As I have been watching the embarrassing, and quite frankly stunningly frightening, Ebola mess unwinding this past week-this latest piece of news made me hang my head in shame. It seems that the Russians, yes that is right, the Russians are gearing up and taking Ebola seriously while the world watches us run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Vladimir Putin’s government made the proactive decision to place all West African students in the country under medical surveillance. While I understand the civil liberty issues with this-I also see the value of their government preserving the health and wellbeing of the Russian people.

While we run around in circles listening to people like Sheila Jackson Lee blame the GOP for Ebola, there are countries in Africa that have succeeded in ridding themselves of Ebola by closing their borders and observing strict quarantine procedures. Why should we not follow suit by closing our borders, actually protecting and defending them, and place a travel ban on all West African nations with reported cases of Ebola? The Administration has placed “medical surveillance teams” at strategic airports around the country to monitor arriving flights from the Ebola Zone (Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea) in an effort to assuage the fear of Americans. Well there is a problem with that plan Mr. President. You see not all patients exhibit the same symptoms with Ebola. In other words, some develop a fever and some do not. Some develop vomiting, some do not. Some experience an initial rise in temperature and then as the body loses its ability to present an immune response, the fever goes down. So, tell me again, how are the people with the temperature scanners supposed to protect us again?

Due to my marriage to a scientist I tend to turn to the experts on matters like the Ebola issue. Not the “experts” being put forward by the Administration-like our newly appointed “Ebola Czar” whose scientific knowledge is surpassed by that contained in my husbands fingernail clippings-but the true scientific experts. Virologists like author Burt Russell, who wrote the acclaimed book “The Hot Zone” and David Sanders at Purdue University. According to David Sanders present accepted dogma on Ebola transmission is being called into question by the infection of the two nurses who worked on Thomas Duncan in Texas.

“Saying that Ebola can’t get into the airway because it can’t find the receptors is patently wrong,” he said. “We know Ebola has the correct interactions with the receptors so the sort of argument they are making is fallacious.”

In other words-as Dr. Gil Mobley, microbiologist turned Ebola protestor so eloquently stated on his sign in Hartsfield Airport last week-” The CDC is lying to you”. They don’t know for certain how this current version of Ebola is transmitted and therefore they don’t really know how they can control it in modern healthcare settings. Consider that as you cast your vote in 2016.