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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Betsy McCaughey
Aired April 20, 2003 - 10:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Here in the U.S., some 220 cases of SARS have been reported, and some experts say the U.S. is not doing enough to stem the spread of the deadly disease. Betsy McCaughey agreed. He is a scholar with the Hudson Institute with the specialty in infectious diseases, and she also is the former lieutenant governor of New York. Good to see you, Ms. McCaughey.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: All right. Well, what should the U.S. be doing that it's not doing?
MCCAUGHEY: Well, public health officials should be isolating those who have possibly been exposed to SARS, keeping them apart from those who have not been exposed. That's the principal of controlling an epidemic. Canada and other nations are doing that. The United States is not. For example in Canada, when a school child appeared to have SARS, Canadian health officials closed the school. In Florida, when a 6-year-old boy appeared to have SARS, public health officials told his parents to keep him home, but advised other parents to continue to send their children to that school, even to his class.
WHITFIELD: Except, Ms. McCaughey, there's already been criticism that not even Canada seemed to have handled all their cases correctly. There was a group of about 500 people who apparently should have been quarantined and they weren't until after at least a week elapsed. So it doesn't seem like anyone seems to be doing it right, if you listen to a number of critics.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, all the countries seem to be playing catch up, but unfortunately, the United States is behind many others, including Canada and Thailand.
British schools have announced that any students vacationing in the high-risk areas in the Far East must be quarantined for 10 days before returning to class, when they return to Great Britain.
WHITFIELD: In China, which is where this SARS is believed to have originated, already we see the mayor and at least the top-ranking health official have been fired because of their mishandling of the cases there, and it's believed that there just might be a number more cases than had been reported out of China. How concerned should the American medical community be that perhaps there has been a lapse in any kind of a serious addressing of this issue in China, if that's where it originated? MCCAUGHEY: Well, Americans should be more concerned about what's happening right here at home. No one knows the extent of the SARS threat, but one thing is certain: This is an opportunity, a dress rehearsal to fight bioterrorism. So United States health officials should be testing our ability to quarantine the possibly exposed and snuff out the epidemic. This is not a time to be lax. For example, the United States government should be prohibiting Americans from traveling to those high-risk areas, such as Hong Kong and the rest of China, and Hanoi, and Singapore, and prohibit visitors.
WHITFIELD: There have at least been warnings to people that they are being discouraged from traveling to Southeast Asia. You're saying they should be prohibited altogether, not allowed to board a flight?
MCCAUGHEY: That's right. We should consider a temporary travel ban to and from those areas and require that people re-entering the United States after being in those areas should be quarantined to see whether, in fact, symptoms appear.
Here is the risk, that a person who is infected gets on a plane in Hong Kong feeling fine, gets off the plane 24 hours later in North America, still feeling fine, and infects a number of people before experiencing symptoms two weeks later or more and landing in the hospital. The incubation period between an infection and the appearance of symptoms can be as long as 16 days.
WHITFIELD: Well, since there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that right now, because that would be perhaps a plan in the making, what about those who have traveled, if you're talking about that incubation period, those people who are already in the United States who perhaps have gotten right off the planes and gone to their homes or gone to schools, et cetera. How do you police, or how do you try to find some of those folks to find out if they indeed are subject to this incubation period, if they've been exposed to SARS in their travels?
MCCAUGHEY: Well, they know who they are. Canadian officials, for example, are urging everyone who may have been exposed to stay home, to avoid going to church on Easter, to avoid family gatherings, to avoid going to the workplace, and by the way, many large employers are doing that.
But the point is that U.S. public health officials should be taking this risk seriously, because whether it turns out to be a large epidemic in the United States or not, it will test our ability to control future epidemics and to defend the nation against bioterrorism.
Unfortunately, public health officials seemed much more concerned with allaying fears than with fighting an epidemic, much more concerned with public relations than with public health, and this isn't the first time. As you may recall, when the first case of anthrax appeared in Florida, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said, well, this is an isolated case. The man might have gotten this disease by drinking water while he was out in the wilderness. That reassurance quickly turned out to be totally false and groundless. It should never have been stated in the first place.
WHITFIELD: All right, Betsy McCaughey, of the Hudson Institute, thank you very much for joining us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 20, 2003 - 10:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Here in the U.S., some 220 cases of SARS have been reported, and some experts say the U.S. is not doing enough to stem the spread of the deadly disease. Betsy McCaughey agreed. He is a scholar with the Hudson Institute with the specialty in infectious diseases, and she also is the former lieutenant governor of New York. Good to see you, Ms. McCaughey.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: All right. Well, what should the U.S. be doing that it's not doing?
MCCAUGHEY: Well, public health officials should be isolating those who have possibly been exposed to SARS, keeping them apart from those who have not been exposed. That's the principal of controlling an epidemic. Canada and other nations are doing that. The United States is not. For example in Canada, when a school child appeared to have SARS, Canadian health officials closed the school. In Florida, when a 6-year-old boy appeared to have SARS, public health officials told his parents to keep him home, but advised other parents to continue to send their children to that school, even to his class.
WHITFIELD: Except, Ms. McCaughey, there's already been criticism that not even Canada seemed to have handled all their cases correctly. There was a group of about 500 people who apparently should have been quarantined and they weren't until after at least a week elapsed. So it doesn't seem like anyone seems to be doing it right, if you listen to a number of critics.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, all the countries seem to be playing catch up, but unfortunately, the United States is behind many others, including Canada and Thailand.
British schools have announced that any students vacationing in the high-risk areas in the Far East must be quarantined for 10 days before returning to class, when they return to Great Britain.
WHITFIELD: In China, which is where this SARS is believed to have originated, already we see the mayor and at least the top-ranking health official have been fired because of their mishandling of the cases there, and it's believed that there just might be a number more cases than had been reported out of China. How concerned should the American medical community be that perhaps there has been a lapse in any kind of a serious addressing of this issue in China, if that's where it originated? MCCAUGHEY: Well, Americans should be more concerned about what's happening right here at home. No one knows the extent of the SARS threat, but one thing is certain: This is an opportunity, a dress rehearsal to fight bioterrorism. So United States health officials should be testing our ability to quarantine the possibly exposed and snuff out the epidemic. This is not a time to be lax. For example, the United States government should be prohibiting Americans from traveling to those high-risk areas, such as Hong Kong and the rest of China, and Hanoi, and Singapore, and prohibit visitors.
WHITFIELD: There have at least been warnings to people that they are being discouraged from traveling to Southeast Asia. You're saying they should be prohibited altogether, not allowed to board a flight?
MCCAUGHEY: That's right. We should consider a temporary travel ban to and from those areas and require that people re-entering the United States after being in those areas should be quarantined to see whether, in fact, symptoms appear.
Here is the risk, that a person who is infected gets on a plane in Hong Kong feeling fine, gets off the plane 24 hours later in North America, still feeling fine, and infects a number of people before experiencing symptoms two weeks later or more and landing in the hospital. The incubation period between an infection and the appearance of symptoms can be as long as 16 days.
WHITFIELD: Well, since there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that right now, because that would be perhaps a plan in the making, what about those who have traveled, if you're talking about that incubation period, those people who are already in the United States who perhaps have gotten right off the planes and gone to their homes or gone to schools, et cetera. How do you police, or how do you try to find some of those folks to find out if they indeed are subject to this incubation period, if they've been exposed to SARS in their travels?
MCCAUGHEY: Well, they know who they are. Canadian officials, for example, are urging everyone who may have been exposed to stay home, to avoid going to church on Easter, to avoid family gatherings, to avoid going to the workplace, and by the way, many large employers are doing that.
But the point is that U.S. public health officials should be taking this risk seriously, because whether it turns out to be a large epidemic in the United States or not, it will test our ability to control future epidemics and to defend the nation against bioterrorism.
Unfortunately, public health officials seemed much more concerned with allaying fears than with fighting an epidemic, much more concerned with public relations than with public health, and this isn't the first time. As you may recall, when the first case of anthrax appeared in Florida, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said, well, this is an isolated case. The man might have gotten this disease by drinking water while he was out in the wilderness. That reassurance quickly turned out to be totally false and groundless. It should never have been stated in the first place.
WHITFIELD: All right, Betsy McCaughey, of the Hudson Institute, thank you very much for joining us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
