Health

All people travelling from Ebola-affected nations in West Africa to the United States will be restricted to landing in five major airports, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday. Health screening will also be increased. The security measures take effect Wednesday.

Currently, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection inspects travellers arriving from Ebola-affected nations for possible disease exposure. The security measures were initiated earlier this month, and include checking for fever and asking questions about possible Ebola exposure.

Wednesday, travellers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea will be subject to enhanced screening measures and will be allowed entry into the states through only five US airports–Chicago, Atlanta, Dulles, Newark and New York’s JFK.

The five airports have enhanced screening and additional resources in place, according to DHS.

The five airports account for 94 percent of travellers coming from the affected countries, and there are currently no direct, non-stop commercial flights from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to the US.

On average, around 150 people arrive in the US from the three countries.

DHS said that it was working with airlines to implement the new restrictions with minimal travel disruption.

The DHS is in the process of increasing Ebola security measures in the US. “We currently have in place measures to identify and screen anyone at all land, sea and air ports of entry into the United States who we have reason to believe has been present in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea in the preceding 21 days,” stated the DHS. “We are continually evaluating whether additional restrictions or added screening and precautionary measures are necessary to protect the American people and will act accordingly.”

By Daniel Jackson

In 2010 the Obama administration did away with proposed quarantine regulations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considered to be critical to protecting Americans in the event of deadly diseases being spread by travelers. The regulations, which had been proposed in 2005 as a reaction to the H5N1 avian flu virus that spread globally that year, would have given additional responsibilities to airlines dealing with passengers who could be infected with deadly diseases.

The regulations would have given federal government powers to detain sick airline passengers and people exposed to certain diseases. The regulations would have also created stricter airline policy with regards to reporting ill passengers to the CDC, and airlines would have been mandated to collect contact information from passengers in case that information was later needed to trace infection in the event of an outbreak.

The CDC would have been empowered to detain people involuntarily for three business days if they suspected certain diseases–namely pandemic flu, infectious tuberculosis, plague, cholera, SARS, smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria and Ebola.

Read more: US Experts Warn US Not Prepared to Contain Ebola, US Officials Reject Travel Restrictions

The regulations were initiated under the Bush Administration. In 2008, CDC spokesperson Christine Person said of the measures, “It’s important to public well being to move forward with the regulations. We require to update our quarantine regulations, and this final rule is an important step.”

Although CDC officials said that the additional powers would only be used in rare circumstances of health threats, the regulations were opposed by airlines and civil liberties organizations, which complained of the costs associated with the responsibilities, as well as the potential for privacy rights violations.

By Heidi Woolf

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, working with county officials, will enact a control order limiting travel for people who have been exposed to Ebola, Jenkins said Wednesday, calling the situation in Texas a “very serious public health Ebola crisis.” Travel will be restricted on public transportation, including buses and airliners, and further restrictions are being explored by local and state governments.

“I’m not considering it. I’m going to do it,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, speaking of a legal order restricting travel for health care workers involved in the treatment of Thomas Duncan, who died of Ebola last week in Texas Presbyterian Hospital.

“We have the ability to have our county medical director sign a control order. I’m also working with the state–‘one team, one fight’–to join us in that, because some of the people under the order don’t live in Dallas County. They live in the surrounding counties.

“At a minimum,” Jenkins said, “it will follow the CDC guidelines on traveling by public conveyance.”

“This is a fluid and very serious public health Ebola crisis,” said Jenkins. He said that his office was doing something to stop travel–putting in place a control order that would restrict people from getting on public transportation. He was also working with higher levels of government to look at “other public venues where movement would be restricted.”

Jenkins clarified the risks people faced with regards to travel.

“It’s not a problem for you to ride next to a diseased contact in a car–if it were, I wouldn’t have driven people who were disease contacts to their new home. But it is a problem if you are in an enclosed area like an airplane on a cross-country flight and someone gets symptoms, and then they have body fluids that get on other people. And so, restricting long-distance buses or public transportation–there may be other sorts of venues where you’re kind of locked into an area. So that’s what we’re looking at.”

Jenkins stated that it was “very disappointing” to him that someone with a fever, such as Amber Vinson was reported to have had, would have been allowed on an airplane. “It is unacceptable that that happened.”

Jenkins spoke about the problems that he had been dealing with in Dallas, as well as the evolving challenges. “I feel good about what we thought was the scary problem last week, and that is Eric Duncan for five days with Ebola in my community, where I’ve got to go find everybody that touched him. We did that. Now we’ve got a breach at the hospital.”

Jenkins made the point that the health care workers were not at fault. “That’s a procedure, protocol or supervision problem–Those nurses are heroes.”

“This new problem with the hospital causes us to fight a two-front war,” said Jenkins.

Jenkins said that he thought that they had achieved a significant level of control over the hospital breach as well.

The current problems officials were dealing with, Jenkins said, were the two families of the infected health care workers, as well as the 75 people who were away from the patient population.

Of those 75 hospital workers, most were at home on furlough, Jenkins said. Officials were working on a situation in which those exposed people could choose whether to stay at home, or, if they were concerned about family members, they could transfer to a safer location.

“Two options. You can stay at home under the orders we’re putting there. Or you can go to a place where you’ll be cared for.

Some of the exposed health care workers, however, continue to treat Amber Vinson, because they have already been exposed, Jenkins said.

Jenkins stressed that those people affected by the ban had done nothing wrong.

“These are not criminals. These are heroic health care professionals. They are not trying to get out into the community and cause any harm. And they don’t need to be vilified, and their children don’t need to be vilified. If an order is in place, I expect it to be followed, and we would use the law to enforce it, but that won’t be necessary.

“These are heroic health care professionals who just need some guidance on what they can and can’t do in a very difficult time in their life.”

Jenkins current interest was, he said, keeping the two and a half million people who live in Dallas safe.

“My job is to correct mistakes as fast as I find them, whoever made them. ‘One team, one fight.’ To find those mistakes. We’ll worry about whose fault it was later. Let’s get it corrected. Let’s make sure nobody else gets on an airplane. Let’s move forward and keep this community safe.”

 

According to a recent study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, pesticide use is positively linked to suicide and depression. The study analyzed data from various pesticide classes and found evidence supported a positive association between pesticide exposure and depression. Several specific pesticides were also positively identified as associated.

“Few previous studies have considered the episodic nature of depression or examined individual pesticides,” wrote the researchers of their findings, “We evaluated associations between pesticide exposure and depression among male private pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study.”

The team based their findings on reports competed by those exposed to pesticides over the past 20 years.

“We analyzed data for 10 pesticide classes and 50 specific pesticides used by 21,208 applicators enrolled in 1993–1997 who completed a follow-up telephone interview in 2005–2010,” wrote the team in a summary of their work.

The team calculated the amount of applicators who reported a physician diagnosis of depression and those who had previous diagnoses of depression.

The team concluded that their study “supports a positive association between pesticide exposure and depression, including associations with several specific pesticides.”

Several specific pesticides were directly linked to depression.

“[T]he fumigants aluminum phosphide and ethylene dibromide; the phenoxy herbicide (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy) acetic acid (2,4,5-T); the organochlorine insecticide dieldrin; and the organophosphate insecticides diazinon, malathion, and parathion—were all positively associated with depression in each case group.”

The study, “Pesticide Exposure and Depression among Male Private Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study,” was authored by John D. Beard, David M. Umbach, Jane A. Hoppin, Marie Richards, Michael C.R. Alavanja, Aaron Blair, Dale P. Sandler, and Freya Kamel, and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

By Sid Douglas