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Dallas Nurse Speaking Out; Interview with Congressman Michael Burgess of Texas; Interview with Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson

Aired October 16, 2014 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The CDC is also considering putting 76 health care workers from that hospital on the TSA's no-fly list. President Obama clearing his calendar for a second straight day to remain at the White House and deal with the situation.

And later today, embattled CDC Director Thomas Frieden will have a lot of explaining to do when he appears at a hearing on Capitol Hill. Our coverage of the Ebola crisis begins with chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta live in Atlanta. What is the latest there, Sanjay?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Amber, Vinson now is in this hospital right here behind me. She was transferred here late last night. Lot of questions about what exactly happened to her over the past several days.

Here's what we found out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): This morning, the second person to contract Ebola in the United States now being treated here at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Transferred from Dallas late last night, Amber Vinson, a 29-year-old nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian, is now the second nurse to contract the disease in the country, after caring for the now deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan. Her home, cleaned by hazmat crews on Wednesday, and many now asking how did this happen?

According to the CDC, Vinson had, quote, "extensive contact with Duncan from September 28th to the 30th." That's the highest risk period, when he had extensive production of bodily fluids. Just 10 days later, within the 21-day period when symptoms manifest, Vinson flew on a Frontier Airlines flight from Dallas to Cleveland, Ohio, to plan her wedding and visit her mom.

Three days after that, this past Monday, she had an elevated fever. Her 99.5-degree temperature prompted her to call the CDC before boarding her return flight to Dallas. According to a federal official, the agency did not tell her not to board that plane.

Ninety-nine-point-five degrees does not meet the CDC's criteria for possible signs of Ebola, so, Vinson continued her travels, flying with a cabin full of 132 other passengers. Then, just one day later, she went to the hospital exhibiting Ebola

symptoms. On Tuesday, morning within 90 minutes of taking her temperature she was put into isolation, according to officials, and then, early yesterday morning, Vinson is diagnosed with Ebola.

Though the CDC says the risk is extremely low for the other passengers, the agency is reaching out as part of, quote, "extra margins of safety."

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: In the isolation --

GUPTA: CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, says this should not have happened.

FRIEDEN: She was in a group of individuals known to have exposure to Ebola. She should not have traveled on a commercial airline.

GUPTA: An official now tells CNN the CDC is considering putting the 76 health care workers from the Dallas hospital on the TSA's no fly list.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: It's quite a remarkable story over the last several days. And obviously, you hear she called about that temperature, she called the CDC. They told her not a problem, it was OK.

I do want to point out again she's in the hospital behind me, the same team that took care of Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, they're going to be taking care of her as well -- five physicians, 21 nurses, the same core team will be up there in the isolation unit now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, then, she is in very good hands.

Sanjay, thanks so much for that update.

So, in just a couple of hours, health officials go before Congress to explain what is being done to keep Ebola from spreading in the U.S. Among those testifying, a Dallas hospital chief.

He says he's deeply sorry for the mistakes made in treating Thomas Eric Duncan. This comes as one nurse who works at Texas Presbyterian is speaking out.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is live in Dallas with more.

Those nurses there seem angry, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, one nurse spoke on the "Today" show just now, on NBC, and she said they were really unprepared for Ebola really in any sense of the word prepared. They weren't prepared to know what to look for to make a diagnosis and they weren't prepared to use safety precautions to protect themselves. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANA AGUIRRE, NURSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: It was just a little chaotic scene, our infectious disease department was contacted to ask what is the protocol? And their answer was, "We don't know. We're going to have to call you back."

We never talked about Ebola and we probably should have.

MATT LAUER, NBC NEWS: You never talked about it prior to Mr. Duncan arriving?

AGUIRRE: No. We never had a discussion. They gave us an optional seminar to go to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, I spoke with a CDC physician who spent two days inside this hospital, training and advising the folks who work here. He said they were very receptive to what he had to say. He said this is a very impressive staff. He said, yes, they're anxious, yes, they're scared, but he said they are willing to take care of Ebola patients -- Alisyn, Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK, good to know. Elizabeth Cohen, thank so much.

Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, their willingness was never been in question. These people are more than willing to put themselves in harm's way. They're asking for something in return, which is to be protected. And the question is, can we do that for the people who are willing to risk their lives?

So, let's talk about it. Congressman Michael Burgess. He's a Republican from Texas, also a doctor and on the subcommittee holding that hearing we'll all be watching today.

Also with us, chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Let's talk, Congressman, thank you very much for joining us, about what we just heard from Briana Aguirre. "We never talked about this before Duncan." That's not good.

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS (R), TEXAS: No, it's not and you know, all of the discussion coming out of CDC during the month of September, even with the presidential visit there, was Ebola has not come to this country but when it does, we'll be ready or if it does we'll be ready, but now, you see that those statements were perhaps not operational or certainly overly optimistic.

And you know, it's pretty easy to focus on the hospital in Dallas. I did a conference call last night with doctors around the state. E.R. doctors in Houston voiced some of the same concerns that we're hearing on your statements this morning.

So, it is -- you know, I'd have to wonder at some point they must have done an exercise what will the first patient who arrives in one of our facilities, what will that look like? We all know that Kent Brantly came in August. There were people who were concerned about it. We do our summer town halls and people say why are we bringing an Ebola patient in this country? We should keep this out of this country.

But, actually, Dr. Brantly came in the right way, identified and in a controlled situation. It was the individual who died in the Nigerian airport a couple days before Dr. Brantly came, that individual could have gotten on the plane. We could have patients two months before Mr. Duncan arrived at Presbyterian.

So, this has been a risk out there and known.

CUOMO: Right.

BURGESS: So, what was the planning? What was the preparation? What will that day look like when the first patient walks into one of our ERs and says "I'm sick"?

CUOMO: Right. We now know the answer to that in terms of Texas Presbyterian and from that nurse, the answer is, we never talked about it. And their reaction as we now know was bad from jump, from the man that walked into the ER.

I know you support the hospital. I get that.

BURGESS: No, that's not the question. The question is the individual from Nigeria showed us that that was an eminent possibility even before Dr. Brantly that Dr. Brantly came in, was handled the right way.

I told Wolf Blitzer on Monday on your show, I thought these patients need to be handled in center. Sure, every hospital needs to be prepared to make the diagnosis. Every hospital needs to be prepared to isolate and stabilize. But once that happens, you have specialized centers across the country where these patients should be moved, just as Ms. Vinson was moved last night.

Look, a researcher that wants to study Ebola, they can't just go to a regular lab and work on Ebola. They've got to go to one of the special bio labs, and that is because that is where they have the specialized equipment, the space suits, everything that is necessary to protect the researcher from the virus that they're studying. The same should be true in our hospitals.

CUOMO: Right. The question is, though, why does that have to be true? The original plan, Congressman, was that big centers like Texas Presbyterian should be ready. They weren't ready. They came out and apologized and said, we didn't handle Duncan right when we first had him in the E.R. The apology needed to go far beyond that because they just never got it right for these nurses and that's a big reason why Vinson was transported, it's not because the plan is to transport patients, is that they couldn't get it done at Texas Presbyterian. And I think we have to be honest about that so we can learn. Don't

you agree?

BURGESS: Well, certainly, we need to learn from the experience. And the learning curve at Presbyterian has been pretty steep and certainly, the personnel there I'm sure will relate that if -- when they're interviewed.

But the fact of the matter is that you could see this coming over the horizon. You know, I'll fault the federal agency. I'll fault the Congress. But, you know, the thing that is missing in this whole equation right now is there's no general in this fight. There needs to be someone who is in charge and directing the battle, because this is a formidable enemy against which we are fighting and right now, it does not seem that there's anyone in charge, and that is troublesome.

CUOMO: Right.

BURGESS: Why -- you know, Dr. Frieden, I've got every respect for the man. He's one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever talked with, but when he said two days ago that we should have sent our best team to Dallas at the start, I thought -- I thought your best team was in Dallas at the start.

CUOMO: But it's complicated.

BURGESS: What were you holding back?

CUOMO: That part's complicated because you've given so much power to the states that the CDC doesn't just easily tell them what to do. That's complicated, Congressman.

BURGESS: I beg to differ because Dr. Lakey has been there on the scene from the get-go.

CUOMO: I know. But they don't have the authority that you're assuming they have. You know that.

BURGESS: Well, I don't think they've lacked for any authority. I mean, the county judge has given authority. There is authority in the pandemic plan that came forward in 2005 --

CUOMO: Right.

BURGESS: -- and was amended in July to include Ebola.

So, the public health authority to take the measures like they've taken to put people on the no fly list, that has existed. It's not that Congress came back and passed another law that said they could do that. They have that authority. It needs to be exercised, but it can't be exercised unless someone is in charge making the decisions.

CUOMO: Understood, Congressman. Fair point.

So, let me come to you, Sanjay, and let's talk about the CDC. She calls them on the phone, Amber Vinson. She goes, I have a low

grade fever, I treated Duncan, I don't know, what should I do? They say, it's OK, fly. Bad decision.

But then, it's what happens next that I think matters more and here's why -- they swing the pendulum all the other way, Sanjay. Everyone on that plane, you know, even more than that, we have to reach out to all of you. We're going to put the 75 or how many people were around Duncan on a no fly list.

You know how tough that is, Sanjay. It seems the reaction to the bad decision was worse than the original bad decision. Am I wrong?

GUPTA: Well, the first one was a bad decision, and the second thing that happened probably was in part how it should have been in the first place. It seems like an overreaction because you're comparing it to what already happened with Amber Vinson. But Chris, remember, Dr. Frieden came out afterward, after the CDC had already said yes to allowing her to fly. He came out later on and said, actually, she would have fallen into a controlled movement category.

These are people who are being monitored, they can fly, only charter though, they can get in a car and drive, but they can't get on commercial airlines. That was what Dr. Frieden said, that was the guideline already on the books, that was what should have been implemented, not only should she not have flown from Cleveland back to Dallas, she shouldn't have taken the first flight as well.

CUOMO: Right.

GUPTA: So, the misstep was clearly around her.

CUOMO: It goes to why people are nervous, Sanjay. I know you know this so well and you've been very helpful for us as a guide. But it's not that they're afraid of Ebola. People get it, basically. It's that they keep hearing such mixed things and it makes them scared. We'll keep talking about this.

Sanjay, thank you very much for being with us.

And you, too, Congressman Burgess. We know you're going to be there today. We look forward to the hearing. We know that you're going to be looking for accountability. Appreciate you being with us this morning.

BURGESS: Great, thank you.

CUOMO: Right? I mean, the reason that you and I would be afraid is because of what we keep hearing. It doesn't seem consistent. She was allowed to fly and they kind of round everybody up after that. Who do we believe? Who is really understanding what's going on here?

Now, we've heard from this nurse. The nurse comes forward and you're going to hear from her again in a minute. She's the first who worked inside the hospital to speak out, OK? She's going to be talking to Anderson Cooper tonight on "AC360", so you're going to want to watch that, and she'll join us tomorrow morning here on NEW DAY to follow up with it.

But, again, she says they never talked about this, Michaela, until Duncan came into the E.R, they never prepared, zero.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And that's the thing, everybody thinks that, you know, the media is finger pointing. We want to get to the bottom of it to prevent further points of contact, further vulnerabilities.

Right now, though, we're going to turn to our headlines. We'll get back to our top story in a minute.

We turn to Hong Kong. Chief executive officer there says he's ready for pro-democracy talks with demonstrators as early as next week. This as a rash of new clashes broke out overnight. You can see this in your screen, between police and protesters. Police using pepper spray to try to push those crowds back. The crowds are trying to occupy a road outside government headquarters.

U.S. and European leaders are optimistic about dealing, making a deal rather with Iran about its nuclear program before Thanksgiving. The State Department official says there still is a lot to hammer out, but yet, there's no move to extend the deadline beyond the 24th of November. The goal is for Iran to scale back its nuclear activities in exchange for the West lifting sanctions.

Quite a bizarre night even by Florida politics standards. A debate between Governor Rick Scott and Democratic challenger Charlie Crist was delayed by like seven minutes out of a fan, an electrical fan, you can see the culprit there, small fan beneath Crist podium. That caused Scott to lose his cool. The governor refused to come on stage accusing Crist of breaking the rules. The governor finally relented, the debate continued on with the fan, the next debate is between Scott and Christ scheduled for CNN here Tuesday night 7:00 Eastern.

Police in Calhoun County, Iowa, threw down spike strips to stop a speeding car, pulled out their guns, ordered the couple inside to the ground but quickly realized why the driver was going way over the speed limit, his wife was in labor.

There she is. Their daughter was born in the hospital, everyone is just fine. The mom said they did try to call 911 before they were stopped, but the dispatcher probably couldn't understand what she was saying through the screams. Ten-pound Hazel was born an hour after they arrived.

CAMEROTA: No wonder she was screaming.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: No ticket?

PEREIRA: Well, right now, they're working those details out. Of course, you know, the police are like well it's best to call ahead. Well, you could imagine -- although they have four other kids so they've been through this. I don't know that they've delivered quite like that.

CAMEROTA: It's very hard to get on the ground if you're nine months pregnant and to get back up again.

CUOMO: Ten-pound baby, that's old school.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

CUOMO: You remember those.

PEREIRA: Once in a while.

CUOMO: I was a 10-pound baby. What's your move when you get stopped by the cops? What is your plea for mercy? What do you use?

PEREIRA: I give them what they ask for.

CUOMO: Oh, you don't give them the dough eyes?

PEREIRA: I don't, because I know -- doing what we do -- I don't know. No, no, no. No dough eyes. I only give those to you, dear.

CUOMO: Everybody likes you, Michaela. I know that you've put on --

CAMEROTA: You've never gotten a ticket. We know that.

CUOMO: What's yours Cameronis?

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I put on a CNN baseball cap and say, "Yes, officer, can I help you?"

CUOMO: I look at him and say, I'm Governor Andrew Cuomo and if you give me this ticket --

CAMEROTA: That would work.

CUOMO: It's never worked once.

CAMEROTA: That is a good one.

All right. Meanwhile, two nurses infected with Ebola at once, are hospitals prepared to take on the deadly disease and did the CDC drop the ball? We will talk to former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to get his take on what went wrong.

CUOMO: Plus, President Obama is now doubling down on the fight against Ebola. Why? It's really something to be that concerned about? Were they late on this? Is he now getting too far ahead?

Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will weigh in on that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Welcome back to NEW DAY. This morning, the second nurse to contract Ebola in Texas is undergoing treatment at Emory University. This as health care workers at Texas Presbyterian may be walking out over concerns they are not adequately protected.

Meanwhile, the CDC chief is preparing to address Ebola concerns before Congress today. But are spending cuts in Washington partly to blame for this patchy Ebola response?

Let's ask Tommy Thompson. He's a former health and human services secretary and former governor of Wisconsin. He joins us now.

Good morning, Secretary.

TOMMY THOMPSON, FORMER HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well.

It sure seems as though the CDC dropped the ball. It seems they were the weak link here in terms of exposures. Is that how you read the situation in Dallas?

THOMPSON: I think it's awfully easy to point fingers. This is a very complex disease and Tom Frieden is a very outstanding doctor and I think a lot of -- you can always point fingers, but the truth of the matter is Tom Frieden is also indicated that they have made some mistakes.

Now, we have to learn from our mistakes. I can remember back when I took over as secretary of health and human services, the public health infrastructure in the United States was at an all-time low, and because of 9/11, because of bipartisanship in Congress, we were able to increase the budget 1,100 percent. We went from $300 million to almost $15 billion in the four years while I was secretary of health and human services, and we put $4 billion into the infrastructure for local hospitals and state health departments and local health departments.

This has to be a coordinated effort from CDC, department of health and human services, down to the state health departments and the local hospitals. I think Tom Frieden said they made a mistake. They've got to learn from those mistakes and make sure they get the information.

The educational stuff to the hospital, to the nurses, to the doctors, and also to individuals.

CAMEROTA: Well, the nurses say that they did not get the proper preparedness training. In fact, one nurse just this morning has gone public. She was on the "Today" show. Let me play for you what she says went wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANA AGUIRRE, NURSE, TEXAS HEALTH PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: It was just a little chaotic scene. Our infectious disease department was contacted to ask, what is the protocol? And their answer was, "We don't know, we'll have to call you back." We never talked about Ebola and we probably should have.

MATT LAUER, NBC NEWS: You never talked about it prior to Mr. Duncan arriving?

AGUIRRE: No. We never had a discussion. They gave us an optional seminar to go to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: An optional seminar, Secretary Thompson. That does not seem to go far enough and I hear you about not pointing fingers. That makes sense. We don't want to play the blame game.

But it just seems as though the CDC did not live up to what it says in its own mission statement on its Web site it says that one of their top tenets is to train the public health workforce to combat these diseases.

THOMPSON: True.

CAMEROTA: So, why didn't they do that?

THOMPSON: They should have done that, and I think they've acknowledged that, and they're going to do better in the future.

I can remember back when we started with SARS and anthrax. Every single day we had -- through my command center in Health and Human Services, we had daily communications from CDC, from the World Health Organization, we put a command center over at the World Health Organization, NIH. Every single day we had that, giving out information. We distributed information to the public on a daily basis.

CDC should get back to that and continue to do so. They have to be able to -- as soon as somebody comes out with any kind of infectious virus like Ebola, they should have a command center, and also a team from CDC go directly to that hospital. There should have been individuals from CDC send out immediately to Presbyterian hospital to talk to the nurses and set up the protocols within that hospital, and I think they would have been able to avoid a lot of these mistakes, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Secretary Thompson, you talked about your time at HHS, and I want to read for you, you talked about budget, what the budget was when you were there, and there is some question as to whether budget cuts now are partly to blame for this.

This is what the NIH director, Dr. Francis Collins, says about that in an interview last week. Quote, "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would have gone through clinical trials and would have been ready. We would have been a year or two ahead of where we are, which would have made all the difference."

Do you think that our public health in this country is suffering because of budget cuts at the hands of this sequestration?

THOMPSON: No, I do not, because when we took over back in 2001, the national health budget for public health infrastructure was $300 million. When we left, or when I left, it was over $4 billion. It has been able to maintain that. There has not been the increases that were there during 2001 and 2005, but the overall budget has been somewhere between $4.4 billion and $4.8 billion at NIH, dealing with these kind of subjects.

So, there has not been an increase but there has been I think a budget, I don't think you can blame this on budget cuts. We set aside money for research and that money hopefully is being well used and I'm sure it is, and we should have been able, I think, to hopefully get new vaccines out quickly and quicker than we probably have.

CAMEROTA: I'm sorry to interrupt, why don't we have a vaccine?

THOMPSON: I think, you know, like anything else, it takes time and it takes money, and I think Tony Fauci, one of the best scientists in the world, is working on through his department and NIH, Francis Collins, they're working on it. But there's a lot of infectious diseases and I don't think Ebola probably received as much scrutiny as other diseases, and maybe it's going to have to be one of those diseases like AIDS that we put more emphasis on and more dollars in the future.

But I really think they've had -- I don't think you can blame budget cuts on this problem. I think it's a lack of communication, a lack of coordination, a lack of information, and I think we're going to also have to take a look at whether or not we're going to start asking people to when they come from affected countries or the world health organization or through the United States, where have they been, who they've been involved with, and possibly take into consideration quarantining those individuals that have been involved with Ebola patients, from coming to the United States.

CAMEROTA: Secretary Tommy Thompson, thanks so much for taking time for us this morning. It was great to get your perspective on this.

THOMPSON: Thank you very much. And good luck to you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

Chris, what's coming up?

CUOMO: Well, Alisyn, there is finger-pointing going on. And, you know, if that's happening, eventually fingers will be pointed at the president. The question becomes, what about the administration? Should they be doing more to combat Ebola within our borders? Should the White House have acted sooner?

The president's former press secretary, Jay Carney, will be here breaking it down for you.

And then, later, this is the moment you've been waiting for, Christine Romans, we now have a new and even more reason to love her, such a personal history lesson you're going to get. Her fascinating journey to find her roots is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)