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PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE TO PUBLIC 

HEALTH THREATS: HOW READY ARE WE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

NOVEMBER 19, 2014 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN R. VIN ̃ A, Chief Counsel for Homeland Security 

SUSAN B. CORBIN, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Detailee 

LARRY SMALL, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Detailee 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

DANIEL P. LIPS, Minority Director of Homeland Security 

WILLIAM H.W. MCKENNA, Minority Investigative Counsel 

GABE S. SUDDUTH, Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Coburn 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 3 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 18 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 20 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 23 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 25 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 29 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 49 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014 

Nicole Lurie, M.D., Rear Admiral, U.S. Public Health Service, and Assistant 

Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and 

Human Services ................................................................................................... 5 

Thomas Frieden, M.D., Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . 7 

R. Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security; accompanied by Kathryn Brinsfield, 

M.D., Chief Medical Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............ 9 

Nancy E. Lindborg, Assistant Administrator, U.S. Agency for International 

Development ......................................................................................................... 10 

David L. Lakey, M.D., Commissioner, Texas Department of State Health 

Services ................................................................................................................. 12 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Frieden, Thomas M.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 65 

Kerlikowske, R. Gil: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 77 

Lakey, David L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 89 

Lindborg, Nancy E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 82 

Lurie, Nicole M.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 51 

APPENDIX 

American Hospital Association statement for the record ..................................... 96 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Ms. Lurie ........................................................................................................... 102 

Mr. Frieden ....................................................................................................... 140 

Mr. Kerlikowske and Ms. Brinsfield ............................................................... 153 

Ms. Lindborg ..................................................................................................... 170 

Mr. Lakey .......................................................................................................... 180 

(1) 

PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE TO PUBLIC 

HEALTH THREATS: HOW READY ARE WE? 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, McCaskill, Baldwin, Coburn, Johnson, 

Portman, and Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. Our hearing will come to order. 

To all of our witnesses, thank you very much for being here. I 

just want to say to our staffs, both on the majority and minority 

side, a big thank you for pulling together a terrific line-up here on 

a subject that is real important to our country, I think to our 

world, and for all of you for making time to prepare for it today 

and to present today and to respond to our questions. 

Normally, when Gil is here, we would put everybody under oath, 

but—no, we do not do that, only one time, when he was here for 

his confirmation. We are very pleased with the work that you are 

doing, pleased with the work that you are all doing. 

Today, we will examine, as you know, our Nation’s response to 

the ongoing Ebola epidemic and our overall preparedness for other 

public health threats. We are very fortunate to have a great panel 

of witnesses with us today, and I want to thank each of you again 

for, not just for your presence, but for your public service at a very 

challenging time in our Nation’s history and certainly in the history of the countries in West Africa. 

Since February, the public has watched an epidemic of Ebola 

virus grip the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, and 

now Mali. To date, roughly 5,200 people in West Africa, we are 

told, are believed to have died from the Ebola virus. The actual 

number of deaths may be significantly higher. The severity and the 

scale of this outbreak has challenged the worldwide public health 

community. 

And, when I think about the tragedy that is playing out in West 

Africa and what role we should play, I am reminded of the New 

Testament, and I am reminded in particular of an answer that 

Jesus once gave when the Pharisees asked Him, ‘‘What are the two 

most important commandments?’’ And He told them what the first 
2 

one was, and then He said, ‘‘The second one is to love thy neighbor 

as thyself.’’ And the Pharisees then asked Him, ‘‘Who is my neighbor?’’ And, famously, he told them the one about the good Samaritan, and if you do not remember the story of the good Samaritan, 

it is a good one to read, be refreshed on, because the question that 

we need to ask ourselves from time to time, especially those of us 

who are privileged to serve in these positions, is who is our neighbor? And, in this case, the folks, I think, in West Africa are our 

neighbors, as well, and we are responding, I think, in a way that 

is reflective of our belief, our embrace of the Golden Rule. 

If we do not take care of our neighbors in West Africa, then we 

may see this deadly disease spread even faster across the world. 

And, that is why I believe it is vital that we, along with our international partners, continue to battle Ebola at its epicenter. 

Ebola, like all infectious diseases, knows no borders. It has even 

reached our shores. And, over the weekend, the United States 

began treating its tenth patient for Ebola, who, sadly, passed away 

on Monday. His death marks the second Ebola-related death here 

at home. 

In light of the Ebola virus epidemic, many Americans have asked 

this important question: How prepared is our Nation to handle a 

major public health threat? And, that is what we hope to help answer here at our hearing today. 

Our goal for this hearing is not to create needless confusion. 

Doing that would be counterproductive, potentially putting more 

people at risk and exacerbating the public’s understandable fear of 

this disease. Instead, I hope, I think Dr. Coburn hopes, we are able 

to find some lessons learned from our Ebola response and use them 

to inform our future responses to this disease and to others that 

could threaten our Nation and its people. 

And, while I know the disease is far from being defeated and has 

even, as I mentioned earlier, it began to spread at least in Mali, 

it is my understanding that the number of cases in Liberia has 

substantially declined, and that is welcome news, although I know 

we could see a spike in cases with little notice there. We have seen 

in Nigeria the reporting of no new outbreaks, no new cases, I think 

since the end of August, and that is very welcome news. But, we 

must continue to pay close attention to the changing dynamics in 

Africa, and we must continually reassess the scales of the response 

needed overseas and here in the United States to end this epidemic. 

Whether it is Ebola, whether it is influenza, or a disease we have 

yet to hear about, the bottom line is the same. We need to be better 

prepared. We need to be ready to respond. 

To be most effective, of course, we must have a well-coordinated 

response at the Federal, State, and local level, and I might add, 

this is not all on America. We are a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility as a world leader to respond in situations like this, but 

it is not all on us. There are other nations out there that have 

some responsibilities, and I think in a number of these countries, 

and my staff are good, they are standing up and meeting their responsibilities and that is very reassuring. 

We must also have clear guidance and protocols from the Centers 

for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and other public health 
3 

officials so that everyone knows exactly what to do and what not 

to do. We must also ensure that our State and local health and 

emergency response professionals have the training and tools they 

need to succeed. Finally, we must have a strong screening process 

in place at our ports of entry (POE) so we can better identify and 

monitor high-risk travelers. 

I also believe that a critical part of addressing any public health 

threat is the availability of antivirals, therapeutics, and other medical countermeasures (MCM). In the case of Ebola, I have been encouraged by the significant progress that we have made in the last 

few months on a vaccine for the virus as well as therapeutics to 

treat the disease, and I appreciated the opportunity to talk with 

Dr. Frieden about that just yesterday. We look forward to hearing 

about the status of these countermeasures and the plan for getting 

them quickly to people in need. 

To help meet the immediate and long-term needs of the Ebola 

epidemic, President Obama recently submitted an emergency funding request of nearly $6.2 billion, and we look forward to hearing 

more about that request, particularly in light of the changing situation on the ground in Africa. As we discuss this funding request, 

I believe we should keep in mind our moral obligation to help the 

least of these in our society. We believe that in this Committee. We 

also believe in trying to do that in a cost effective way. 

In closing, I just want to acknowledge the work of our witnesses 

and countless first responders and health professionals who are literally willing to risk their lives in order to help save people they 

do not even know. We are grateful for their courage and for their 

willingness to serve. 

And, I also want to recognize and thank the non-governmental 

organizations who are so critical in this worldwide effort to stem 

the epidemic of Ebola. 

And, with that in mind, I am going to turn it over to my 

compadre, Dr. Coburn, for any comments that he might have, and 

then we will come back to introduce the panel. Thank you. Dr. 

Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I apologize for 

being late. 

I do not have a prepared statement other than to say I want to 

thank those presenting here today. I think we are very fortunate 

where we find ourselves today, whether that is because of our lack 

of knowledge or because of our knowledge. But, I think, overall, we 

have done a fairly effective job at each level. Even though we remain vigilant and worried, we appreciate the efforts on everybody’s 

part. 

And, I really want to hear from our witnesses more than I want 

to hear us make statements that the public might want to hear. 

I want to hear the knowledge, the recommendations. I am somewhat concerned that the request may be a little bit high, but other 

than that, there are things we need to do and things that we need 

to be prepared for. 
4 

So, personally, let me thank each of you for your efforts and your 

commitment and your service and I look forward to your testimonies. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to take just a moment and introduce 

each of our witnesses. 

Our first witness is Dr. Nicole Lurie. She is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a position she has held 

since 2009. Dr. Lurie is also a Rear Admiral, out of uniform here 

today, in the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS). I love it when 

you all wear those uniforms. I am an old Navy guy, so I like to salute our admirals. 

Previously, Dr. Lurie served as a Professor of Health Policy at 

the RAND Corporation and the University of Minnesota. She has 

also served in State Government as Medical Advisor to the Commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health. Who was the 

Governor then? 

Dr. LURIE. It was Jesse Ventura. 

Chairman CARPER. Jesse Ventura? 

Dr. LURIE. Jesse Ventura. I knew Jesse Ventura well and worked 

with him a lot. 

Chairman CARPER. The only Governor I ever served with who 

wore snakeskin pants to work. [Laughter.] 

Dr. LURIE. With his pink boa, yes. 

Chairman CARPER. There you go. [Laughter.] 

Next on our panel, we have Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the Department 

of Health and Human Services. Dr. Frieden has held this position 

since 2009. Previously, he served as Commissioner of the New York 

City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from 2002 to 2009. 

He began his career at CDC in 1990 as an Epidemic Intelligence 

Service Officer. Nice to see you. Welcome. 

Next, and no stranger to this Committee, is Gil Kerlikowske, who 

heads up the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operation in 

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I was kidding him 

earlier, Tom, about how many places he has been police chief, and 

I think they include Buffalo, I want to say Seattle, and a couple 

places in Florida. Which ones? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie. 

Chairman CARPER. There you go. That is it, just four? That is a 

pretty good run. And also, as I recall, a couple of times, were you 

not the leader of the National Police Chief’s Organization a couple 

of times? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I was. 

Chairman CARPER. That is pretty good credentials. You are accompanied today by Kathryn Brinsfield, who serves as the Chief 

Medical Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. Kathryn, would you raise your hand, please? Thank you. Nice to see 

you. Dr. Brinsfield is available for questions during the hearing. In 

case Gil slips up, she will just jump in and correct him. 

Our fourth witness is Nancy Lindborg, nice to see you—Assistant 

Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflicts, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). And, in this role, she leads the efforts of more 
5 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Lurie appears in the Appendix on page 51. 

than 500 team members in the nine offices focused on crisis prevention, on the response, recovery, and transition. Before joining 

USAID, Ms. Lindborg was President of the Mercy Corps, where she 

spent 14 years with this organization. 

And our final witness, last but not least, Dr. David Lakey, who 

served as Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health 

Services (DSHS) since 2007. Dr. Lakey has served in a number of 

positions at the University of Texas Health Center, including Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Centers for 

Infectious Disease Control. 

Again, we thank you all for your service and for your testimony 

here. 

I do not want to chair this hearing today. I want Tom Coburn 

to chair it. So, I am going to pass this gavel over to him and put 

him in charge and I will try to be a good wingman. All right, Thomas, it is all yours. 

Senator COBURN. You want me to get the practice? [Laughter.] 

Chairman CARPER. You might make a comeback. [Laughter.] 

Senator COBURN [presiding]. Well, we thank you. It is very 

doubtful. [Laughter.] 

Thank you all for being here. Dr. Lurie. 

TESTIMONY OF NICOLE LURIE, M.D.,1 REAR ADMIRAL, U.S. 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, AND ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 

PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Dr. LURIE. Sure. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking 

Member Coburn, and distinguished Members of the Committee. I 

am Dr. Nicole Lurie, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and 

Response at HHS. I very much appreciate the opportunity to talk 

to you today about the actions that ASPR has taken to enhance our 

national preparedness and strengthen our resilience to public 

health threats. 

While it is absolutely essential that we continue to focus on controlling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, we also have a critical 

responsibility to protect our country from this disease. Today, I will 

highlight three areas in which ASPR’s work is critical to our domestic as well as international response. 

First, the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority (BARDA), building on its previous success in medical countermeasure development, is speeding the development, testing, and 

manufacture of Ebola vaccines and treatments. 

Second, the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), as I will call 

it, has since the beginning of this outbreak been preparing hospitals and first responders to recognize and treat patients suspected with Ebola. 

And, third, our Federal resources and responders, whether the 

National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), the Medical Reserve 

Corps (MRC), or the U.S. Public Health Service, stand ready to 

support a comprehensive response, should it be needed in the coming months. 
6 

BARDA, in coordination with other medical countermeasures 

partners, has a great track record in expanding the medical countermeasures pipeline and building needed infrastructure to do so. 

In addition to developing and procuring 12 products since Project 

BioShield’s inception over a decade ago, BARDA Centers for Innovation and Advance Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) and 

its Fill-Finish Manufacturing Network are being used to produce, 

formulate, and fill vaccines and treatments for Ebola. 

Complementing our successes in medical countermeasure development, ASPR has made great strides in U.S. health care system 

preparedness, as well. HPP investments have fostered an increased 

level of preparedness throughout communities and decreased reliance on Federal aid following many disasters. In the last several 

years, HPP awardees have demonstrated their ability to respond to 

and quickly recover from disasters, including tornadoes, floods, 

hurricanes, and the fungal meningitis from contaminated steroids. 

Through HPP, ASPR has actively engaged in Ebola preparedness 

by developing and disseminating information, guidance and checklists, and serving as a clearinghouse for lessons learned. Together 

with CDC, we have launched an aggressive outreach and education 

campaign nationally that has now reached well over 360,000 people 

through webinars and national calls, including with public health 

officials, hospital executives, front line health care workers all over 

the country, and others across the United States. 

My office, along with CDC, continues to recruit hospitals willing 

and able to provide definitive care to patients with Ebola in the 

United States. Concurrently, we are working with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) manufacturers to coordinate supply and distribution and are working with HPP-funded health care coalitions 

to collaboratively assess and share supplies across communities. 

The likelihood of an Ebola outbreak in the United States is quite 

small, but ASPR, HHS, and our interagency partners are, as you 

know, part of a coordinated whole-of-government response, a response that extends on the one hand to West Africa and on the 

other to State and local governments, to hospitals and communities 

throughout the United States. 

As is typical for other emergencies and disasters, ASPR is responsible for public health and medical services and coordinates 

Federal assistance to supplement State, local, Territorial, and Tribal resources and response to public health and medical care needs 

during emergencies. 

I would like to close with an overview of the recent emergency 

funding request from the Administration that includes $2.43 billion 

for HHS. ASPR’s request supports two major components, 

BARDA’s product development efforts and HPP’s preparedness initiatives. Specifically, funding will support development of Ebola 

vaccine and therapeutic candidates, clinical trials, and commercial 

scale manufacturing. Funding will ensure that communities will be 

able to purchase additional Personal Protective Equipment, that 

health care workers will receive additional training on patient detection, isolation, and infection control, and that we further build 

our preparedness for the future by ensuring that all States have 

facilities that can handle a serious infectious disease like Ebola. 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Frieden appears in the Appendix on page 65. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, the top priority 

of my office is protecting the health of Americans. I can assure you 

that my team, the Department, and our partners have been working and continue to work to ensure our Nation is prepared to respond to threats like Ebola. 

I thank you again for this opportunity to address these issues 

and welcome your questions. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you for your testimony. We will come 

back to you for questions after we have had everybody testify. Dr. 

Frieden. 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS FRIEDEN, M.D.,1 DIRECTOR, CENTERS 

FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Thank you very much, Chairman Carper, Ranking 

Member Dr. Coburn, Members of the Committee. We really appreciate the opportunity to share with you what is going on with Ebola 

here in the United States and in West Africa. 

At CDC, we work 24/7 to protect Americans from threats, whether those threats are naturally occurring, like Ebola, or manmade, 

like anthrax, whether they are infectious, like Ebola and other infectious diseases, or non-infectious, whether they come from this 

country or anywhere in the world. CDC’s work includes supporting 

States for preparedness and response. Also, we manage the Strategic National Stockpile and we support laboratory and epidemiologic capacity throughout the United States to detect and respond 

to threats. 

The bottom line with preparedness, as far as our experience has 

shown, is that everyday systems are critical to protect us. If we 

have a great system that is shrinkwrapped in a closet and we try 

to bring it out when there is an emergency, we are likely not to 

be able to respond as effectively as if we have an everyday system 

that can be scaled up for use on the front lines for a flexible response to a situation. 

Ebola is a real and present threat. It needs to be addressed not 

only in the United States, but most importantly, at its source. We 

cannot get the risk to Americans to zero until we control it at the 

source in Africa. 

The basics of Ebola are relatively well known, though we will always continue to learn more. Everything we have seen in four decades of fighting Ebola in Africa suggests that patients are only infectious when they are ill, and they become more and more infectious the more ill they become, and that they only infect others by 

direct contact with body fluids of someone who is ill or someone 

who has died. That means the two main ways that Ebola spreads 

are through caring, health care or in communities and families, or 

burial practices in Africa, where there may be contact with body 

fluids. 

The emergency funding request is really critical to protect Americans and to stop Ebola at the source. It is focused on speed, flexibility, and keeping the front lines first. Those, I believe, are the 

three most important principles in confronting Ebola. 
8 

In the three epicenter countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra 

Leone, we are seeing changes in the nature of the epidemic. In Liberia, we have seen now proof of principle, that it is possible to 

stop the exponential increase that we were seeing before. But, we 

are still seeing hundreds of new cases per week and we need to 

step back and remember that a year ago, even a dozen cases would 

be appropriately considered to be a major emergency. So, we are 

nowhere near out of the woods. We have much further to go. But, 

we do have proof of principle that our approach can work. 

In Sierra Leone, we are still seeing significant numbers of cases 

and possibly significant increases continuing. 

In Guinea, where the outbreak probably started, the forest region 

remains very challenging, difficult to access, difficult to get to each 

of the communities that is at risk. 

The emergency funding request for affected countries focuses on 

prevention through areas like screening and infection control, detection through laboratory and surveillance work and others, and 

response through core public health activities, such as contract 

tracing, rapid response teams, and support to ministries of health 

that will be able to respond flexibly and effectively. It is quite like 

a forest fire in the way that we have to both stop it at the source 

and protect the surrounding countries from sparks emerging and 

creating new fires. 

In Mali, our team is on the ground today helping the government 

to trace more than 400 contacts of a cluster there. 

In Cote d’Ivoire, we have been in place because we know that 

there is significant contact between two of the countries in Cote 

d’Ivoire. 

In addition, the emergency funding request addresses prevention 

through biosafety and biosecurity issues that are quite familiar to 

this Committee, more broadly; detection, which is about threequarters of the CDC request for the global health security area, so 

we have an alerting system, an alarm system, and know when 

problems are emerging; and response, through emergency operation 

centers that can stop problems before they expand broadly. 

Within the United States component of the CDC ask in the emergency funding request, we would not only stop it at the source and 

deal with border protections, which we have worked very closely 

with CBP on, but strengthen State and local health departments, 

strengthen hospitals so that they will be better able to identify possible cases of Ebola, better able to prevent the spread of Ebola and 

other infectious diseases in health care facilities, and better able to 

respond, so that we can stop it at the source. 

In conclusion, we are able to stop Ebola, we were able by surging 

rapidly to Nigeria to work with Nigerians to end a cluster there. 

But, we cannot let our guard down. We have much further to go 

than we have already come and we will not be able to fully protect 

Americans until we control the threat at the source. We have to be 

there until the last spark is extinguished. We have to strengthen 

our systems here to protect health care workers and the public. 

And, we have to build the basic warning and preparedness systems 

in other countries so that we do not face this type of problem again, 

because the vulnerability of any other country is potentially our 

own vulnerability, as well. 
9 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Kerlikowske appears in the Appendix on page 77. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. Mr. Kerlikowske. 

TESTIMONY OF R. GIL KERLIKOWSKE,1 COMMISSIONER, U.S. 

CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY; ACCOMPANIED BY KATHRYN 

BRINSFIELD, M.D., CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Dr. 

Coburn, distinguished Members of the Committee, thanks for the 

opportunity to discuss the efforts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection as part of the whole of government response to the Ebola 

virus outbreak in West Africa. CBP, in carrying out our mission to 

secure and facilitate international travel to the United States, has 

an important role in minimizing the introduction and spread of 

communicable diseases such as Ebola. 

As you know, CBP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are conducting enhanced Ebola screening at five U.S. airports, Kennedy, O’Hare, Dulles, Atlanta, and Newark, which have 

been designated for the arrival of all passengers who have recently 

traveled through or from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and as of 

Monday, Mali. CBP utilizes advance passenger information to identify the travelers, and we work with the airlines to reroute them, 

when necessary, to one of those five designated airports. I have visited each of the airports. I have met with our front-line personnel 

who are conducting that enhanced Ebola screening. 

CBP and CDC have worked closely on communicable disease outbreaks in the past—H1N1, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 

(SARS), the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). We have 

developed policies, procedures, protocols to identify and respond to 

travelers who may present a threat to public health. For example, 

CDC or other appropriate medical authority provides a ‘‘Do Not 

Board’’ order to CBP for individuals who are considered to be infected with a highly contagious disease and should be prevented 

from traveling to the United States on commercial aircraft. 

Upon arrival at an airport designated for enhanced Ebola screening, identified travelers complete a health questionnaire. They provide contact information. They have their temperature checked. 

And, if there is a reason to believe that a traveler has been exposed 

to Ebola because of overt symptoms, a positive response to the targeted questions, or an elevated temperature, we refer that person 

to CDC immediately for evaluation on scene at that airport. All 

travelers who undergo enhanced Ebola screening are provided with 

information and instructions, and should he or she develop symptoms or have a possible concern of infection. 

While the vast majority of travelers who have traveled from or 

through an affected country will arrive at one of the designated airports, all U.S. ports of entry, land, air, and sea, are prepared to 

conduct enhanced screening. In addition to the standard procedure 

of visually screening all passengers for overt signs of illness, CBP 

officers continue to inspect visas, entry-exit stamps of all passports, 

and they ask travelers about their recent travel history. CBP offi-
10 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Lindborg appears in the Appendix on page 82. 

cers at all the ports of entry are asking passport holders from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Mali, regardless of where they traveled from, if they had been in any of those countries in the last 21 

days, and if they have, they are also referred for secondary screening. 

Ensuring the health and safety of our employees is an absolute 

priority in responding to this outbreak, and all the CBP officers receive public health training to learn how to identify the symptoms 

of ill travelers, how to apply universal precaution procedures for infection control, and when encountering potentially ill individuals or 

when examining potentially contaminated luggage. 

CBP also provides officers operational training and guidance on 

how to respond to travelers with potential illness, including referring individuals who display signs of illness to CDC officials and 

assisting CDC with implementation of its isolation and quarantine 

procedures. The Department of Homeland Security and CBP are 

deploying additional Personal Protective Equipment to ensure the 

safety of those front-line personnel. 

And, the DHS Office of Health Affairs and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided guidance on the proper 

use of protective equipment. All CBP officers are required to complete a web-based video training. CBP and CDC are also providing 

onsite training at the five designated airports for our officers who 

are performing that enhanced screening. 

We will continue to monitor the Ebola outbreak, and in coordination with DHS and our partners in the Federal Government, provide the necessary equipment, the guidance to front-line personnel 

to prevent the spread of Ebola in the United States. 

Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to your questions. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. Ms. Lindborg. 

TESTIMONY OF NANCY E. LINDBORG,1 ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Ms. LINDBORG. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 

Coburn, and Members of the Committee. I very much appreciate 

your holding this hearing today. 

And, as we have heard, the world faces the largest and most protracted Ebola epidemic in history, and it is a very sobering reminder of what happens when disease encounters weak health, economic, and governance systems, and reminds us that this rapid 

spread is happening in a region that is very affected by conflict, 

two of the countries emerging from decades of very bloody civil 

wars. And, it just underscores that we live in an ever more interconnected world, that we are all neighbors, that we must stop 

Ebola at its source in West Africa, and that we urgently need to 

build stronger and more resilient global health security systems so 

that we can prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to future outbreaks before they become epidemics. 

This is a national security priority for the United States. It is a 

security priority for the world. We have to have a safety net without these kinds of holes. 
11 

So, today, I really want to underscore three key points. The first 

is that when Ebola jumped borders and migrated to the urban centers this summer, the United States mounted an aggressive whole 

of government effort that was governed by four key pillars. The 

first is controlling the epidemic. 

The second is mitigating second order impacts. We need to also 

blunt the very significant food security, economic, and social tolls 

that we are already seeing in these very weak States. These are 

countries where 58 percent already lived in extreme poverty, clean 

water was a luxury, and so today, on top of the epidemic, we also 

have a food and health crisis. We have countries where vaccination 

rates of measles have dropped precipitously. Women no longer have 

help at childbirth. 

The third pillar was coordinating the United States and the global response. This requires not just a whole of government response, 

it requires a whole of the world response, and we have, with aggressive U.S. leadership, been able to galvanize a response that 

now includes significant resources of both funds and personnel 

from around the world. 

The fourth is to fortify the global health security infrastructure. 

And, just a few comments on controlling the epidemic. We have 

surged both civil and military personnel into the region to isolate 

and treat Ebola patients, provide safe and dignified burials, conduct extensive community outreach so that people have the information they need to keep their families and loved ones safe, and 

to help stand up command and control centers at both the national 

and county levels of the affected countries. 

At USAID, we have deployed our Disaster Assistance Response 

Teams through the region and now into Mali, and with that team, 

we are coordinating with the State Department, CDC, the Department of Defense (DOD), HHS, the U.S. Forest Service, the United 

Nations, and our many Non-governmental organization (NGO) 

partners to ensure that we are all working against a coordinated 

strategy. 

I was in Liberia in early October and, it really underscored—this 

is a country that is in the grip of a crippling rainy season, very 

poor infrastructure, what roads are there are usually impassable 

during the rainy season, and an absolutely destroyed health system. So, the response has been extraordinary. However, the U.S. 

Government moved in critical supplies. Personal Protective Equipment, all the suits, the plastic sheeting, thermometer guns, chlorine, these have all surged into the region along with labs to provide critical diagnostics, engineering, logistics, and transport capabilities. All of these have made a substantial difference. And, as the 

crisis evolves and the virus moves, we are adapting our strategy to 

have a highly mobile, very scalable strategy that allows us to go 

where the virus is. 

In Sierra Leone, we have worked with the United Kingdom to 

adapt the Liberia strategy to Sierra Leone and learn the lessons. 

We saw in Liberia that we are having a decrease in average reported cases and we believe that some of the rapid scale-up of particularly the burial teams and the health outreach has been critical. 
12 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Lakey appears in the Appendix on page 89. 

However, with the Mali cases, we are also seeing it is absolutely 

critical to invest in a stronger global health and preparedness system, and the USAID Emerging Pandemics Program has particularly focused in those areas where increased population pressures 

are increasing the chances of a jump from animal to human disease 

transition. 

We have worked with CDC and the World Health Organization 

(WHO) to develop the Public Health Emergency Framework that is 

making a difference, and we are already seeing a decrease in the 

number of countries that are affected by H5N1, for example. 

And, now that the Ebola virus has emerged, it is going to reoccur 

periodically, and that is why President Obama launched the Global 

Health Security Agenda (GHSA) in February 2014, acknowledging 

that we need a global effort to advance a world safe and secure 

from infectious diseases. 

The request from President Obama for $6.18 billion in emergency funding includes $1.98 billion of urgently needed resources for 

USAID to continue to scale up the activities to control the outbreak, to support a critical recovery in West Africa, and to 

strengthen the capacity to address these threats immediately. It includes $278 million in support of the Global Health Security Agenda and to expand our Emerging Pandemics Threat Program. This 

is essential. We cannot accelerate our efforts without this. And, 

without these funds, we will also be ill equipped to address crises 

around the world, as we have an unprecedented number of global 

crises. 

I want to close just with a very special salute to the many good 

samaritans who have responded, to the health care workers and 

humanitarian workers who are on the front lines with great courage and great dedication helping us to address this pandemic, and 

I look forward to your questions. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. Dr. Lakey. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID L. LAKEY, M.D.,1 COMMISSIONER, TEXAS 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES 

Dr. LAKEY. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Carper, 

Ranking Member Coburn, and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. 

I have been the Commissioner of the Department of State Health 

Services for about 8 years. October of this year has been one of my 

most challenging months as Commissioner of the Department of 

State Health Services. 

On September 30, 2014, the Texas State Public Health Laboratory, a laboratory that is part of the Laboratory Response Network 

(LRN) family of laboratories, diagnosed the first case of Ebola in 

the United States. The diagnosis of Mr. Duncan with Ebola set in 

motion a process that we in public health have refined through continued use, tried and true public health principles and protocols, 

which include identification of those who have had contact with an 

individual that is infected with a disease, monitoring those individuals, isolating and providing compassionate care to those individuals, and using quarantine when needed. 
13 

The magnitude of the situation really was unprecedented. We at 

the Department of State Health Services, along with our colleagues 

in Dallas and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 

took the responsibility to contain the spread of this disease extremely seriously. 

We organized a local incident command structure (ICS) to handle 

the event, and at the State level, we activated our Emergency Response Management Centers. While the core mission was simple in 

concept, to protect the public’s health by limiting the number of individuals exposed to the virus, the challenges associated with carrying out that mission were enormous. 

The care of Mr. Duncan presented its own challenges: The identification of the first person with a novel disease in the United 

States; infection control; the management of waste and its transportation; the availability of experimental treatments and vaccines; 

the training of health care workers in how to care for this novel 

disease; the availability and guidance on how to use Personal Protective Equipment. 

And, when Mr. Duncan regretfully passed away, we handled 

issues such as how do you take care of the remains of this individual, which the remains have highly infectious Ebola, and it can 

be in that body for many, many months. And, unfortunately, during the care of Mr. Duncan, two nurses became infected. 

Concerns related to the handling of the three Ebola patients include questions about how do you decontaminate the home and 

how do you take care of their automobiles, decisions about how to 

handle personal effects, the monitoring of pets, patient transportation issues, and addressing the public’s concerns. 

Additionally, identifying and locating potential contacts and monitoring those individuals who have had some risk of exposure also 

involved many challenges: Decisions about who to quarantine and 

at what level, balancing the public’s health and the individual’s 

rights; providing accommodations for those confined in one location 

for the 21-day monitoring period; quickly processing these control 

orders, and coordinating two symptom checks a day for each person 

under monitoring; and managing and transportation and testing of 

the laboratory specimens. 

Throughout all these specific challenges, our experience in Dallas 

exemplified common requirements for successfully responding to 

any emergency situation, to have clear roles and responsibilities 

among all levels of government and all the entities that are involved, to have strong lines of communication, to use an incident 

command structure staffed by trained emergency management and 

public health professionals, and to do this in partnership. 

The outcomes in Dallas prove up the strengths of the public 

health processes. Hundreds of individuals were monitored in the 

State. Two cases of Ebola resulted from direct care of the index 

case, and they were detected early in the disease onset and they 

recovered. No cases resulted from community exposure. 

At this time, like other States, Texas is providing active monitoring for individuals who arrive in the United States from one of 

the outbreak countries. Texas has monitored approximately 80 individuals under this airport screening process. Texas is also, like 

other States, working to ensure that the capacity exists inside the 
14 

State of Texas to care for patients with high consequence infectious 

diseases like Ebola. Two centers currently are able to stand up on 

short notice to receive a patient, and Texas is working to identify 

additional capacity. 

As Ebola screening and monitoring transitions into our routine 

processes, our focus in Texas is shifting to include complete evaluation of the response in Dallas and a discussion of how to improve 

the public health response system in Texas as a whole and sharing 

these experiences and lessons learned. 

Governor Perry has put together a Task Force for Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response to evaluate Texas’s system and to 

make recommendations for improvement, and I believe the discussion among governmental and non-governmental individuals, 

among varied stakeholders, and including experts that are pertinent fields will result in a Texas that is better prepared and a Nation that is better prepared. 

We do not know what the next form or the next event will take. 

We do know that there will be another event. I tell my colleagues 

that it is my expectation to have at least one major disaster, one 

unthinkable event per year in the State of Texas, working with our 

national partners. That is why the funding that you provide to 

States through the CDC is so critically important, and that is why 

the need for strong partnerships between the local health departments, the CDC, and our many other Federal partners. 

Finally, I want to thank our colleagues at both the Dallas County 

Health Department and our Federal partners for their support 

throughout this event, and I thank you for the opportunity to be 

here today. Thank you, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Well, thank you for your testimony. 

A couple of questions. Just so I get this straight, our inbound 

screening right now, Mr. Kerlikowske, covers 95 percent of the inbound from these countries, is that correct? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. It is 100 percent of the screening for everyone 

passing through those four countries at only those five airports. 

Senator COBURN. I know, but those five airports account for only 

95 percent. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Everyone has to go through those five airports. We rerouted, working with the airlines authority. 

Senator COBURN. So, nobody goes into Houston and nobody goes 

into DFW anymore? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Correct, Doctor. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. 

Can you all explain your interaction with the President’s Czar on 

Ebola and what the coordination is and what the communication 

is so we can get an understanding? I had asked that he testify 

today. They refused to have him testify. So, I would just like to 

know, this is the person that is working under the President that 

is coordinating what he knows, and information is going up to him 

and coming back down to you. Can you all please explain to me 

what your interactions are with this individual, Mr. Klain? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Well, I would say that Mr. Klain plays the policy 

coordination role. The response to Ebola requires many parts of the 

government to work together, both on the domestic aspect and on 

the global aspect. I can say that I have very frequent communica-
15 

tions with him on a daily basis, multiple times, and that he has 

been very supportive and very focused on problem solving and 

identifying what we can do to make the response quicker, more effective, and more unified. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Dr. LURIE. Sure. I think I would reiterate Dr. Frieden’s comments. I think most of us had the opportunity to meet with Mr. 

Klain the day or the day after he took office. We have had within 

the Department a very tight coordination structure within HHS, 

and that coordination structure, even before his arrival, really 

reached parts of the whole of government, because there were 

many other departments, as you know, involved in this that we 

had frequent communication with all the time. 

Since his arrival, there has been a tremendous amount of coordination, collaboration, discussion, problem solving. I think we all 

talk with him frequently in small and large groups and we very 

much appreciated and see the benefits of his being there. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Ms. LINDBORG. I would just add that a number of us are going 

from here to our weekly strategy session with Mr. Klain. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Many people within the Department of Homeland Security, and certainly Dr. Brinsfield and others and myself, 

have had interaction with him. Most of mine has been by e-mail 

or attending a particular meeting, because as you know, Doctor, we 

have a little bit narrower role in CBP. 

Senator COBURN. OK. 

Dr. LAKEY. I have had two interactions with Mr. Klain. A week 

ago, we had a meeting of the folks that do my job across the Southern part of the United States and with some of our Federal partners, and in that meeting, we had a 30-minute conversation by 

phone with Mr. Klain. And then last night, I had the opportunity 

to spend about 30 minutes with him to express some of our challenges in the State of Texas. 

Senator COBURN. OK. All right. Thank you. On ASPR, the request for your portion of this is $2.43 billion, is 

that correct? 

Dr. LURIE. For HHS. 

Senator COBURN. For HHS. 

Dr. LURIE. For HHS, yes. 

Senator COBURN. And, what percentage of that is for BARDA? 

Dr. LURIE. For BARDA, it is $157 million to continue the development of vaccines and other therapeutics. 

Senator COBURN. So, what is the other $1.9 billion for? 

Dr. LURIE. So, within ASPR, there is $166 million for other aspects of domestic response, including within the Hospital Preparedness Program to provide additional training, in particular, Personal 

Protective Equipment, through health care coalitions, and other 

drills and exercises, and there is funding to establish the capability 

to treat Ebola patients diffused throughout the United States. 

Senator COBURN. Just a question. Should the Federal Government be providing the protective equipment for the hospitals rather 

than the hospitals provide that, the insurance companies paying for 

that? 
16 

Dr. LURIE. So, what we are finding is that for both hospitals and 

other health care institutions to be prepared, they do not always 

have either the kind of the amount of Personal Protective Equipment that is required to safely care for an Ebola patient. And, as 

I think you know, there has been a pretty big hue and cry for people who are seeking that equipment. 

One of the things that we have done with the Hospital Preparedness Program is really focus on preparedness at a community level 

instead of an individual hospital level, to be more efficient at sharing resources that are scarce. 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Dr. LURIE. And, so, the funding would actually provide for purchasing of Personal Protective Equipment at a community level, in 

fact, to be efficient, so that not every hospital or doctor’s office or 

anything else needs to stash a large amount of it but you have 

enough in the community. 

Senator COBURN. And we have coordinated with DuPont on the 

increased manufacture of this? 

Dr. LURIE. I have personally had the opportunity to speak with 

the leadership at each of the manufacturers of different kinds of 

Personal Protective Equipment. They are all now gone to 24/7 manufacturing. Some of them have made a decision to start with greenfields and stand up additional capacity for manufacture of other 

scarce PPE. 

Also, we are coordinating with the manufacturers and distributors, to be sure that hospitals that need it, hospitals that are ready, 

EMS agencies that need it can get it on a priority basis. We have 

coordinated a lot with the Strategic National Stockpile that has 

purchased additional PPE to be sure that if an institution receives 

an Ebola patient, that we can get them sufficient PPE within a 

matter of hours. That is in addition to the Rapid Team from CDC 

that would be on the ground. And, then, we have been coordinating 

with USAID and others because the PPE needs are not only domestic, but international, and we want to be sure that we do not compromise the response in West Africa. 

Senator COBURN. Why such a small amount at BARDA? They 

seem to have done such great work in the past. 

Dr. LURIE. Thank you. They have done great work and we have appreciated the advance of that, of $58 million in the CR so that 

they could get moving with the scale-up and manufacturing of, both 

of vaccines and the therapeutics. We think that this additional 

funding will help us both get to the point where the current vaccines that are in testing can be tested in clinical trials and then 

procured, I imagine by others, for use in West Africa if, in fact, the 

vaccine proves effective. And, because we never put all of our eggs 

in one basket, we have invested in the development of a couple of 

other vaccines—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. 

Dr. LURIE [continuing]. As well as therapeutics to get those moving. 

Senator COBURN. I have one question and then I will pass it on. 

Tom or Gil, answer this for me. When I go home to Oklahoma, people ask me these common sense questions. Somebody comes into 

this country and lies about whether or not they have been in one 
17 

of these three countries and is taking antipyretics. So, therefore, 

they have no fever, they have been dishonest about where they 

have been, and they come into our country. Why should we not 

worry about that? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. So, I think there are a couple things that are 

very helpful. One is that Customs and Border Protection officers go 

through a lot of training. They are in uniform. They have a badge. 

They are armed. They know how to ask questions. They know how 

to look for signs of deception. 

We have a huge amount of passenger information in that manifest, which we get quite early. We look for things, particularly if 

there is broken travel, and that was the case with Dr. Spencer. So, 

the fallback positions are when you go to that Customs authority 

and that person is sitting there in the booth, plus we have the roving patrols, that person is asking questions. He or she is looking 

at that passport to see where they are from. They are looking for 

the stamps from any of those now four countries and they are looking at the visa applications. 

So, could someone lie and essentially be deceptive? But, I think 

it is much more difficult when you are faced with that kind of onslaught of questioning and scrutiny that people need to go through 

in order to enter our country safely. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. And, if I can add, in terms of taking an antipyretic 

or something else, if someone is tracked through the system, and 

we have now tracked more than 2,000 people through the system, 

we are then in close collaboration with CBP and DHS, providing 

the information to State health departments like Dr. Lakey’s within just a few hours of their arrival. We also provide to the individual information about Ebola so that they will understand that 

if they do not get prompt care, not only may they die, but they may 

spread it to their family. 

Senator COBURN. Yes. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We are providing them with a low-cost thermometer and with a wallet card to call the health department so that 

if they develop a fever, they can be safely and securely moved to 

a facility where they can be safely treated. That system is already 

in operation. We have already had multiple individuals who have 

had fevers, none of them from Ebola, call and be safely transported 

and cared for. 

Senator COBURN. Tom, what do we know about the infectivity? 

We know in terms of body fluids. What do we know about temperature and infectivity? What is actually known? What is our science 

right now? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. What we know is that as you get sicker and sicker 

with Ebola, the quantity of virus in your body increases dramatically, so that, generally, fever will be one of the first, if not the 

first, signs of illness. And, what we have seen in this country is 

people with very low-grade fevers—Dr. Spencer’s was 100.3—and 

perhaps with the more intensive monitoring here, we are finding 

people with lower temperature levels. But, what we are finding in 

Africans consistently is over the course of the illness, infectivity 

kind of increases exponentially. 

And, just as an indication of that, when we do the initial real 

time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to see if someone has 
18 

Ebola, it cannot infrequently be negative initially, not because 

there is a problem with the test, but because there is virtually no 

virus in the blood. Within 72 hours, it will become positive both in 

the test and the individual will get sicker. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. Senator McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. Dr. Lurie, I would like to talk about BioShield. BioShield was passed in 2004 to protect the United States 

against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) 

threats to national security. We have spent $3.3 billion, and I am 

really worried about how it has been spent, especially in light of 

what we have seen with the Ebola crisis. 

Eight of the 13 BioShield contracts were signed in September 

2013, the last month that the funds were available to spend. Five 

of those were related to anthrax. Obviously, BioShield is an organization that combines both DHS and HHS, as you are well aware, 

but I want to make sure the record is clear. I am asking you this 

because the Office of Science and Technology (S&T) is not here 

from DHS. So, you are going to get all of my attention this morning, but I want to make sure everyone understands that this is not 

just HHS that I think has made mistakes in this area. I think it 

is also the DHS Office of Science and Technology. 

You have produced material threat determinations for 21 different chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear agents. However, as of December 2013, you have contracts to procure countermeasures for only six of the 21 threats identified as high priorities. 

And, by the way, Ebola was identified as a material threat in 2006. 

So, since 2006, there have only been two material threat determinations issued. So, we have gone now years and years and years 

without any significant additional material threats. Does this mean 

that these decisions are being made on an almost decade-old analysis? 

Dr. LURIE. No, I appreciate very much your questions, and let me 

start by explaining a couple of things. First of all, I think when 

BARDA and BioShield were created, these were brand new systems 

and brand new programs, and I do not think that there is any 

question but that some of this got off to a rocky start. As I think 

you know, in 2010, after our experience with H1N1, the Secretary 

requested and we did an end-to-end review of the medical countermeasure enterprise and did a significant amount of retooling. We 

did this in concert with our colleagues at DHS and DOD and 

USDA, as well as all of the HHS components. 

And, I will say, we now have procured 12 medical countermeasures. They are in the stockpile. When BARDA and BioShield 

started, there was almost nothing in the pipeline. There are now 

about 90 chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear products in 

the pipeline and another huge host for pandemic flu. So, I think 

from those perspectives, they have been tremendously effective. 

Two other things to keep in mind. One of the things that I did 

as Chair of the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures 

Enterprise (PHEMCE), was to ask that we go back over looking at 

the set of processes that we use to make material threat determinations and to set requirements, and we have been working very 
19 

closely with DHS to do that. It has borne a lot of fruit and we are 

continuing on that path. 

I think the other thing to keep in mind with regard to Project 

BioShield is Project BioShield itself cannot spend money on procurement until a product is far enough along in development to be 

within a certain amount of time—8 years—of being able to be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, what about Abthrax? 

Dr. LURIE. What about what? 

Senator MCCASKILL. When you bought Abthrax, one of the multiple anthrax countermeasures you have bought, and when it was 

first looked at, it was a boutique product that the exact use of 

which was unclear. But, you spent $722 million on it. It was also 

an additional product beyond the vaccine and three antibiotics that 

we already had to treat anthrax. 

And, by the way, 44 percent of the money that has been spent 

in this program has been on anthrax. I mean, almost half. We have 

got 21 threats and almost half of the money has been spent on just 

one of them. How can that be justified? 

Dr. LURIE. So, let me, again, take a step back and make a couple 

of comments. First of all, DHS has continued to assess that the No. 

1 threat in terms of biothreats to our country, other than those produced by Mother Nature, which are significant, is anthrax. 

Second, the anthrax products have been much further along in 

the stages of development and so those are the ones that have been 

first been ready for procurement. 

This past year or two, we have taken a look at all of our requirements again. We have also taken a really careful look at what is 

in the Strategic National Stockpile and we have done some adjustment, both based on the threat, based on what we know about the 

disease, based on what those countermeasures are. 

There is now a strategy, an implementation plan, that lays out 

for the next 5 years what it is that the PHEMCE will invest in and 

spend money on, and as we took a look at that, we, again, did some 

readjusting so that we were able to cover threat areas that were 

not covered well at the beginning of this program, including, by the 

way, viral hemorrhagic fevers. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I understand that anthrax is a threat, 

although I am worried about the fact that a dose was $2.26 in 1999 

and we issued a contract to procure doses for $24.50 6 years later. 

That worries me, that we are spending more than we need to on 

some of this and that we have done overkill on anthrax. But, anthrax does not spread. I mean, anthrax is not something that is 

highly contagious. 

I look at the way you develop what the threats are. I look at the 

way the money has been spent. All of us get suspicious around here 

when a bunch of contracts are signed the month before the money 

expires. It always makes us believe that someone is rushing to 

spend the money, because if they do not, they are not going to have 

it anymore, as opposed to judiciously looking as to whether or not 

they are just buying what is available and easy as opposed to doing 

the hard work of figuring out whether we have put too many eggs 

in the basket of anthrax and not enough in the basket of highly 

contagious diseases like the pandemic flu or others that have been 
20 

identified as material threats for years and years and years, including Ebola. 

Dr. LURIE. I appreciate your concerns, and that is, in fact, why 

we have been making so many adjustments in the program. In addition, we have been very much trying to move away from this idea 

of ‘‘one bug, one drug,’’ and moving much more toward the development of platform technologies that are nimble and flexible and, in 

fact, when confronted with a new disease like Ebola, can make either vaccines or other countermeasures much more quickly. And, in 

fact, it is those flexible platforms that you are seeing now in the 

development of the Ebola therapeutics. 

So, we have shifted considerably in this program since 1999. We 

have certainly shifted considerably since 2006. And, since the review in 2010, I think we have been on a really terrific path targeting—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, the 2013 contracts do not indicate 

that. It still indicates a huge proclivity toward anthrax and anthrax domination in terms of this. The frustrating part from here 

is that this program was supposed to be identifying things like 

Ebola so that we are not rushing to fund after a crisis, but, rather, 

prepared when the crisis occurs. It looks like there was a rush to 

spend before the funds expired, but not a rush to truly identify additional threats that had developed and the severity of some of the 

threats that have not been addressed. 

So, I am going to continue to follow up on this. As I say, S&T 

deserves a lot of these questions, and, hopefully, we will have other 

hearings in the next Congress that we can get to this. The fact that 

this happened in 2013 kind of swims upstream against your argument that everything has been retooled. 

Dr. LURIE. We look forward to coming and briefing you and updating you about the program and where it has been. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Perhaps it would be great to have a Subcommittee hearing just on this. 

Senator MCCASKILL. As do I—— 

Senator COBURN. Yes. Also, could we have a direct answer on the 

differences in the cost of ciprofloxacin, which originally was purchased and why the differential in the price? I would like to know 

why we are paying such an exorbitant amount for the same drug 

to treat the same thing. So, can we have an answer, a written answer from you back on that contract and why we are paying those 

kind of prices? 

Dr. LURIE. Absolutely. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

The Senator from Wisconsin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON 

Senator JOHNSON. Dr. Lakey, have you in Texas put any kind of 

cost estimate on what it did cost your public health system to treat 

those three patients? 

Dr. LAKEY. I can partially answer that question. If I look at the 

cost that we incurred as a State agency, including time of my staff, 

the cost to do the decontamination, waste, the control, transportation, et cetera, that is about a million dollars. The monitoring of 
21 

the individuals that have come back from overseas, that cost right 

now is a little shy of $20,000 right now. The costs that Presbyterian incurred, I cannot tell you what that number is. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. But, the cost has been over a million dollars for a couple patients. 

Dr. LAKEY. Yes. 

Senator JOHNSON. Dr. Frieden, do you have any cost estimate of 

what it cost to cure some of these heroes? I mean, what does it 

cost? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. The care of patients with Ebola can be quite expensive because it requires intensive care. It needs to be done in a 

place where you may have to actually not admit other patients—— 

Senator JOHNSON. Do you have a number, though? I have limited 

time. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. No, nothing other than what I have read in the 

media. 

Senator JOHNSON. Hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars 

per case, correct? In terms of the incubation period, at what point— 

how many days does it take to exhibit a fever? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. The incubation period is between 2 and 21 days 

after exposure until illness, usually around 8 to 10, or 12 days. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, in general, somebody could be infected and 

then really not exhibit any signs of illness or fever for about 8 

days? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. That is correct. 

Senator JOHNSON. That is a real possibility. What are the current projections in terms of this outbreak as it progresses? Right 

now, I have about 14,000 cases in my briefing packet here. I do not 

know how many there were when we first admitted Mr. Duncan. 

What are we looking at 2, 3, 4 months down the road, because we 

have some pretty scary numbers. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. That will depend entirely on our response and how 

rapidly we intervene. Currently, we think there may be between 

1,000 and 2,000 new cases per week in West Africa, but we have 

seen areas of West Africa achieve very rapid reductions when they 

implement the comprehensive strategy such as that that we would 

be able to support through the emergency funding request. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, we had heard estimates of this thing growing exponentially to over a million people by 2015. Are we past that 

point? Are we getting a handle on this that we are not looking at 

that kind of exponential growth? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. In Liberia, we are no longer seeing exponential 

growth. I think that is a reflection of the proof of principle of the 

strategy. However, we are still seeing growth in Sierra Leone, and 

Guinea is a cautionary note because we have seen it come and go 

in waves whenever we have relaxed our efforts. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, it still is possible to have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cases with this current situation? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We do not think the projections from over the summer will come to pass. Those were projections of what would have 

happened if prior trends continued with no intervention. There has 

been very effective intervention with USAID, ourselves, the global 

community, and most importantly, the countries and the communities most affected. 
22 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Well, that is good news. My point being, 

if this really does grow either exponentially or geometrically, we 

are going to have a whole lot more cases throughout the world, in 

West Africa. When we had about 10,000 or 12,000 cases, one individual got into this country, and we are seeing the cost of just 

treating one or two cases in the millions of dollars. I do not know 

how many cases of Ebola would utterly overwhelm our health care 

system. 

So, from my standpoint, I think the goal we should really have 

would be to keep Ebola out of the United States. Now, we obviously 

have to treat these heroes, these health care workers that are 

going down there, and nobody is talking about isolating West African nations, but we really ought to set as an achievable goal, let 

us not let it spread out of there. Let us keep it in West Africa. 

So, Mr. Kerlikowske, through our Customs and Border Protection 

process here, through the airlines, we cannot identify 100 percent 

of people that had been in West Africa in the last 21 days, correct? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Probably not identify 100 percent, but we 

have come very close. We look for all the things—— 

Senator JOHNSON. Well, why would it not be 100 percent, because you have to fly here, right, I mean, and people have to have 

passports and those things are stamped. Why can it not be 100 percent? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Well, there are people that can use broken 

travel, and that is why we have those secondary layered approach 

of looking for stamps, looking at their passport, asking them questions, what other countries they have traveled in. 

Senator JOHNSON. But, again, people will lie, so we have to rely 

on documents and thorough evaluation of those documents to try 

and protect people from coming here, correct? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Yes. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, I was a little surprised at your answer to 

Senator Coburn. You said that we are funneling 100 percent of people into those five—because it did not sound like that from your 

testimony. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Well, he was specific about the people coming 

into the airports that we have that information on, and that is why 

in my opening statement I also mentioned that all of our ports, including sea and land ports, also have the information and also have 

the ability to do any screening. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, my point being is if we can screen, using 

passports, using stamps, understanding that people, when they 

were in West Africa, at a pretty high percentage, 95 to 100 percent, 

in light of the fact that treating just one case of Ebola could be 

more than a million dollars, why would we not set the achievable 

goal of saying, let us not let people into America other than the 

health care workers? Why not control that and let the world know 

that you are not going to come into America until you have been 

out of West Africa for at least 21 days? I mean, would that not be 

a reasonable restriction so that we do not overwhelm our health 

care system? Why would we not do that? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. So, Senator Johnson, I do not think I am 

probably the best person to answer that from that medical viewpoint, but I do know a couple things that have been expressed, and 
23 

one is that when we do a level of restriction and isolate those three 

particular countries, other countries may follow. 

Senator JOHNSON. They already are doing that, are they not? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Other countries could follow our lead. 

Senator JOHNSON. Let me just interrupt. Would that not be a 

good thing? Why would we want it to spread out of those three 

countries into any other country? Why do we not have a world effort to keep the disease in those three countries, flood resources, 

flood heroes to treat them, but why are we not really taking a look 

at let us keep it isolated in those three countries? It makes no 

sense to me. I do not think it makes sense to the American public 

that we do not really double our efforts to keep it contained in 

those countries and get it stamped out in those countries, do not 

let it spread. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Well, restricting or isolating those countries, 

I do not think, and has been explained to me, would be the best 

answer. The other is that I think it could drive people underground. You could easily leave any of those three countries without 

getting on an airplane and easily go somewhere else and surreptitiously or through deceit attempt then to enter the United States. 

Senator JOHNSON. But why make it easier? I am out of time. 

Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank the Chair. 

I want to thank all of you for what you are doing. This is very 

important to the country. 

I want to also thank two of my constituents, Brigadier General 

Peter Corey, who is Deputy Commander of U.S. Army in Africa, 

who was deployed to Liberia in September and is helping to lead 

the U.S. military effort to halt the spread of Ebola in Africa. I 

know General Corey personally and I really appreciate his leadership. Also, our State Deputy Epidemiologist, Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, 

who is helping train humanitarian workers in Africa. I want to 

thank everyone who is trying and working very hard to combat 

Ebola and the spread of this deadly disease. 

I wanted to follow up on the issue—Dartmouth Hitchcock in New 

Hampshire has been designated as a location where, if we were to 

receive an Ebola patient in New Hampshire, it would be our designated health facility. They have raised issues with me about the 

Personal Protective Equipment that Senator Coburn had asked 

about including concerns about not having access to that protective 

equipment if they were to receive a patient now. They also want 

to ensure that they train properly and prepare, should they receive 

a patient. 

So, I know that we have discussed some of the manufacturing 

challenges, to some extent, of the availability of this equipment, 

but I wanted to delve into that a little bit further to understand 

if there are hospitals like the one in my State that are not able to 

have this protective equipment. What are they supposed to do in 

the interim? 
24 

Dr. LURIE. I appreciate your question. I think it is a very good 

one and it is one that we have heard about from other places. So, 

let me line a couple of things. 

First of all, as I think you know, when a hospital determines that 

it might want to be in a position to treat Ebola patients and the 

State health officer agrees, one of the first things that happens is 

that they receive a checklist of things to start getting ready for, 

and when they feel that they are ready for a visit, the CDC will 

send out a Rapid Ebola Preparedness Team to do an assessment 

with them. 

Senator AYOTTE. Mm-hmm. 

Dr. LURIE. One of the things, ultimately, on that list that is required for them to be ready is to have a 7-day supply of Personal 

Protective Equipment on hand. We have been working, obviously, 

with CDC, with the States, with the hospitals, and if a hospital 

would like us to, we are in a position to give the name of that institution to the manufacturers and distributors of PPE so, in fact, 

they can be on a priority list to get what it is that they need, both 

to get ready and in the event that they have a patient. 

As I indicated in my previous answer, the Strategic National 

Stockpile at the CDC has also bought Personal Protective Equipment, and in the event that a hospital were to receive a patient, 

they would, if needed, send additional PPE to that hospital. 

One of the things that the manufacturers and distributors have 

told us—and we have been working quite a bit with them—is that 

for hospitals that want to train on equipment, that they will actually come out to a hospital with training equipment, not the stuff 

that is in short supply. The front-line health workers who would 

be in a position to need to use that equipment can practice and can 

drill and can be ready for that. 

They have also told us, interestingly, that it is their perspective 

that many hospitals, because they are frightened, have been double 

and triple ordering equipment from various distributors and manufacturers. And, so, one of the things that we have been doing is 

working with front-line health workers all over the country to be 

clear about two points, No. 1, there are options on what you can 

buy, and that is in the CDC guidance, and No. 2, get a little clearer 

about, really, who needs what and how much you need so that we 

can cut down on the fear and the panic and be sure equipment gets 

to those who need it. 

Senator AYOTTE. I appreciate that, and I think there needs to be, 

perhaps, better communication, because this is an issue where, 

Dartmouth Hitchcock, which is a great hospital in New Hampshire, 

and part of a research facility connected with Dartmouth College— 

probably needs increased communication on this issue so that there 

is a better understanding from the hospitals’ perspective. So, I hope 

that will follow from this. 

I wanted to followup, Mr. Kerlikowske, in terms of what Senator 

Johnson had asked you about. As I understand it, there have been 

other countries that have restricted travel in terms of the West African nations. Do you have a sense of what some of our partners 

have done in that regard and what their thinking is? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Senator, the only country I know that has restricted travel has been Canada, and I am actually a little bit un-
25 

sure as to what they actually have decided. As you know, from any 

of those four countries, there are no direct flights into the United 

States, so everybody leaving those four countries goes to Morocco, 

to France, to Belgium, et cetera, and they all fly into those countries. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, Canada is the only country? So, I would 

think we would want to followup and understand, since they are 

such an important ally and, our neighbor—what their thinking was 

versus our difference in policy on that issue. I hope we will do that. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. We will. 

Senator AYOTTE. I appreciate that. 

I also wanted to ask about some of the agreements that are in 

place, regarding the intake at the airports where the enhanced 

screening is taking place. Are there already established areas of 

quarantine, if that is necessary, in those airports? 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. All of those airports already have CDC personnel that have been there for many years, and at first—and I 

have to give a shout out to the United States Coast Guard, who 

actually stepped up with medical corpsmen before our contracts 

went into place, with Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and 

other local health care people to do the temperature screening. So, 

it has been a really good effort. And, of course, the key has been 

the relationships that our port directors have with those airports, 

with the CDC and others, who have all worked together. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, my time is expiring but I had a specific 

question as to whether there are actual agreements between the 

five airports and the area hospitals. In other words, do we have direct memorandum of understanding (MOU) so there is clarity if we 

do have to act? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We have a detailed planning process so that for 

each of the five entry airports we have hospitals on the ready that 

we have visited with our Rapid Ebola Preparedness Teams that we 

have ensured are ready, and we have a mechanism to transport patients safely. So, for all of those, we have procedures in place that 

would allow us to do that. We have had a handful of people with 

fever or other symptoms coming in. They have been safely transported. None of them have turned out to have Ebola on the way 

in, but that is something that we have made sure is in place to the 

greatest extent possible. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Senator Portman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, and I thank you all for not just 

being here today with us, but for the work you are doing every day 

to try to address this problem. 

As some of you know, I have been critical of the response, mostly 

the timeliness of it, and I think it took us way too long to get a 

coordinator and I think it took us way too long to respond to the 

World Health Organization’s very clear message to the world that 

this was going to be a crisis, and so we are behind. And, particularly in these countries and in West Africa, it is now much more 

difficult to address the issue. 
26 

I do continue to have concerns, as I expressed to Mr. 

Kerlikowske, as you know, early on about more screenings. I 

viewed active screenings as being necessary. You now have them, 

I think, at five of the airports, and I am glad we have that now. 

I think it could have avoided some of the problems that we have 

had in this country. 

I will say in response to your question to Senator Ayotte, there 

are a lot of countries that have suspended visas. We have not. I 

think there are 40. So, short of a travel ban, doing some things to, 

as many African countries have done, to discourage people from 

leaving these countries at this point. A temporary suspension until 

we get our act together, I think, makes sense. 

But, if I could switch to the hospital side for a moment, and 

again thanking you for the actions that have been taken more recently and some of the work, including the President’s funding request, you have $166 million in there for public health and social 

service emergency fund to immediately respond to patients with 

high infectious diseases. That $166 million, I would like to ask you 

about for a second, and I am not sure who to direct this to, probably you, Dr. Frieden, from the CDC perspective. 

But, as you know, in our State of Ohio, we were one of those 

States that was affected. We have over 100 individuals who were 

possibly exposed to Ebola, and because of this, hospitals around the 

State of Ohio rapidly prepared for the possibility of an individual 

coming through their doors. Fortunately, that has not been the 

problem that many had feared. But, my question for you is, will 

any of this $166 million for emergency funding be allocated to 

those hospitals to help offset the costs of the preparedness efforts, 

particularly those in Northeast Ohio, in our case, but also in Texas 

and elsewhere who had to quickly respond to the concerns of those 

who had been affected? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. So, I will start, and Dr. Lurie may want to comment further because hospital preparedness is a joint effort between CDC and ASPR. 

Also, on timeliness, I would comment that CDC was on the 

ground in West Africa sending staff in March of this year, and 

again, we activated our emergency operations center in early July 

of this year. So, we are surging as quickly as we can and working 

throughout the U.S. Government and in the global community to 

respond. The emergency funding request is critical to our ability to 

continue to do that and extend that. 

For hospitals, we see this as critically important, both to support 

State and local health departments so that they can have a community-wide approach of improving infection control and addressing Ebola and other severe infectious disease threats and hospital 

preparedness, ensuring that they are ready and improving their infection control program. CDC has had highly effective programs 

through State health departments to improve infection control in 

hospitals, and one of the things that we would do with the emergency funding request is extend that and expand the support available to hospitals and to public health to improve infection control. 

Senator PORTMAN. Just quickly, would any of these funds be 

available for the hospitals that I talked about that had to quickly 

prepare? 
27 

Dr. FRIEDEN. In terms of the reimbursement for past expenditures up until now, that is something which the Administration 

has indicated it is quite willing to work out wording with Congress 

on. 

Senator PORTMAN. Let me switch to, if I could, these hospitals, 

following on what, again, Senator Ayotte talked about, in her case 

with Dartmouth Hitchcock. As you probably know, I am introducing legislation today with Mr. Markey, and Senator Markey and 

I have been working on this for the last several weeks about ensuring that some hospitals on a regional basis have this expertise. We 

call it Centers of Excellence. We base it on the 10 Medicare regions 

around the country. 

The legislation, which we worked with some of your folks on to 

ensure that it met the criteria that you might be looking for, would 

ensure that you have certain hospitals that do have not just the 

medical expertise, but the equipment to be able to respond, and not 

just to Ebola, but to other infectious diseases. It seems to me that 

is a much more efficient way to do it than to have every hospital 

in America be expected to have that expertise, and even to have 

the isolation rooms and the other necessary equipment. So, have 

you all thought about that issue further, and what would your response be to that kind of legislation? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Let me start, and then Dr. Lurie has important information to add. One of the components of our domestic ask within the $621 million for the immediate part of the emergency response would be to expand programs like Prevention Epicenters, 

which we have had around the country, so that we can advance the 

science and preparedness in different regions of the country. It is, 

however, the case that every hospital needs to consider that someone might come in and have that thought through and that each 

State needs to work. We have worked very closely with public 

health and hospitals in Ohio. We have had visits to the hospitals 

to help them through our Rapid Ebola Preparedness teams, and 

Dr. Lurie can address the other hospital-based issues. 

Dr. LURIE. Sure, and maybe I will just, to amplify on Dr. 

Frieden’s comments here, our strategy for getting hospitals ready 

has been to build from the three biocontainment units that now 

exist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Nebraska, and 

Emory to be sure, first of all, that hospitals in those airport funneling cities are the first group that are prepared with training, 

with identified staff, with Personal Protective Equipment, with the 

physical infrastructure in place. 

Building out from there, we are now working in States that receive large numbers of travelers back from West Africa or have 

large diaspora populations, and those are the States that we are 

now actively working to identify hospitals in, again, so that they 

can be prepared should an Ebola patient present in their State and 

need end-to-end care. 

One of the things about this, though, is we are not entirely sure, 

No. 1, whether and where one of these patients would show up, 

and No. 2, I think one of the things that Ebola has shown us very 

clearly is Mother Nature always has the upper hand and that there 

will be diseases after this for which we need to be prepared with 

high containment facilities and training and equipment. We do not 
28 

know where that is going to strike, but it is clear to us that an additional component of our preparedness has to be to build out that 

capability. No, not every hospital in America needs to or could take 

care of patients that are this sick or are this contagious, but we do 

need to have capability across the Nation to be able to do that. 

Chairman CARPER [presiding]. Dr. Lurie, I am going to ask you 

to hold it right there, before Dr. Coburn leaves. I do not know if 

it was my last year in the U.S. House of Representatives, but I had 

served in the U.S. House for a number of years. Maybe you remember Bob Michel. He had been the Republican Leader in the House 

for many years. Tip O’Neill was then the Speaker of the House. 

And, Bob Michel had never had a chance to—all those years in the 

House, he never had a chance to preside over the House, and he 

had served there for, like, several decades. 

Tom Coburn has presided many times over Subcommittee hearings, but in the 2-years that we have been privileged to lead this 

Committee together, I do not believe, and although we have taken 

a couple of times when I run off to take a call or something and 

he is good enough to take over and run the show. But, I just want 

to say, as he prepares to weigh anchor, as we say in the Navy, 

weigh anchor and sail off into the sunrise, how much I appreciate 

the partnership that we have known for these 10 years and to say 

we have a lot to be proud of in this Committee this year. We have 

a lot more that we are working on and trying to get across the finish line. I want us to finish strong, and we are. Thank you, Tom. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Senator PORTMAN. My time was already expired, so he is indulging me, and I will be very brief, but just to say, first of all, thank 

you for the way you conducted this Subcommittee, my Subcommittees and the full Committee, Mr. Chairman, and the same with our 

Ranking Member. You are nice to give him the proper farewell. 

In 2013, we passed this Preparedness Reauthorization Act and we spent $255 million in grants in fiscal year 2014 and yet we 

found significant gaps, obviously, in our ability to respond. And, so, 

I am not disagreeing with what you said. As a matter of fact, I 

think what you said is consistent with what Senator Markey and 

I are trying to get at, which is the fact, of course, as Dr. Frieden 

says, every hospital has to be prepared for people to come through 

their doors. Every clinic does. You have done a good job, I think, 

in making them more aware, because in my home State of Ohio, 

as I have talked to people, they now ask the questions, have you 

been to West Africa and so on, that they never would have thought 

about before. 

But, to have that expertise, as you say, is impractical at every 

hospital and every clinic, and that level of commitment of resources 

for the containment and isolation and so on. So, I hope you will 

look at this legislation and be willing to work with us to try to figure out the most effective and efficient way to deal with potential 

problems in the future. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. LURIE. That is one of the things that I think we have always 

appreciated, is the bipartisan spirit around preparedness. It has 

been really important, and I think everybody really understands 

that that is something important to our country and that we all 
29 

take really seriously. And, we all understand a chain is as strong 

as its weakest link. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Baldwin, good morning. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Good morning. Thank you for holding this 

vital hearing and I will tell Senator Coburn later that I appreciate 

it. Thank you to all our witnesses. 

I want to inquire and get an update on maintaining a resolute 

response in West Africa on Ebola. I think there is growing consensus that in order to safeguard the United States, we have to 

take the fight there. And, I am interested in hearing an update 

from you, Dr. Frieden, but also from Ms. Lindborg on secondary 

impacts, economic impacts that we are seeing in the region that 

could also lead to chaos or additional economic crisis. 

We had a time for which we could receive information 24/7 on 

Ebola. It has subsided a bit, and with that media spotlight only 

slightly diminished, I would like to hear directly from you, starting 

with you, Dr. Frieden. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Thank you. I will address the epidemic and Nancy 

Lindborg the secondary effects. 

We continue to be in the midst of an epidemic of Ebola in West 

Africa. The three countries are hard hit. The most cases are still 

in Sierra Leone and Liberia. We are seeing it through many parts 

of each of those countries. In Liberia, it is in at least 13 out of the 

15 counties. We continue to have diagnosed roughly a thousand— 

and reported—roughly a thousand cases per week. We think there 

may be as many as twice that many in the region overall per week. 

We have, however, seen proof of principle that it can be controlled in individual communities, but we have also seen from 

Guinea that it comes back any time we let up our guard. We are 

also now surging to assist the Malian government in responding to 

the cluster there. There are already multiple cases from both 

household transmission and health care transmission. 

So, what we are going to have to do over the next period is be 

ready for a long, hard fight against Ebola. We are going to have 

to trace every single chain of transmission, identify the contacts, 

rapidly isolate them, and do what we know works in Ebola very 

well in very many different places. That way, we can stop it from 

spreading. But, there is the risk that if we fail to do that, if we 

do not have the resources through the emergency funding request, 

if we cannot accelerate our control efforts, it could spread to other 

countries in the region and it could become a threat for years to 

come. 

Senator BALDWIN. Ms. Lindborg, in the last hearing that I attended on this issue in, I think it was late September, one of our 

witnesses who was visiting from Sierra Leone talked about the economic impacts, hotels with nobody traveling for tourism, even business reasons, laying off their entire work force, schools being closed 

for public health reasons, so teachers are not drawing salaries. 

That has to have an incredible ripple effect. I am wondering how 

it is impacting issues like hunger and food security, and please tell 

us what our efforts are in that regard. 
30 

Ms. LINDBORG. Sure, and thank you very much for the question. 

Even as we maintain a very high tempo and rapid response to controlling the outbreak, which has to be an ongoing priority, as Dr. 

Frieden has said, and we have a very aggressive all of government 

effort working through the region to do that, at the same time, 

these were weak economies to begin with and we are seeing that 

the disease has further devastated food security systems, health 

systems. And, so, on top of the virus, we have health and food crises. 

We are working rapidly to look at food security solutions and we 

want to do so in a way that both meets immediate needs, but is 

sensitive to rebuilding the markets. What we are finding is that 

many communities are affected not by the disease at all, but by the 

secondary effects of closed markets, missed planting, inability to 

travel about. And, so, you have communities that are in a very precarious situation without livelihoods, particularly women farmers 

throughout the region as they are unable to access seeds, they are 

unable to do the planting, they are unable to get to markets. 

So, that is a significant effort, and in the emergency funding request, we do have critical funding not just to continue and accelerate the response, but also to meet food security needs as well as 

strengthening and restarting, essentially, the health system for 

non-Ebola health threats. We are seeing that the vaccination rates 

for measles in these countries is dropping to precipitously low 

rates. Women are no longer having access to assistance at childbirth. A whole host of diseases that were starting to get under control in these fragile States are slipping back. So, we have a significant effort to go in alongside the response to this virus and rebuild 

those systems and underscore those issues. 

I want to also add that we are seeing in other parts of the world 

the importance and the positive impact of the preparedness agenda, and as we look at DR Congo and Uganda, they have both had 

Ebola and Marburg outbreaks in the last few months. Because of 

the important work that USAID, CDC, WHO has done in the past 

several years, those outbreaks were contained. They did not spread. 

They did not have this devastating impact. So, just to underscore 

the preparedness, it is critical around the world as we look at the 

need for strengthened global health security. 

Senator BALDWIN. If I have time to put in one more question, I 

want to observe that during the time that this really was 24/7 in 

the media, there was misinformation as well as accurate information that was dispensed at that time. And, we have seen in prior 

epidemics the potential for the real medical epidemic and the epidemic of fear circulating amongst people. Tell me the components 

that you are looking at to make sure that there is constant accurate public information available for people who are anxious, have 

questions, need real information, both in the public health and 

medical community, but at the general public level, too. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We are committed to providing the most up-to-date 

and accurate information that is available as promptly and effectively and in as plain language as possible, and we do that through 

multiple means. We do that through communication with the 

health professionals, through our Health Alert Network (HAN), 

through our website and other measures, through a series of 
31 

webinars that we have had with other parts of HHS, in-person 

meetings and briefings, and we do that through a partnership with 

the media to convey the information on how Ebola spreads from everything that we know and how it does not spread and what really 

is most important to stop the outbreak and protect Americans, and 

getting back to the, I think, sometimes challenging but fundamental truth that we cannot make the risk zero in this country 

until we stop it in West Africa. 

Chairman CARPER. From one side of Wisconsin to another. Senator Johnson, please. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Dr. Lurie, you are 

with HHS. You are looking for about $3 billion of funding. How detailed is that request? I have a sheet here. We have about five different areas. I mean, how have you drilled down and just really detailed out that budget request? And, if you have it in much greater 

detail, can you provide that just for my staff? I mean, is this pages 

and pages of detail, or is this a couple categories and we were kind 

of estimating we were going to throw a half-million here, half-billion there? 

Dr. LURIE. Well, I have a couple pages even here of top-line 

issues, and we would be more than happy to provide it to your 

staff. I think we have really gone through it really very carefully, 

largely because we all appreciate the need to both respond to this 

epidemic with urgency and speed, but also really be responsible 

stewards of our society’s resources. 

Senator JOHNSON. Great. So, being an accountant, I would like 

that detail. And, Ms. Lindborg, the same from USAID and the 

State Department. It looks like it is about $2 billion. 

A question I do have is I know we are sending, what, about 4,000 

of our military personnel there. I see very little in terms of funding 

from the military. Who can really speak to the military’s role in 

West Africa? 

Ms. LINDBORG. I can do that. They have funding that they reprogrammed from last year that they notified and got approval to 

spend about $750 million. That is separate from this. President 

Obama mobilized the military to be a part of the response in midSeptember when it became clear that the scale and size and the 

complexity really needed the unique capabilities of the U.S. military. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, do you know how much the military will 

spend on their efforts? Any estimate? 

Ms. LINDBORG. I do not know that we have that final, but they 

expect to be within that envelope. 

Senator JOHNSON. I believe in your testimony, you were talking 

about what the role of the military would be. Can you describe 

that—— 

Ms. LINDBORG. Yes. 

Senator JOHNSON [continuing]. In greater detail? 

Ms. LINDBORG. Yes. So, they have played a critical role of, first 

of all, providing engineering and logistics capabilities. They built a 

25-bed medical unit in Monrovia that is specifically for health care 

workers. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. 
32 

Ms. LINDBORG. They have provided engineering capabilities and 

have built or, will build a total of 10 Ebola treatment units (ETUs). 

Senator JOHNSON. And, how many beds in each one of those 

treatment units? 

Ms. LINDBORG. So, each of these are built initially—the plan is 

that they are built for about 10 to 20 initially with the possibility 

to scale up to 100. This is part of the need to be very modular. 

Senator JOHNSON. Are they on the ground now? Do we have 

4,000 members of the military in West Africa? 

Ms. LINDBORG. No. They do not currently anticipate that they 

will need all 4,000—— 

Senator JOHNSON. How many are on the ground right now, and 

in which countries? 

Ms. LINDBORG. They are in Senegal and Liberia, and the exact 

figure changes because they flow capabilities in and out, and we 

can get you that—— 

Senator JOHNSON. So, nobody in Guinea? Nobody in Sierra 

Leone? 

Ms. LINDBORG. Correct. 

Senator JOHNSON. Are they going to be coming in contact, because I thought you said—— 

Ms. LINDBORG. No. 

Senator JOHNSON. I thought you said something about treatment 

of patients. I misheard that? 

Ms. LINDBORG. We are supporting the treatment—USAID is 

funding the partners who are providing the management and the 

treatment inside the Ebola treatment units. Army personnel, or 

military personnel will not come into any contact with what we call 

hot zones. 

Senator JOHNSON. Who is planning the foreign medical worker 

plan, the logistics of that? How many medical professionals need to 

be surged into there, and is it on a rotating basis, 30 days—I mean, 

can anybody speak to that plan? 

Ms. LINDBORG. Yes. So, you are exactly right. There is an enormous need for a pipeline of trained and equipped health care workers. This has been one of the logistical challenges. In addition to 

the medical unit that provides the confidence for health care workers, that if they come in, they will get that American standard 

treatment, and that is for both Liberian and international health 

care workers, the military, U.S. military, has also stood up a training facility so that it can train up to 500 health care workers a 

week so they have that special training—— 

Senator JOHNSON. In those countries? 

Ms. LINDBORG. In those countries. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. 

Ms. LINDBORG. It is in Monrovia and outside of Monrovia. We 

work very closely with WHO, who runs a foreign medical team coordinating center, and those teams get deployed against the needs 

within these Ebola treatment units. Very importantly, the U.S. 

military is also helping with some of the critical transport of commodities and personnel. There is a base in Senegal that enables 

them to move from Senegal through the region with transport. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Dr. Frieden, just for my last couple minutes here, I really want to ask some of those common sense ques-
33 

tions that people just have on their minds. If we can get the answers to them, maybe we can alleviate some of the fears. 

I know protocol was not, apparently, followed, but just specifically, how did those two nurses catch Ebola? Did they simply not 

have proper clothing? I mean, was their skin exposed? I mean, 

were they in just at the very height of Mr. Duncan’s illness and all 

kinds of medical waste and fluids and stuff? Can you tell us what 

happened there? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We do not know definitively how the infections occurred. We believe from the investigation and the evidence that it 

is likely that they were infected actually prior to Mr. Duncan’s diagnosis, from the 28th to the 30th of September, when he was very 

ill. He had a lot of body fluids, a lot of diarrhea, a lot of vomiting, 

and they were caring for him with protective equipment that they 

were trying to beef up so that they would be safer. But, in doing 

that, they may have inadvertently increased their risk. And that is 

why, immediately, we strengthened the level of safety and went to 

a new set of Personal Protective Equipment guidelines. Two of the 

essential components of those guidelines are that health care workers practice and practice and practice—— 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. 

Dr. FRIEDEN [continuing]. So they are comfortable with doing, 

and that they are observed to put on and take off the equipment. 

Senator JOHNSON. Can we talk a little bit about the survivability 

of the virus. We are talking about this, really, because of the burial 

practices in Africa, the virus is obviously present in those bodies 

and it, obviously, survives. If, it remains moist. Is that really all 

it takes, is just the virus to be in a moist environment and it will 

continue to survive? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. The virus cannot live indefinitely outside of the 

body, as far as we know, but it will depend on the environmental 

conditions. We know that it is produced more by people as they are 

sicker. 

Senator JOHNSON. Mm-hmm. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. But, all of what we have seen in Africa has suggested that it takes direct contact with someone who is ill. Even 

one study we did showed that even family members who shared 

meals, lived in the same household with patients, if they did not 

have direct contact, they did not—— 

Senator JOHNSON. What is the theory of how it jumps from animals to humans? Is that through diet? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. We do not know in particular. It has not been proven in Ebola. Our work has shown that in Marburg, a similar virus, 

bats are an important reservoir, and then contact, hunting and 

cleaning bush meat can bring people into contact with infected animals and their body fluids. 

Senator JOHNSON. A quick question for Texas. We know Mr. 

Duncan got ill in a parking lot. What happened to the result of that 

illness? 

Dr. LAKEY. What happened—— 

Senator JOHNSON. We heard it sat around for a couple days and 

then was just washed down a drain. 

Dr. LAKEY. For the cleaning of the environment? Is that your 

question, sir? 
34 

Senator JOHNSON. Yes. Apparently, he vomited in a parking lot. 

Dr. LAKEY. We brought in a crew to do cleaning, cleaning of the 

apartment. They went to several lengths to clean the apartment, 

clean all the environment around—there was a contractor that 

came in to do all that cleaning. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. If I may, just the Ebola virus itself is relatively 

easy to decontaminate. It has an envelope, so soap and water, an 

alcohol-based wipe, bleach readily decontaminates it, but we want 

to make sure that is done thoroughly and completely any time 

there may be exposure. 

Ms. LINDBORG. And, if I may, Senator Johnson, just to add, the 

funding request that is before you includes as a part of the two— 

the $1.89 billion—funds that will enable the military to transition 

out so that there will be civilian capabilities coming in behind the 

military, which is why they do not anticipate exceeding their current funding envelope. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Yes. I want to thank Senator Johnson for 

calling me during the, I guess it was at the time of the run-up to 

the election when we were not in session actually encouraging us 

to hold a hearing. He actually encouraged Dr. Coburn and I to hold 

a hearing a couple of weeks before the election, and we talked it 

over and decided that this might be a better time to do it. I thank 

him for raising the idea and certainly for being here again today 

to be with all of you and ask these questions, including the ones 

that are common sense questions. 

Senator Rob Portman from Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So, we talked earlier about timeliness, and Dr. Frieden and I can 

probably have a debate over that. CDC was on the ground with a 

relatively small number of people relatively early, but it also got 

out of control, and I hope no one on the panel would disagree with 

that. Look at it as compared to, for instance, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China and how we reacted. 

And, I say ‘‘we.’’ I mean the global community. And, we are now 

paying the price. So, there have been over 14,000 people infected. 

That is probably a low number. Over 5,000 people have died. It 

sounds like we are beginning to get it under control in Liberia, but 

not necessarily in Sierra Leone and Guinea. I think it just speaks 

to the need to respond more quickly because of the way it spreads, 

as Dr. Frieden was talking about. 

So, two questions. One, World Health Organization. I mentioned 

SARS because I think they responded appropriately and quickly 

there. I do not think they responded quickly here. Yes, they sent 

out a report saying this was a problem, but they did not send those 

treatment teams that you talked about as quickly as they could 

have, nor in the numbers that were needed, and I think the World 

Health Organization did not mobilize the donor community, meaning countries, as quickly as they could have, and have in other instances. So, what is happening? And, I do not know who wants to 

answer this question, who has the expertise on World Health Organization, but it seems to me we have to learn a lesson here, which 

is that the global response needs to be both more rapid and more 
35 

concerted, but also there needs to be more effort in funding early 

on. 

Ms. LINDBORG. So, if I could just start, and then I will pass it 

to Dr. Frieden. 

Senator PORTMAN. You guys are fighting for the microphone 

here. 

Ms. LINDBORG. It speaks, really, to two things. One is the response and how quickly and how thoroughly we need to be able to 

respond. But, even more importantly, it speaks to the preparedness 

agenda and being able to understand how we help countries detect 

and respond effectively to these kinds of diseases much more quickly. 

And, I will just say once again that even this year, these last few 

months, because of work that USAID, CDC, and WHO have done 

with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, they have 

both experienced outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg this year that 

were successfully contained. And, it is because of the under-investment in West Africa that we saw the Ebola virus just take fire the 

way we have seen. So, it is very important about the preparedness 

agenda. 

Senator PORTMAN. OK. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. That was actually one of the two points I wanted 

to make, and it is critically important and it is part of the emerging funding request, both for the countries around these three 

heavily affected countries so that they can have the detection, response, and prevention capacity so that it does not get out of hand 

there, and more broadly, so we have an alarm system globally so 

that we do not have something that festers for weeks or months 

and then spreads widely before we can respond. 

Senator PORTMAN. Dr. Frieden, here is my question to both of 

you. What happened? I mean, why did we not have that in effect? 

I mean, are you defending the World Health Organization today? 

Do you think they did the right thing? Do you think they were 

ready? I mean, why was West Africa left off the map? Why did they 

not have the preparedness and why did they not respond more 

quickly? And, I do not mean just WHO, because there are a lot of 

great NGO’s involved, also, and others. But, why was the response 

so slow and what role should the WHO have played and what has 

been learned? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. First, the countries themselves have very weak 

public health systems, so they did not have in place the basic laboratory, surveillance and tracking, response capacity, and emergency response and prevention capacity that are not very expensive 

to get in place, but would potentially have prevented this from becoming epidemic there. And, in fact, if you look at what the World 

Bank has estimated, more than $30 billion of costs in those countries, it would be a tiny fraction—less than a half a percent—to put 

in that kind of simple early warning and response system. 

In terms of the World Health Organization, I think they themselves would say that the response has not been optimal, that both 

within the countries, the WHO offices and the Regional Office of 

Africa did not respond effectively. They have terrific people in the 

WHO and they have a critically important role to play, and one of 

the aspects of the emergency funding request is to provide re-
36 

sources with accountability to WHO, because they need to have 

both a framework of providing guidelines globally, but also the ability to support response within capacity more than they have done 

so far. 

Senator PORTMAN. Some experts I have talked to on this use the 

word ‘‘bureaucracy,’’ that there was a bureaucratic issue here in responding, and more money will not solve that problem. Maybe 

more accountability will. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. I think we need to ensure that WHO has the resources to do the job that it needs to do and it also has the accountability to be held accountable for actually doing it. 

Senator PORTMAN. Could we switch to the NGO’s for a second. 

One thing that I have been asking about, and I have talked to— 

you mentioned the World Bank, so I will mention Dr. Jim Kim, 

who is not only the President of the World Bank, but happens to 

be an expert on infectious diseases and had a lot of successes 

through Partners in Health over the years with Dr. Farmer and 

others, but I have also talked to Dr. Bill Frist, who, as you know, 

was a former colleague of ours, and others about why we are not 

putting together an effective private sector response to channel the 

generosity and the support of the American people through something like we did after Katrina, or after the earthquake in Haiti, 

which had an enormous impact on Haiti’s ability to get on its feet, 

and people were happy to help, or after the tsunami, where, you 

know, at a Presidential level, we put together an opportunity for 

people to give. 

In some cases, the Red Cross has provided some of the infrastructure for that. I know the U.N. has its own fund, and I know 

that there are other NGO’s that are fundraising directly. I personally have contributed to Partners in Health, because I think they 

do a great job. The research I did showed that they probably put 

96 percent of their money straight into service, which I was very 

impressed with. 

But, my question is, should there not be a national response 

here, and I think a lot of people would be willing to help, but there 

has not been that kind of an organized effort as we have seen in 

these other either health care or natural disasters, and I wonder 

why and what could be done now. 

Ms. LINDBORG. So, that is an important question and there are 

new efforts to galvanize some of the fundraising that you mentioned through using social media and working very closely with 

the NGO’s, and there are more campaigns that are coming online 

in the next few weeks to do exactly that. We have also worked very 

closely with the communications companies, that we are involved 

with them right now in using some of their technologies and expertise to improve data collection, data transmission, data analysis, 

and they have been very important partners with us on that. 

Just yesterday, I followed Ron Klain to speak at a meeting of 

foundation and private sector individuals who are very interested 

in increasing their response in a very strategic way to how they 

can provide assistance. So, there is a lot of effort out there, both 

in terms of tapping into technologies, into products, and into fundraising possibilities, and you will see that continue over the weeks 

ahead. 
37 

Dr. FRIEDEN. And, if I may, two additional points. CDC has a 

foundation created by Congress in 1993. That foundation has 

raised more than $45 million for the response, and that has been 

immediately deployed to accelerate the response in West Africa. 

And, second, I have to give a lot of credit to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). They have been there on the front lines, on the ground 

at all times, and they have been right about their concerns and the 

alarms that they have raised. 

Senator PORTMAN. Yes. And the CDC fund has attracted some 

major donors, and that is terrific. I guess my question is, and to 

Ms. Lindborg talking about all the efforts that are going on, people 

who are watching today—thank you if anybody on C–SPAN is actually watching—they do not know about any of this. 

In the past, as I say, recent past, even, with regard to the earthquake in Haiti, the Presidential involvement in that, and also 

former Presidential involvement with regard to the tsunami, people 

knew about it and all of these media companies you are talking 

about were able to focus on one effort, one fund. It seems to me 

that makes sense. I just wonder if you are moving toward that. 

In addition to the CDC work, which is very important, this could 

be a broader fund that deals with not just Liberia, but all the countries of West Africa and trying to do what Dr. Frieden said earlier, 

which is he said, and I quote, ‘‘You cannot remove the risk to the 

United States until we stop Ebola in West Africa,’’ and I think people get that, want to help. They have compassion, and I do not 

think they know where to channel their generosity. 

Ms. LINDBORG. We could not agree with you more. Watch this 

space and we will be happy to keep you briefed as efforts evolve. 

And, I would add that about $850 million has been raised from the 

private sector thus far, so they have already been significantly engaged, including some very strategic contributions from organizations like the Paul Allen Family Foundation, who provided transport and have been engaged with us on the medevac solutions. But, 

there is a need for more campaigns and we look forward to talking 

to you more about that in the coming weeks. 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, I think, not speaking for all my colleagues, but a lot of us would be happy to be involved in that to 

help spread the word, but I think there needs to be an effort that 

is concerted, one effort that people understand and has accountability so that those generous Americans who want to help know 

their dollars are being well spent. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. You bet. Thank you. Senator Portman, I 

know you spend a lot of time, have a lot of personal interest in 

these matters, and I applaud you for that. It shows. 

Normally, the Chairman of the Committee leads off in the questioning here, as Gil knows and some others may recall, and I wanted others to go first today and I wanted to go last, and for about 

the next hour or two—it will not be that long. It may seem that 

long, but it will not be that long. [Laughter.] 

I have a couple questions, if I could. I am reminded of something 

that Lincoln once said. He used to say, ‘‘The role of government is 

to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.’’ That is 

what he would say. 
38 

Just a short question, and I invite a short answer. What is the 

role of government here, particularly our government? I am going 

to ask, is it Dr. Brinsfield, is that your name? Would you come to 

the table, please. You can be thinking about this. We will let you 

answer that one last. But, you are nice enough to come. I want to 

make sure we get our money’s worth out of your appearance. 

[Laughter.] 

But, what is the role of government, Dr. Lakey, very briefly? 

Dr. LAKEY. I think government had a very important role in the 

response. I cannot speak to fighting on the front lines in Africa, obviously, a very important role, to make sure that we prevent it 

from coming to the United States. But, an individual person cannot 

do the things that the government, local, State, Federal Government did together. You cannot test for an individual, to have that 

system in place to test that somebody has this disease or not. It 

cannot do the epidemiology to figure out, who have you been in 

contact with? That is a role of government. It cannot decide that 

somebody has had enough of an exposure that you might have to 

do a quarantine, et cetera. That is a role of government. To plan 

ahead, to make sure you know what facilities are ready, to train 

those individuals, I think there is a very important role of government providing for that common defense—— 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Hold it right there. That is good. I want 

to give these others a chance to respond. That is very good. Thank 

you. Ms. Lindborg. 

Ms. LINDBORG. A very critical role for the U.S. Government has 

been to provide the global leadership that helped galvanize a kind 

of response that was commensurate with the level of the threat. 

And, in addition, as we see with the Global Health Security Agenda 

that was launched actually in February, create the global conversation about the policies and the actions that are critical for all of us 

to have greater safety from emerging threats. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Gil. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Mr. Chairman, it is, I do not think, any different than when I was a police chief. It is to protect people, not 

only by the actions of government, but by equipping them with information and the steps that they can take themselves to be safer. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. I would reiterate that. It is about getting information to people on what is happening with the disease and what 

they can do. It is about working to protect people from threats that 

they cannot protect themselves from because of the outbreak. And, 

it is working as a community to stop an outbreak in order to protect people in a way that we, as individuals, cannot do that. We 

cannot have the detection systems, response systems, and prevention systems that will be so effective. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thanks. Dr. Lurie. 

Dr. LURIE. Great. The perils of going last on this one here, 

but—— 

Chairman CARPER. No, next to last. We are saving the best for 

last. [Laughter.] 

Dr. LURIE. Oh, OK. There you go. But, certainly to protect the 

public and to give people the information that they need to protect 

themselves. It is to lead. It is to educate. It is to be sure that an 
39 

infrastructure is in place so that people can be protected and educated. It is to support funding when funding is not available. And, 

it is ultimately to hold together with the public all the components 

accountable for outcomes. So, in some sense, it is to be sure that 

there is a system in place that knits all of the moving parts of this 

together so that it can work seamlessly and accountable to drive 

to outcome. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thanks. Dr. Brinsfield. 

Dr. BRINSFIELD. Thank you, sir, and thank you for inviting me. 

I think, in particular, it is our role to protect the homeland, and 

specifically our role to give the best advice possible to Mr. 

Kerlikowske, to our Secretary, to make sure that they are able to 

make the decisions necessary to protect both our workforce and the 

country. And, it is also our role in some sense to make sure the 

information is out there and available and that the response is equitable. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Is he a pretty good listener? 

Dr. BRINSFIELD. Very much, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Good. 

Each of you are going to be given about a minute to give just a 

brief closing statement—not yet, but just be thinking about that. 

We always ask our witnesses to give an opening statement, 5 minutes or so, and you will all be given a chance to offer just a brief 

closing statement, as well, so you might want to think about what 

you would say there. 

I am a recovering Governor, as my colleagues know, and as Governor, I did hundreds of customer calls to businesses across Delaware, outside of Delaware, maybe outside the country, a lot of 

whom would have operations in Delaware. So, we are always interested in job creation, job preservation in those roles, and in this 

role, too. But, when I would do customer calls on businesses—I still 

do them—I ask, how are you doing, ‘‘you’’ being your business. How 

are we doing, ‘‘we’’ being the State of Delaware, Senate, Congress, 

Federal Government, and what can we do to help. 

So, I am going to just—this is not a customer call as such, but 

we will just use those questions anyway. How are we doing? We 

have been pretty much asking that question all morning, and I am 

encouraged by how we are doing. I am encouraged by the sense of 

team and I am encouraged by the sense of not just the Federal 

Government, not just the State Government, not just public health, 

not just non-governmental entities, it is not just other countries, 

but it is all this writ large, a lot of volunteers, very good people. 

But, in my sense, we are doing better, and in this country, I 

think we have done remarkably well when you actually look at the 

numbers. I am told that more people die of malaria in a week in 

this world than have died of Ebola maybe since we had our first 

fatality. It has been pretty remarkable, and yet we do not focus as 

much on malaria, nearly as much as we do, and yet the loss of life 

every day is so substantial. 

OK. How are we doing? We have talked about that. How are you 

doing? For those you represent, how are we doing? And, most importantly, how can we help? I would just like to ask each of you, 

and I am going to start with you, Dr. Lurie, how can we help? 
40 

What are we doing right now that is really helpful? And, maybe 

one example of what do we need to do more of, or maybe even less 

of? Please, and just real briefly. 

Dr. LURIE. Great. Well, I would say one of the things that I think 

we have done very well is the preparedness has been built on the 

back of strong day-to-day systems. And, in fact, in this country, we 

have strong day-to-day systems that have let us detect, that have 

let us respond. We cannot take our foot off the gas here and we 

have to continue to build that, maintain it, and be sure it is in 

place, and I think we have to continue to look toward the future. 

We need to look at, as we do with any event, what are the lessons 

learned, what are the things that went well, and where do we need 

to build toward our future preparedness both in this country and 

globally. Obviously, there are lessons in that for both. 

Chairman CARPER. We are going to come back and ask about lessons learned, but thank you for that. 

Dr. Frieden, what can we do to help, maybe that we are already 

doing or not doing enough of, or too much of? 

Dr. FRIEDEN. I think the basic principles of moving fast and flexibly and keeping the front lines first are the critical components 

here. And right now, we are very focused on the emergency funding 

request, because that is going to be in a critical pathway for our 

being able to stop it in West Africa, being able to protect the homeland by strengthening systems here, and being able to anticipate 

and set the alarm earlier if Ebola or another deadly threat spreads 

elsewhere through the global health security work. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Gil. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. Mr. Chairman, I think what is interesting to 

me is during the 6-years in the Administration, I have had two 

wonderful interactions with Senator Portman. So, as Drug Policy 

Advisor, it was all about enforcement. United States Customs and 

Border Protection is all about enforcement. My two interactions 

with Senator Portman, and, frankly, a number of other Members 

of Congress, have been about disease, have been about public 

health, and my work with Dr. Frieden on overdoses and prescription drugs and now on Ebola. And, what I think it clearly shows 

is that there is not a division. There is a true intersection of where 

public safety and public health come together. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Lindborg. 

Ms. LINDBORG. So, even before the Ebola outbreak, we—— 

Chairman CARPER. Again, what I am really drilling down is what 

can we do to help, but please. 

Ms. LINDBORG. Yes. Even before the Ebola outbreak, we had a 

record level of global crises around the world. Because of the fastmoving nature of Ebola, we had to push out hard and fast with all 

of our emergency responses, all of our resources. What you can 

most do to help is help us ensure that those mortgaged responses 

are still able to go forward. The emergency funding request is critical, both for maintaining our continual accelerated rapid response 

in West Africa, but also to ensuring that we are able to replenish 

some of our contingency accounts that were so critical for getting 

out fast. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks. 
41 

Ms. LINDBORG. And then the second thing I would just say is the 

attention and the interest and the support from both the House 

and the Senate have been, I think, indispensable, both in terms of 

getting information out to the American public, but also just ensuring that there is this important ongoing dialogue. So, thank you for 

that. 

Chairman CARPER. Thomas Jefferson used to say, ‘‘If the people 

know the truth, they will not make a mistake,’’ and part of the reason for this hearing today for Dr. Coburn and myself and, I think, 

others, is to get to the truth, make sure that people in this country 

know the truth. 

For me, a big piece of that was when the gentleman who died 

in Dallas, and we learned that the woman with whom he shared 

a bed, same sheets, same bedroom, the kids that were there, the 

adults who were there, none of them came down with the disease, 

that was just an eye-opener for me in what we were facing. And, 

it does not minimize the threat of what we were facing, but it was 

something that was, for me, really helped me understand the truth. 

Dr. Lakey, just very briefly. What can we do, what more or less 

of? 

Dr. LAKEY. Well, first, thank you for allowing me to be here 

today. I think it is important to have a State voice in these conversations, and as policies are put into place, that there are individuals from the State and local level that can have input into how 

those policies are going to be played out on a local level. 

Chairman CARPER. As a former Governor, I know how important 

those States are. 

Dr. LAKEY. Well, thank you. I think what we are incumbent to 

learn from this experience and make sure that we are quicker, faster, and smarter in our ability to respond, things like permitting 

and cutting some of those bureaucracies so that we can move 

quicker the next time. And, I would ask you to remember that that 

public health—we do not like the word ‘‘infrastructure,’’ but there 

is a capacity that needs to be in place to be able to do the detection, 

respond quickly, and that is a very important ability for us to respond to these events. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Dr. Brinsfield. 

Dr. BRINSFIELD. Thank you, sir. So, to echo Mr. Kerlikowske, we 

clearly every day see the intersection of public health and security, 

and this is something that we felt very supported by this Committee and look forward to working with you further to codify some 

of those areas. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Dr. Lurie, you mentioned best practices. Let me just ask you 

each to name one, just something you have seen and you say, oh, 

that is a best practice. I always like to say, find out what works, 

do more of that. Find out what does not work, do less of that. And, 

maybe give us a good example of what works that we ought to do 

a lot more of. A best practice, please. Just one. 

Dr. LURIE. Certainly, one best practice is having day-to-day systems that have people drill and exercise for emergencies that might 

happen. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. 
42 

Dr. LURIE. So, I will just take a moment to respond to your other 

question, because it is all a best practice. I know that you are all 

going home for the holidays. 

Chairman CARPER. Maybe. 

Dr. LURIE. You are going to have opportunities to meet with your 

constituents, and I want to be sure before you leave that you have 

all the information you need to help your constituents understand 

what is going on with Ebola in West Africa and here, and to help 

them stay educated and help them stay calm. 

Chairman CARPER. That is a great point. Yes. Thanks so much. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Lagos, Nigeria, experienced a traveler arrive, 

caused a cluster of Ebola. CDC and the Nigerian government and 

the Lagos government were able to respond to that very intensively. It required 19,000 home visits, creating an Ebola treatment 

unit, and moving out very rapidly, and with that intensive effort, 

they have made Nigeria Ebola-free. That kind of intensive effort is 

what we need to devote to every single case of Ebola that occurs 

anywhere in the world so we can push it back and get it out of 

these countries where it is spreading so widely. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. I mentioned the incident in Dallas, the death of the gentleman, and the fact that those right 

around him, even in the same bed with him, never contracted it. 

For me, that was a moment of truth. And the other moment of 

truth was what you just pointed out in Nigeria, a country that successfully addressed this and basically stopped it in its tracks. 

Thanks. 

Mr. Kerlikowski I almost called you ‘‘Doctor,’’ so, Chief, go ahead. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. I am with quite a few. After the laws, after 

the MOUs, after the agreements, after the policies, it really all 

comes down to those individual relationships. And, if you look at 

the complexity of an airport and to suddenly very quickly and very 

adaptively put in the type of screening that required the cooperation of the airlines, the airport authorities, the Chicago Public 

Health, or the State of New York Public Health, the relationships 

with CDC, all of these things to be—the United States Coast 

Guard—all of these things to be done very quickly so we can have 

great policies and MOUs, those relationships at the State and local 

level, as Dr. Lakey said, are critical. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you, sir. Ms. Lindborg. 

Ms. LINDBORG. Two things. One is having early on a joint strategy that was very clear and governed not just our response, but 

was closely aligned with the United Nations and with the affected 

countries made a difference. We were all able to move forward in 

the same direction. 

And then, second, is applying a lot of hard lessons learned of how 

to be very organized in the heat of a crisis response and having the 

systems and the authorities so that when we send in our Disaster 

Assistance Response Team, we can call forward, whether it is from 

DOD or the U.S. Forest Service, the capabilities from across the 

U.S. Government that are most appropriate, and it is a much more 

seamless relationship now than it was in the past. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Dr. Lakey. 

Dr. LAKEY. I think one of the things that was helpful to us was 

to have an outside entity, an advisory board, to be able to hand off, 
43 

ask hard questions to, a board of prominent scientists from the 

State of Texas, individuals that run major agencies, have meetings 

that were public and so that we could have that outside entity advise us and be able to get the best scientific information as we devised our critical policies. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Dr. Brinsfield. 

Dr. BRINSFIELD. So, I also believe that the interagency dialogue, 

the coordination that has gone, we have improved greatly, and I 

think it is one of the real strengths of this response. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

We have touched on the funding. You have, in some cases, responded in terms of what we can do to help, is to make sure that 

we are responsive to the Presidential request for supplemental 

funding. I am going to ask you to answer this question on the 

record, but before I ask the question, I will just try to draw a parallel here. 

Earlier this summer, we had tens of thousands of people, mostly 

young people, sometimes, as Gil knows, very young people who 

were coming up from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, trying to 

get into our country and to escape the wretched lives that they are 

living down in those three countries in particular. We spent a fair 

amount of time trying to figure out what we could do to strengthen 

the borders, stop people at the borders, and we spent about a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars in the last 10 years to do that. We really 

were trying to address the symptoms of a problem, the underlying 

problem and underlying cause is lack of economic hope, lack of opportunity, lack of safety in those countries, and that is why these 

people are getting out of there. 

One of the questions I am going to ask you for the record is for 

some thoughts on underlying root causes. I always like to focus on 

root causes. We are so good at thinking about symptoms, how do 

we address the symptoms of problems, and for me, what I always 

like, what is the root cause of this particular problem? Let us make 

sure that we are dealing with that at the same time that we deal 

with the symptoms. So, I am going to be asking one question about 

the root cause. 

The second question I will ask you is a somewhat different kind 

of question. It goes back to the Administration’s funding request, 

but it relates to the border. The Administration came in, as Gil will 

recall, with a very substantial supplemental appropriations request 

back in mid-summer, remember, and I think it was about, I want 

to say, $3.7 billion. It was then knocked down to $2.7 billion. And, 

the flow of particularly young people to our borders slowed dramatically. We did a bunch of things. The Mexicans did a number 

of things. We launched this truth campaign down in those three 

countries in Central America to try to make sure the people there 

knew what they are actually facing, trying to get through Mexico, 

trying to get into this country, and I think that helped, as well. The 

weather slowed some people down. 

But, we want to make sure that we are addressing root causes. 

We also want to make sure that the President’s request, which 

3.7—we never funded the 3.7. He knocked it down to 2.7. We did 

not fund 2.7. And, in the end, we asked the Administration to figure out and, like, literally take it out of their own hide, about $400 
44 

million to try to address the challenges at the border and everything that flows from that. You are going to get a lot of questions about a $6.5 billion supplemental request, and I thought we had a good discussion about 

that today, but my question for the record will be, if we do not get 

it, if you do not get that kind of money, what does it mean? What 

does it mean if we do not respond in the way that the Administration is asking? 

Ron, do you have any more questions? No? 

I did say I was going to ask each of you to give one last parting 

comment, and no more than a minute, but, Dr. Brinsfield, again, 

thanks so much for joining us, and you get the last word. 

Dr. BRINSFIELD. Thank you, sir, and thank you for inviting me. 

I have nothing further to add except to say that we have appreciated greatly the ability to work with our colleagues. We have certainly learned a lot of lessons about how we can better move and 

transfer data, how we can work together in a more efficient manner, and particularly want to thank our colleagues from Texas and 

State and local public health because it really is where the rubber 

meets the road and we have great support and faith in their ability 

to do the job that we have been asking them to do. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Dr. Lakey. 

Dr. LAKEY. Again, I want to thank you for the privilege of being 

here today to be able to share our experiences. I think it is incumbent on us to make sure we learn from those experiences so that 

we can protect our health care workers, we are able to be able to 

respond quickly. The infrastructure at States and the local level 

really is critical in that ability to respond quickly, and so, again, 

I want to emphasize that infrastructure is very important. It is also 

very important that we know each other. We have worked together 

on many events before and it really is a team effort in order to respond to a novel event like this. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. No, ‘‘I’’ in the word ‘‘team.’’ It is a team and 

a good one. Ms. Lindborg. 

Ms. LINDBORG. OK. So, this is the closing—— 

Chairman CARPER. This is your last minute—— 

Ms. LINDBORG. OK. 

Chairman CARPER. Closing thoughts. 

Ms. LINDBORG. So, Ebola preys on weak systems. We have seen 

what happens when it goes into countries that are ill prepared, especially countries that are recovering from conflict and just do not 

have the means. More than anything, this underscores that if we 

get upstream, if we pay attention to fragile States, if we work on 

strengthening the global health system, we are in the best position 

to keep this country safe and to avoid having to mount these very, 

very expensive, difficult responses. So, it is the root causes and the 

root causes are often fragility, poverty, repressive countries. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Gil. 

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE. As a police chief, it was important to arrest 

criminals. It was important to solve crimes. But, it was just as important to give people in Seattle the sense of confidence that their 

police department knew what the problems were, that they were 

action oriented, and that their first and primary task was to protect them. And, I think the opportunity to have this hearing and 
45 

let people know that government actually is very much involved, 

and even though, as Tom said, we will never reduce the risk to absolutely zero, we are much better ahead of the game because of the 

cooperation and the support that we all have. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Dr. Frieden. 

Dr. FRIEDEN. Ebola is a serious threat. It is one of several serious threats, and unless we move out quickly, get the resources 

needed, the risk is that it will spread throughout other countries 

in Africa and be a threat for a long time to come. 

The emergency response request for CDC, the funding is largely 

fixed, not dependent on the number of cases. It is to protect our 

systems here in the U.S. It is to prevent similar outbreaks of Ebola 

and other deadly diseases elsewhere and it is to surge into the 

three countries and the 11 countries around them to create the systems that will help them be safer and help us be safer by addressing some of those root causes of weak systems, weak public health 

systems, and establish the rapid response capacity that can end 

this epidemic and prevent the next one. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Dr. Lurie. 

Dr. LURIE. We have been hearing a lot about root causes, and 

preparedness, as I said, is really built on the back of strong dayto-day systems. We have seen weak systems in West Africa. Those 

are some of the root causes of what happened there. We need to 

keep our systems here strong. We cannot let them degrade. 

We also have seen, with every investment in preparedness, there 

has been a peacetime return on investment. Our systems have gotten stronger. We have gotten better about preventing or detecting 

the next episode. And, we have been able to shorten the period between an event and, in some sense, recovery. One of the things 

that we really need to do with this emergency funding request is 

to deal with the acute situation in West Africa. I also anticipate 

that we will want to see the returns on investment, both in West 

Africa and around the ring countries, as Tom said, and around the 

globe, as well as the returns here from a strengthened public 

health and health care system that can deal with really deadly infectious diseases in the future. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

I will give a short, maybe, closing statement of my own now, and 

I, too, again thank you all for coming today. Thanks for working 

together, and thanks for doing important work. 

I often tell the story about listening to the National Public Radio 

(NPR) going to catch the train last year, one day last year—I go 

back and forth to my home State of Delaware almost every night 

from here and like to listen to NPR driving into the train station 

after I have worked out at the Y, catch that 7:15 train and come 

on down. And, one of my favorite recollections of listening to the 

news at the top of the hour, seven o’clock, is a question was asked 

about a year ago in an international survey, what do you like about 

your work, and it was a question asked of thousands of people all 

over the world. What do you like about your work? 

And, the people had different answers. Some said they liked getting paid. Some said they liked health care as a benefit. Some said 

they liked to have a pension. Some people said they liked having 

their vacations. Some people said they liked the folks they work 
46 

with. Some people said they liked the environment in which they 

worked. 

But, the thing that most people liked most, that gave them real 

satisfaction in their work, is that they knew the work they were 

doing was important and they knew they were making progress. 

Think about that. The work they were doing was important and 

they knew they were making progress. 

There are few things more important than saving the lives of 

other people, whether in this country or other countries. Who is my 

neighbor? And, so I say to you, you are doing important work, and 

I am encouraged that we are making real progress here and starting to see some in Africa, as well. 

I love to ask people who have been married a long time, 50, 60, 

70 years, I love to ask them, what is the secret for being married 

50 or 60 or 70 years. I get some hilarious answers. One of those 

is last month or so, I talked to a couple. They had been married 

54 years. I asked the wife, what is the secret for being married to 

this guy for 54 years and she said of her husband, she said, ‘‘He 

can be right or he can be happy’’, ‘‘but he cannot be both.’’ [Laughter.] 

I get answers like this all the time. One of my favorite answers, 

and I have gotten this one a number of times, is the two Cs. The 

two Cs. The first time somebody said the two Cs, I said, what are 

those? The answer is, communicate and compromise. And, I have 

concluded over the years that that is not only the secret for a vibrant marriage between two people, but also the secret for a vibrant democracy, to communicate and compromise. And, I have 

added a third C, and the third C is collaborate. To communicate, 

compromise, to collaborate. Again, that third C stands up large as 

we explore this issue before us here today. 

I have had the privilege of leading this Committee for the last 

2 years with Dr. Coburn, and I said earlier he and I have worked 

very closely together. We took turns being Chair and Ranking 

Member of the Financial Services Subcommittee within this Committee, so we had a great time working together then and we have 

had, I think, just a lot of challenges this Congress, but some real 

satisfying moments, as well, and we are not done yet. 

But, when he and I took over our leadership roles 2 years ago 

after Senators Lieberman and Collins had fled, at least this Committee, Lieberman into retirement and Susan to take on other responsibilities, but 2 years ago when Tom and I were talking about 

what lay ahead for the Committee and this Congress, the word 

‘‘Ebola’’ never came up. The word Islamic State of Iraq and Syria 

(ISIS) never came up. The word ‘‘Sandy’’ was not something that 

we related to the kind of disaster that came to visit us on the East 

Coast. And, as it turns out, the nature of the challenges that we 

face to our homeland, to our people, evolves, continues to evolve. 

One of the best ways we can deal with the threats, whatever 

they might be, is to communicate, maybe some compromise, and a 

whole lot of collaboration, and that is what we have an obligation 

to do on our side, so, clearly, you have that obligation, as well, and 

my hope is that we are meeting our obligation and we will in the 

future, as well, as you have met your obligation to do those, to be 

faithful to those three Cs. 
47 

And, in closing, I would say to the members of our staff, Committee staff, who are here how much I appreciate the great work 

that they have done, not for me, not for Dr. Coburn, but really for 

our country. As they know, it is very important work. What Tom 

and I have tried to do is just to work together, to demonstrate by 

not do as I say but actually do as I do, and hope that it will trickle 

down, and I really think that it has and I hope we have set an example for other Committees, as well. 

And, I think, with that having been said, I think it is a wrap. 

We want to again thank you all for joining us, and I am supposed 

to say these last words. The hearing record will remain open for 

15 days—that is until December 4, 5 p.m., for the submission of 

statements and questions for the record. 

And, with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you all. 

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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