of Donald Trump is the tragic result of having a president who has no regard for the Constitution and the Democratic process. I am saddened but not surprised by the total Trump support by the Republican members of Congress, as well as almost all members of the right wing GOP party.

The GOP of Presidents George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower no longer exists. In its place, they have created a cult of personality calling itself Republican. Driven by the white evangelical base, the former party now has devotion only to their leader, who, in their eyes, can do no wrong.

It is no wonder that they respond with anger, ridicule and condemnation to the possibility that the process may reveal the truth about the man to whom they have given their complete loyalty. To accept, without hesitation, the Trump attempts to have a foreign power help his re-election effort shows the complete absence of loyalty to our nation, our heritage and our laws by his supporters. I fear for the future of our republic.

Cecil Larry Pool, Midlothian

Existential commentary about truth - an echo essay from Texas

"....truth is an organic need.....both the most human and divine thing about us"....echo opinion published in the Dallas Morning News*

Truth needs another hero like George Orwell

Truth is a writer's first responsibility, to conquer the lie, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said.

Our need of truth is "more sacred than any other need," Simone Weil wrote. 

A compulsion, Aristotle taught, rooted in human nature, our need to hear and know the truth is ineradicable. 

It's why there are lies, because of our desire for truth.

It's why the loss of the arts and crafts of truth (the decay of literature, the demise of journalism) is a grave social problem, even existential, something more than economic, political or cultural. Because truth is an organic need, both the most human and divine thing about us.

The external threats to truth, of course, are familiar: shifting markets, the short-term logic of profit, aesthetic and moral tastes deadened by pop cultures and politicians, themselves merely instruments of profit. These are the tolls taken on our culture's guardians of truth. 

Newspapers, writers, those with public voices have been changed into something else. Most have been refitted to more lucrative business models or perished; survivors have been made into mere cashiers of influence.

Yet, there are dangers to truth that are equally deadly, and maybe more so, insofar as they go unnoticed. Not bias, but something else: it's the self-inflicted, unspoken temptation to write "sentences that sell," as Mark Thompson of The New York Times put it. 

This desire to be liked, to be hired, to be thought sufficiently "woke," is primevally serpentine, the Luciferian desire to shine. 

At the core of our cultural demise lies narcissism, that so many of us are untruthful for likes, for gigs, for ego.

Which is why we who write need a new hero to exemplify truthfulness. We need a hero who shows us how to resist those forces internal and external bidding us to betray truth. A hero like George Orwell, obscure as that may sound. 

After reading again books like 1984 and Animal Farm, I think him now something like a prophet or patron saint, a writer whom every writer should read.

This summer marks 70 years since the publication of 1984. Dorian Lynskey's fascinating new book, The Ministry of Truth, a "biography" of 1984, makes a similar appeal. He says Orwell's classic is a book "we turn to when truth is mutilated." It's a book, he says, "I urge you to read again," because it "continues to define our nightmares."

He's right. In this fake news, Russian-influenced, strangely over-screened world, and before yet another presidential campaign, we should read 1984 and Orwell's other works, because truth was his theme. Born from his experience of the Spanish Civil War, of seeing firsthand the evils of communism and totalitarianism. He saw, too, his confrères on the Left turn a blind eye as blatantly as those on the Right. It's a novel born of what he called the "nightmare feeling caused by the disappearance of objective truth."

It's the nightmare of 1984. In a world of rewritten history, suspicion and hate, the first, most mortal crime is "thoughtcrime," the crime of free thought unsanctioned by the Party. 

Everyone in the book holds everyone else in suspicion, and everyone acquiesces. "Always yell with the crowd, that's what I say. It's the only way to be safe," says the character Julia, explaining her charade as a good member of the Party. This is the moral substance of 1984, and of Orwell generally, and it's why the book's still so relevant and Orwell the sort of hero we still need.

Orwell's work underlines what's at stake. "Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death," wrote Winston, the main character, in a diary he thought private and secure. They're words fit for an epitaph, for ours. They show what we lose when we choose ideology, identity, institution, party or political loyalty over truth, especially in a world in which we're afraid we'll be ridiculed and ratioed.

Tribal civil society, fickle corporate mob morality, politics and politicians of misinformation screaming "fake news," dividing the nation to strengthen their base: This is what we've become. Certainly, it's not yet Oceania. We've not yet come to the gray darkness of Airstrip One nor to the terrors of Room 101. Yet we've come too close. The terrors of Orwell's fiction are not fiction. 

We're in danger again, because truth is in danger. And where are the writers, the reporters, the preachers of truth?

It's why those who work in words should read Orwell again. Before history is erased and common sense becomes the heresy of heresies.


*Joshua J. Whitfield is pastoral administrator for St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas. He is a former Anglican minister. He was ordained a Catholic priest through the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II in 2012. Before he became Catholic, he went to seminary in England at the College of the Resurrection. He holds degrees in theology from the University of Leeds and also Duke University. He is also the author of Pilgrim Holiness: Martyrdom as Descriptive Witness(Cascade, 2009). Whitfield is a frequent contributor to the Dallas Morning News.

Vice President Pence must hear the March for our Lives message

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Victim's Fund

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is located in Parkland, Florida, in the Miami, Florida metropolitan area. It is a part of the Broward County Public School district.

David Hogg, survivor of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stonman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, who has used his newfound notoriety to promote gun reform, is demanding Vice President Mike Pence to withdraw from a planned speech at an upcoming National Rifle Association (NRA) convention, The Washington Times reported.
In a tweet Sunday, Hogg encouraged others to "Demand Mike Pence cancel his speech to the NRA convention on May 4." Accompanying his post was information about a petition by MoveOn.org asking for signatures that also demanded Pence cancel his NRA speech.

The petition states the vice president's presence at the convention was "a signal to young people organizing historic actions that the NRA's extremist agenda and donations are more valuable to Mike Pence than the lives lost." 

The petition also targets other lawmakers, insisting those who oppose the NRA "must hold all politicians to basic standards of decency."

The May NRA meeting is set to take place in Dallas Texas, and is a gathering of the group's political lobbying arm and not the broader membership, the Times article states.

Ebola and public health 101 - disease outcomes follows socio economic status

Professional medical personal were asked how it is the Americans treated for the Ebola infection in the US were being cured? The response was: "The honest answer is, we're not exactly sure."

Yet, what public health officials know, because of decades of disease tracking, is that a person's socio-economic status is correlated with health outcomes.  

In other words, Americans are much higher on the socio-economic scale than most Africans. Therefore, an American's chance of recovering from the Ebola virus, when treated in the US, is greater than a person who is an African, regardless of where they are treated.  Consequently, "the honest answer is".. the right answer. Indeed, public health 101 doesn't know precisely why socio-economic status helps determine health outcome, but evidence supports the correlation.

Holly Yan reports on CNN

For a disease that kills more than half of its victims abroad, Ebola in the United States is getting snuffed out at a remarkably fast rate.

When Dr. Kent Brantly became the first U.S. patient with Ebola in August, he was hospitalized for 19 days.

On Tuesday, when nurse Amber Vinson became the most recent American patient discharged, she was hospitalized for just 14 days.

Her colleague, Nina Pham, also went home after just 14 days.

"So the question is, why did our patient recover so quickly?" said Dr. Bruce Ribner of Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where Vinson was treated."The honest answer is we're not exactly sure."

But he and other health experts have several hypotheses.

Younger patients recover faster

Vinson, 29, and Pham, 26, were among the youngest patients treated in the developed world.

"We know from a lot of data coming out Africa that younger patients do much better than patients who are older," Ribner said.

But unlike West Africa, where Ebola has killed close to 5,000 people, Americans have the advantage of better nutrition. If an infected patient getting proper care normally has a strong immune system -- and younger patients generally do -- the chance of survival goes up.

The virus was aggressively attacked

"The general dogma in our industry in July was that if patients got so ill that they required dialysis or ventilator support there was no purpose in doing those interventions because they would invariably die," Ribner said.

"I think we have changed the algorithm for how aggressive we can be in caring for patients with Ebola virus."

Of the nine Ebola patients treated at U.S. hospitals, eight have survived. And all of those released have something in common -- they were treated at one of the country's four hospitals that have been preparing for years to treat a highly infectious disease like Ebola.

The sole fatality in the United States -- Thomas Eric Duncan -- was not treated at one of those facilities. (Julie's note: What's worse, the basic rules about infectious disease triage weren't implemented at Texas Health Presbyterian, in Dallas Texas, when Mr. Duncan first presented, ie, identify, isolate and inform - others.)

Speed matters

This may seem obvious. But sometimes it's the basics -- namely, the ability to pump ample fluids through patients with severe diarrhea and vomiting -- that can mean the difference between life and death.

"The most important care of patients with Ebola is to manage their fluids and electrolytes, to make sure that they don't get dehydrated," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "And that requires some meticulous attention to detail and aggressive rehydration in many cases."

When he first arrived at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas Hospital, Duncan was sent home with antibiotics. He wasn't admitted for another three days.

Brantly, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Rick Sacra became symptomatic while they were still in Liberia -- and they had to be flown here, spurring a slight delay in treatment.

Most others were quickly tested and quarantined as soon as a low-grade fever was detected.

Transfusions may have helped

Most of the American patients received blood or plasma transfusions from other survivors. The plasma contains antibodies that could fight the virus in others.

Brantly donated plasma to at least three patients -- Pham, Sacra and NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo. All three survived.

"It's very fortunate that the three patients I've been able to donate to, they and I share the same blood type," Brantly told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

There was some controversy about why Brantly didn't give plasma to Duncan, who eventually died. But health officials said the two did not have the same blood type.

Dr. Craig Spencer, the only Ebola patient still being treated at a U.S. hospital, recently received a transfusion from Writebol, one of the first American survivors.

Experimental drugs may have helped, too (Julie's note - this is probably the least of the reasons for the improved outcomes of US patients because the drugs used were truly experimental.)

Duncan received experimental medicine six days after admission to the hospital. It was a far longer wait than four other Ebola patients treated in the United States. Those patients got experimental medicine immediately.

Experts, however, say the jury's out on the effectiveness of these drugs.

Protective wear reduces exposure

The relatively swift recoveries of Vinson and Pham might also be attributed to their personal protective equipment (PPE) they were wearing when they treated Duncan.

While some nurses at the Texas hospital reportedly complained about PPE that left their necks exposed, at least Vinson was suited up.

"She was wearing personal protective equipment during the care of her patient in Dallas, and therefore it is quite likely that the amount of virus she was exposed to was substantially less than what we see in patients who get infected in less developed countries," Ribner said.

"And we also know that the higher the viral load that you get infected with, the more severe your disease is likely to be."

Excellent 60 Minutes Segment on Ebola from the nurses who cared

"And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there."

(I was particularly  appreciative of how these nurses revealed the intensity  of the personal care they provided to the deceased Ebola patient Mr. Duncan.)

Thank you to the heroic nurses who did all they could to save the life of Ebola patient Mr. Duncan, at Texas Presbyterian in Dallas Texas.  This 60 Minutes segment, with interview led by Scott Pelley, demonstrates the unlimited compassion and competence of the heroic nurses who valiantly tried to save Mr. Duncan's life but, sadly, the virus was already too advanced for him to recover.  

Nurses who cared for Ebola patient Mr. Duncan at Texas Presbyterian in Dallas Texas

Treating Ebola: Inside the first U.S. diagnosis

The medical staff who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., tell the inside story to Scott Pelley.

The following is a script of "Treating Ebola" which aired on Oct. 26, 2014. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Patricia Shevlin and Gabrielle Schonder, producers.

You've heard a lot about the Dallas hospital that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in America. But you've never heard what actually happened from the people who fought for his life at the risk of their own. You're about to meet four nurses who treated Duncan from the time he came into the emergency room, to the moment that he died. The staff had been blindsided by a biomedical emergency that burst into their ER like a wildfire. Contrary to reports that the hospital bungled the response, the story the nurses tell sounds more like a heroic effort to stop an outbreak. 

On September 28, Duncan was rushed by ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. He was isolated in a separate section of the ER and nurse Sidia Rose, starting the night shift, was briefed on the special precautions required for what they now suspected was a case of Ebola.

Sidia Rose: I went over and met with a nurse who gave me a report. She also went over the protective gear that we would be wearing that night. She gave, you know, finished briefing me on what was going to happen, and I literally burst out in tears.

Scott Pelley: Why?

Sidia Rose: It's very scary. I know about Ebola, and the only reason I do, it's because I've been just researching it on my own. Since January, I kept hearing the word popping up in the news. And I just wanted to find out about it.

Richard Townsend: When our supervisor said that we had a potential Ebola case, I don't want to call it calamitous but there was a lot of concern, people became very vocal, understandably it's the boogie man virus.

Emergency room nurses Richard Townsend and Krista Schaefer made sure that Rose was suited up properly. As per the hospital's protocol, she worked with Duncan alone, with Townsend watching over her.
"I got myself together. I'd done what I needed to get myself prepared mentally, emotionally, and physically, and went in there and did what I was supposed to."

Scott Pelley: When you went to approach Mr. Duncan for the first time, what did you do? How did you prepare for that?

Sidia Rose: I gathered myself together. I put on my protective wear and I went in and introduced myself to him and you know just let him know that I would be the nurse helping him tonight.

Scott Pelley: What were you telling yourself?

Sidia Rose: I was very frightened. I was. But and I just dried my tears, rolled down my sleeves, so to speak, and went on about my night.

Scott Pelley: But why do you go in there? Why don't you say, "You know, this one's not for me"?

Sidia Rose: As a nurse, I understand the risk that I take every day I come to work and he's no different than any other patient that I've provided care for. So, I wasn't going to say, "No, I'm not going to care for him."

Scott Pelley: But you were risking your life to take care of this patient.

Sidia Rose: Oh, I know that. And that's why I, as frightened as I was, I didn't allow fear to paralyze me. I got myself together. I'd done what I needed to get myself prepared mentally, emotionally, and physically, and went in there and did what I was supposed to.

Though Duncan's test results wouldn't be known for two days, she was certain she was witnessing Ebola.

Nurse Sidia Rose: The first time when I went in and he vomited, I was standing in front of him, he was sitting on the commode, and there was just so much it went over the bag, it was on the walls, on the floors. I had two pairs of gloves on and shoe covers. And I had my face shield on. I didn't have two masks on at the time, I had just one. No, we didn't have any head covers. But I wiped down the walls, wiped down the floor with some bleach wipes.

Nurse Richard Townsend: He was having so much diarrhea and vomiting that he, you know, she was constantly having to give him the little bags that we have for people to vomit into.

Nurse Richard Townsend: All of that was hazardous waste and it had to be bagged and then double bagged and then put into a separate container that could then be disposed of later. Because anything that has any of his bodily fluids on it has the potential to be lethal to somebody else.

"And that's when he said to me his family had suffered a loss. That he had buried his daughter who had died in childbirth."

Eric Duncan was 42 years old, from Liberia, which is ground zero for this outbreak. Half of all the cases in the world are in Liberia. He flew to Dallas to visit family, became sick a few days later, and then made his first visit to the Dallas hospital.

It was the night of September 25 when Duncan first came into this emergency room. According to the hospital records, he had a temperature of 100.1. Over the course of the four hours or so that he was here, his temperature spiked to 103, but then it dropped back down. Again, according to the hospital records, he told the staff that he had come from Africa, but did not specify West Africa or Liberia. About three o'clock in the morning, with his symptoms not very severe, the staff decided to send him home with antibiotics.

But three days later he was back in the ER gravely ill and about as contagious as he would ever be. The virus is not transmitted though the air but physical contact with a single viral particle can cause infection. The hospital notified state health authorities immediately. And they wanted Nurse Sidia Rose to ask several urgent questions of Duncan.

Nurse Sidia Rose: I explained to him, "We are under the impression that you may have been exposed to Ebola. And I said, "Where are you from?" And he told me Liberia.

Nurse Sidia Rose: And I asked, "Have you been in contact with anyone who's been sick?

Scott Pelley: He said?

Nurse Sidia Rose: No. He said no.

State and federal health officials wanted to know if Duncan had been with anyone who had died in Liberia.

Nurse Sidia Rose: And that's when he said to me his family had suffered a loss. That he had buried his daughter who had died in childbirth.

But nurse Rose says Duncan told her it wasn't Ebola that killed his daughter. Rose told us that she reported this to the Texas Department of Health, but then Duncan denied his own story when he spoke to those officials.

Scott Pelley: What information was it that he denied to the health officials?

Sidia Rose: About his travels, about him burying his pregnant daughter who had died in childbirth. He denied that. He said that's not true.

Scott Pelley: So he wasn't honest with them.

Nurse Sidia Rose: Yeah.

"And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there."

This is nurse Richard Townsend, who dressed in the protective gear that was recommended by the CDC at the time, just as Sidia Rose did.

Scott Pelley: Was any of your skin exposed?

Sidia Rose: At that time it was just a gown that I was wearing, so yeah. Not my hands, not my legs, my face, I had my face shield on, the mask with the face shield.

Scott Pelley: So your neck was exposed?

Nurse 

Sidia Rose: Yes.

Scott Pelley: So the CDC protocols that you would've looked up the day he came into the emergency department was in your estimation deficient?

All: Yes.

On September 29, Duncan was carried from the emergency department to intensive care. Nurse Nina Pham, who was involved in the transfer, would become the first person to catch the virus in the United States.

It took 48 hours to get Duncan's positive test results. And by then the hospital, on its own, had equipped the staff with suits that allowed no skin to be exposed. It would be another three weeks before the CDC made this its new standard. Then the hospital moved out all of the patients in medical intensive care and reconfigured the 24-bed unit for just one patient. It was a strange scene for ICU nurse John Mulligan.

Nurse John Mulligan: By the time I came in, they had already received the Tyveks, the pappers. So we had the full hazmat gear that people are used to seeing.

Scott Pelley: Is this the full suit?

Nurse John Mulligan: This is the full suit, yes. There were always two of us in the room at all times. And we were designated two people to be in there. I've been in health care for nearly 20 years and I've never emptied as much trash as just from the waste of his constant diarrhea that he was having was remarkable. And we had these longer surgical type gloves on. They were taped to the Tyvek suit, full headgear with a circulator with a HEPA filter that would plug into the back. And the first time I got out of that suit, it literally looked like someone had pushed me into a swimming pool. I was drenched.

They were working 16 to 18 hour days, spending two hours at a time in Duncan's room.

Nurse John Mulligan: And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there.

Scott Pelley: You held his hand through the spacesuit?

Nurse John Mulligan: I did. He was glad someone wasn't afraid to take care of him. And we weren't.
"We asked for volunteers. Everyone volunteered."

Nurse Richard Townsend: I have nothing but respect and admiration for everyone that was involved in his care you know everyone has someone in their lives that they love and they care about. I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and my wife is pregnant. And the mortality rate for pregnant women with Ebola is, it's essentially 100 percent.

Scott Pelley: But Richard, why don't you go to the administration and say, "You know, I'm sorry. But my wife is pregnant."

Nurse Richard Townsend: People were allowed to request not to be tasked with his care.

Nurse Krista Schaefer: We asked for volunteers. Everyone volunteered.

Scott Pelley: Everyone was a volunteer, everyone that was there wanted to be there?

Krista Schaefer: Every person, housekeeping, respiratory, physicians, nurses.

But despite all the volunteers Duncan grew worse. An experimental drug wasn't helping.

John Mulligan: Early Saturday morning he had become very critically ill and was placed on a respirator.

Scott Pelley: He was intubated.

Nurse John Mulligan: He was intubated.

Scott Pelley: Tube down his throat?

Nurse Mulligan: Tube down his throat. He had a dialysis catheter placed because he was not making any urine, but he needed to. He was heavily sedated and he had tears running down his eyes, rolling down his face, not just normal watering from a sedated person. This was in the form of tears. And I grabbed a tissue and I wiped his eyes and I said, "You're going to be okay. You just get the rest that you need. Let us do the rest for you." And it wasn't 15 minutes later I couldn't find a pulse. And I lost him. And it was the worst day of my life. This man that we cared for, that fought just as hard with us, lost his fight. And his family couldn't be there. And we were the last three people to see him alive. And I was the last one to leave the room. And I held him in my arms. He was alone.
"I would have nightmares, and still do, of my co-workers being infected and not being able to get to a hospital and treatment and dying."

Scott Pelley: Sidia, you spent perhaps the most time talking with Mr. Duncan and I wonder what you think people should know about him.

Nurse Sidia Rose: He was very kind and very appreciative. Even something as simple as me just giving him cold washcloth to cool his face down because his fever wasn't breaking, even that he was grateful for. He told me thanks.

Within days of Duncan's death, nurse Nina Pham was admitted to the hospital with Ebola.

Scott Pelley: When Nina became sick, that must've sent a lightning bolt through the staff because now it's one of you.

John Mulligan: I thought someone was playing a cruel joke until I finally looked at my phone and saw the missed text messages and the voicemails and turned the news on and went, "Oh my goodness."

Then four days later, nurse Amber Vinson fell ill. Both nurses have since recovered; this is Nina Pham leaving a hospital on Friday. But many on the staff still wonder whether they could be next.

Scott Pelley: Are any of you, all of you, still self-monitoring for signs of infection?

Nurse Sidia Rose: I am.

Scott Pelley: You are? You're still within the 21-day window?

Nurse Sidia Rose: For Mr. Duncan I'm passed my 21-day period. But for Nina Pham I'm still being monitored. I've been asymptomatic. My temperature has been rock solid.

Those who contract the virus are not infectious until they actually become sick. Members of the medical staff must take their temperature now twice a day and show the reading to a state health official. But, in at least one other way, the effect of fighting this virus could linger.

Nurse John Mulligan: I would have nightmares, and still do, of my co-workers being infected and not being able to get to a hospital and treatment and dying. And so it's like any traumatic event, this too shall pass. It's just going to take a little time.

Ebola causing collateral damage especially in countries hardest hit

"People are massively dying from other diseases that are normally treatable, like malaria, or women die while giving birth because hospitals are abandoned or are full with Ebola patients. So that's a very, very destabilizing factor," he said, adding that the impact of its spread is "beyond Ebola," Peter Piot, a microbiologist and a former undersecretary general of the United Nations, "And I continue to be worried that the response to the epidemic is really running behind the virus."

Although the Ebola fear appears to be more infectious than the disease itself, the collateral damage from the deadly virus is also having a concerning impact. In the example of Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas TX, the cluster of three Ebola cases linked to one hospital has caused people to justifiably avoid using this facility. Ambulance diversions are already implemented putting a burden on other hospitals to take up the load. Now, airlines and the stock market are reacting because consumers are cautious about where the Ebola virus may erupt, impacting travel related business, In other words, a treatment for Ebola must be found very soon!

Peter Piot, a member of the team that discovered the virus in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, said he feared an "unimaginable catastrophe" if the virus became lodged in a mega-city such as Lagos, Nigeria.

"The three countries that are affected are being totally destabilized, not only in terms of people who are killed by Ebola -- their families, the orphans that now are coming up because the parents died -- but the economy has come to a standstill," Piot said Thursday, speaking from Oxford, England.

"People are massively dying from other diseases that are normally treatable, like malaria, or women die while giving birth because hospitals are abandoned or are full with Ebola patients. So that's a very, very destabilizing factor," he said, adding that the impact of its spread is "beyond Ebola."

Piot said that it is impossible to predict the number of cases. Asked about the WHO projections, he said: "10,000 per week, or 1,000, we don't really know."

At the moment, there are about 1,000," he said. "It's still expanding, that's for sure. And it probably will continue to grow until all the measures have been put in place in a more efficient way."

Piot's comments came on the same day as Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer for Texas Health Services, apologized over mistakes he says were made in the care of Thomas Duncan, a Liberian national who became the first person in the United States to die from the virus. Duncan was sent home despite saying he had a fever and that he had visited West Africa.

"Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes," Varga testified to Congress. "We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."

Writing for CNN earlier this month, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Tom Frieden said one way for the United States to prevent the disease spreading in the United States is to tackle it at the source, in West Africa.

"After all is said and done here, that is the only way to truly and completely protect the health security of America -- and the world," Frieden wrote.

Beyond the impact of the Ebola virus itself, with an apparent 50 percent mortality rate among those who are infected, the collateral damage from affected health and business systems has yet to be fully realized.

Ebola and nurses

Nina Pham, R.N. - She is a young woman who had attended Catholic schools and who lives by the most fundamental Catholic principle, one that marks her kin in spirit with true heroes of all faiths and professions. “I want to help people,” she once explained.

Nurses earn licenses supporting their title as "Registered Nurses". One of the responsibilities of carrying the R.N. title is to protect the public from harm. Therefore, kudos to Dallas Texas nurse Briana Aguirre who alerted the nation on national news about how ill prepared Texas Health Presbyterian hospital was when Mr. Thomas Eric Duncan presented in the emergency department with symptoms and travel history consistent with Ebola.  

Mr. Duncan later died of the deadly Ebola virus, in spite of heroic efforts to save his life following the error in judgement made by Texas Presbyterian to send him home after his first visit to the emergency department, where he came presenting with a fever.  

As a result of this error, Mr. Duncan returned by ambulance to the same emergency department with even more acute symptoms and exposed dozens of people to the Ebola virus.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse Briana Aguirre, who cared for her friend and co-worker Nina Pham after she tested positive for the Ebola virus, says she can no longer defend her hospital over how she claims it responded to the disease, after Thomas Eric Duncan arrived.

“I watched them violate basic principles of nursing," Aguirre told TODAY's Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview that aired Thursday. "I would try anything and everything to refuse to go there to be treated. I would feel at risk by going there. If I don’t actually have Ebola, I may contract it there," she said. 

Well, there you have it......Texas Presbyterian will probably never be able to overcome the stigma of being ground zero for three Ebola infections.  Mr. Duncan arrived with a high viral load of the Ebola virus in his blood.  As a result, his infection somehow passed through the barriers and protocols used by two nurses who treated him, causing them to become ill with the Ebola virus. Three patients from one hospital!  Ms. Aguirre is absolutely correct. 

Look at it this way, if Texas Presbyterian made three medical errors leading to the deaths of a trio of surgical patients, all in a cluster of less than two weeks, the Texas health department would be conducting a sentinel event survey....or should.  I'm pretty sure Texas Presbyterian hospital corridors resemble haunted tunnels where few patients and only a skeleton staff are holding operations together in the face of all this horrific Ebola news.

Meanwhile, nurses are now suffering as a result of being the caregivers for one Ebola patient. The Dailey Beast is reporting how Ebola nurses are as brave as soldiers.

The nurses fighting to contain Ebola at Texas Presbyterian have shown uncommon courage, even as their work puts them at the greatest risk for infection.

By comparing the work schedules of the two Texas nurses who have been diagnosed with Ebola, medical detectives have narrowed down when they were most likely infected.

Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson were both treating Thomas Duncan during the days between his Sept. 28 admission to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and the subsequent confirmation that he did indeed have Ebola.

And, according to an anonymous statement apparently issued by some of their co-workers, this was the same period of time before the hospital instituted adequate precautions.

“Our investigations increasingly suggest that the first several days before the patient was diagnosed, appear to be the highest risk period,” says Dr. Thomas Freidan, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “That was the 28th, 29th, and 30th. These two health-care workers both worked on those days and both had extensive contact with the patient when the patient had extensive production of body fluids because of vomiting and diarrhea.”

But that is still only supposition. What is uncontestable is that 26-year-old Pham and 29-year-old Vinson and all the other nurses who treated Duncan were uncommonly brave.

As an Ebola patient slips from bad to worse to dire, he can expel as many as two and a half gallons of effluvia a day. A single drop of his blood can hold nearly a half billion viral particles, some 50,000 times more than with untreated HIV—math that makes Ebola at this stage so much more contagious.

Yet the nurses kept giving their all to save Duncan, fighting to keep their patient hydrated as he geysered it back out as hyper-hazardous waste.

They did so knowing that each time they inserted a needle or cleaned him or simply adjusted him in the bed they risked sharing his fate. His very skin would have had high levels of Ebola.

The specter of this virus fills some of our most stalwart souls with unreasoning dread even when it is no immediate threat. Soldiers of the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, who have faced IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, say they are more apprehensive about being deployed to Liberia. This, despite assurances that they will not be in contact with Ebola victims and therefore run minimal risk of infection. They can only be grateful to be equipped and trained with full body hazmat suits complete with hooded face masks.

Too bad the courageous nurses in Texas were not similarly trained and equipped before Liberia and Ebola came to them in the person of Duncan. They did the best they were able to do with what they had and what they knew as this Texas hospital was suddenly on the frontline of the war against Ebola.

The threat of this virus to the general public may have been exaggerated. But the dangers faced by those who work with its victims has not been fully appreciated even by some hospital administrators. Nobody is more heroic than Ebola nurses; not soldiers, not cops, not firefighters.

And none of the nurses was more meticulous or caring than 26-year-old Pham. She once told a friend that she asks herself a question when treating a patient.

“What would I do if this was my mom, dad, or grandparent?”

Not even the most careful care could stop the virus and all the nurses’ efforts ended in Duncan suffering a harrowing death. The nurses were then left to worry if they had themselves become infected. They were told to continue to monitor themselves for symptoms and take their temperature twice a day for 21 days.

On Oct. 10, two days after Duncan’s death, Pham saw that she had a low-grade fever. She immediately drove herself to the hospital, placing nobody at risk.

By several accounts, Pham remained her usual buoyant self as she began her own struggle with Ebola in the same facility where her patient had just died. She is a young woman who had attended Catholic schools and who lives by the most fundamental Catholic principle, one that marks her kin in spirit with true heroes of all faiths and professions.

“I want to help people,” she once explained.

She now issued a public statement, but she did not join the complaints about the hospital that other nurses had lodged anonymously.

“I’m doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers,” she said. “I am blessed by the support of family and friends and am blessed to be cared for by the best team of doctors and nurses in the world.”

Everybody was hoping that she was not just in a stage during the first few days when some Ebola patients seem hardly ill, but then suddenly crash. She received a transfusion as well as a dash of hope from Dr. Kent Brantly, an Ebola survivor who had himself received a transfusion from a teenage survivor when he was battling the virus in Liberia.

The continuing mystery was how the meticulous and careful Pham had become infected. The CDC initially suggested that she had somehow broken protocol, but quickly reconsidered when it became clear that an appropriate protocol had not been established at the outset. There was also the question of inadequate protective gear and insufficient instruction.

But there was still no clear answer as to exactly how Pham had gotten ill. And this meant that the nurses who now cared for her had no way of being sure they were safe. They still did not hesitate to do all they could. And the CDC team that arrived to ensure they were properly trained and equipped found them in no need of moxie and dedication.

“They’re all tired. They’re stressed because they all think ‘Maybe I’m the next one,’” Dr. Pierre Rollin of the CDC told a Dallas TV station. “But they’re all willing to work. They’re all volunteers. They’re not forced to come to help; they want to do it.”

The weekend following Duncan’s death, Vinson visited her mother and her fiancé in Ohio to plan her wedding. She took her temperature on Monday and noted it was slightly elevated to 99.5, just under the threshold for worry.

She went ahead and flew on Frontier Flight 1143 from Cleveland back to Dallas. The CDC would later suggest that she should not have boarded a commercial plane at all until 21 days past her last exposure to Duncan. But she reportedly called the CDC before she flew and was given an OK because the fever so close to normal and she posed no threat unless she was showing symptoms. And it should not be forgotten that the CDC had vetted a video message by President Obama last week that a person “cannot get Ebola through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.”

On Tuesday, Vinson saw that her temperature had risen above 100. She was soon after at the hospital with Pham. Dallas County Judge Clay Jackson praised Vinson’s “grit, grace, and determination.”

“Like Nina Pham, she is a heroic person—a person who has dedicated her life to helping others,” he told a press conference.

The CDC reported that even though the risk was minimal for those who had been aboard the plane with Vinson, it was tracking down the passengers and crew out of an abundance of caution.

“We think there is an extremely low likelihood that anyone who traveled on this plane would have been exposed, but we’re putting into place extra margins of safety and that’s why we’re contacting everyone who was on that flight,” Frieden said.

Pham remained at the Texas hospital as preparations were made to transfer Vinson to Emory Hospital in Georgia, which has a highly regarded infectious-disease facility that successfully treated Brantly.

Vinson was rolled out in a wheelchair wearing a full body hazmat suit. Such gear might have protected her from being infected in the first place during those initial days when she and Pham and the others selflessly fought to save Duncan.

Now Pham and Vinson have Ebola and are in the care of nurses as brave as themselves.

Ebola Map - West African countries are the ground zero points for the deadly virus where it must be eradicated

Pink on the West Africa map indicates a few Ebola cases confirmed; darker colors are 300 or more confirmed cases and deep rose is high number of confirmed virus infected patients. The problem with this map is that the numbers of reported confirmed cases aren't completely accurate......the actual numbers are higher than what's reported. Developing countries do not have access to accurate data collection processes, and the numbers are corrupted by skewed or biased public officials.

Ebola news is consuming our attention. One mortality and another infection is now reported in Texas. But, thousands are infected in Western Africa with a rate of 50 percent mortality associated with those who are infected with the virus.

To rid the world of Ebola requires eliminating the source of the virus and the method of transmission where it is endemic, in Africa. Only two people, so far, have presented with Ebola in Texas. One of the two is 26-year-old Nina Pham, a caregiver of Mr. Duncan's, who died from the virus infection at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Obviously, the fiscal toll of the two Dallas illnesses are taking a huge toll on the community. Someone is paying for the decontamination of the contaminated isolation areas, the incineration of the equipment used to treat the Ebola patients, not to mention the lost revenues associated with diversions of patients away from Texas Presbyterian, until the Ebola risk is eliminated. Resources used to prevent Ebola from spreading in Dallas are necessary but disproportionate to the small numbers who are at risk for becoming sick with the virus.

To prevent further exacerbation of Ebola in Texas or elsewhere, the source of the virus must, obviously, be eliminated. Unfortunately, destroying the source of Ebola is difficult because it's not clear where the virus originated. If the DNA of the virus can be identified, it will help to locate the source and destroy its growth.

Destroying Ebola in Africa by eradicating any potential for transmission of the virus will be millions of dollars cheaper than trying to prevent a few people in Texas from becoming ill. Nevertheless, Texas must do whatever it takes to prevent Ebola from spreading, while the world must provide the resources to stop the virus from infecting any more people in Africa.  And soon.

John F. Kennedy Today

As horribly gruesome as President Kennedy's assassination continues to be to watch, in fact, his legacy is one of optimism. America lost a symbol of all that's possible when President Kennedy was murdered, right before our eyes, in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. He was brutally gunned down, killed by a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald, whose motivation is still unknown. 

In spite of decades of stories written by historians, pundits and skeptics who attempt to recreate President Kennedy's administration, the fact is, his youthful optimism prevails today, but we must rekindle it's power.

Nevertheless, tragically, the horror of his death continues to reverberate as though the event were happening all over again, especially today, 50 years since the fateful day in Dallas Texas.

Yet, Kennedy's charisma transcends historic attempts to reinvent any facts about his short 3 year administration.

Americans might use this half century reminder of his assassination as a rallying point to return to the optimism Kennedy inspired.

Optimism is driven by people who are optimistic. President Kennedy, with his young and stunningly beautiful family, embodied the optimism of Americans born of immigrants.They believed in the American dream, a nation where the streets were paved with the promise of gold. Kennedy embodies that optimism.

This optimism was frozen in time when President Kennedy was murdered. Moreover, any attempt to revive the administration's Camelot dream, conceptualized by Jacqueline Kennedy, was walloped by a decade of unbelievable civil unrest. Subsequent assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were more surreal than doomsday prophesies.  

Obviously, it's impossible to know if President Kennedy's legendary "Camelot" would have continued, had he and his murdered colleagues had lived. 

What we know for sure is how Kennedy inspired people to believe in what was possible, including putting a man on the moon by the end of the '60's decade. Americans put men on the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was a challenge.We were inspired to achieve all that was and would be possible, because President Kennedy allowed us to believe we could be all we were inspired to be.

How does President Kennedy continue to inspire us a half century after his murder? He inspires us with words that matter. His quotes are so relevant and fresh, it's like they were written for us today. 

This some of what he said:

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came."

"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."

"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Although John F. Kennedy will never again be with us, his words will never, ever, leave us. Perhaps his most memorable inauguration quote should be attached to every oath taken by our nation's political leaders. When they raise their right hand they should repeat:

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".....so help me God. 

And that's how John F. Kennedy will continue to inspire optimism and confidence for  our nation today and in the future.