In light of the mistakes officials have made about Ebola, Rep. Peter King said he was concerned by the total confidence in which the medical profession was presenting the threat to Americans from the disease.
"What I think bothers me the most is this absolute certitude that the medical profession has at every step," the New York Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Monday. "It's mistake after mistake. And yet they still seem so definite. And now they're saying with absolute certitude that a travel ban from West Africa would have no impact."
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King said there had been "so many mistakes, so much arrogance," from administration officials in managing the U.S. response to Ebola, adding President Barack Obama had "cavalierly" stated a travel ban would not help contain the virus from spreading.
Advisers originally told Obama that "Ebola would never come to the United States," King explained. Then in September, Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola at a Dallas hospital after traveling to the U.S. from Liberia. Duncan died Oct. 8 from the disease.
Officials then advised "it would not be communicable," King said, yet two nurses in Dallas who treated Duncan fell ill to Ebola shortly after his death. One of the nurses said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared her to fly on a commercial airplane when she reported a slight fever, but had not yet tested positive for the disease.
The American people had "lost a lot of confidence in the CDC," King said, not because of their qualifications, but because "they make mistakes and don't acknowledge them." He said Americans would need to continue to be diligent about monitoring for Ebola, and that Obama was "ultimately responsible" for how it was handled in the U.S.
"There have been so many missteps over the last several weeks. We have to still keep our guard up. We should take every possible preventative measure and [be] constantly reassessing what we're doing," he said.
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