[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 143 (Thursday, November 20, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H8149-H8150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    KEEPING AMERICA SAFE FROM EBOLA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, today I rise because I want 
to talk about a piece of legislation that I am dropping with a 
colleague from the Senate, Senator Rubio. It is H.R. 5746. Its title is 
Keeping America Safe from Ebola.
  Now, I know a couple weeks ago, Ebola was in the headlines everywhere 
and we couldn't stop talking about it. Every newscast was filled with 
more and more information about Ebola. There was a great concern around 
not only our country, but around the world about this disease that was 
so lethal and what were we going to do to stop it.
  Well, I didn't know that much about Ebola, so what I decided to do 
was go back and look in and find out as much as I could about Ebola and 
find out how we ever became even knowledgeable of Ebola.
  I found out that there was a doctor in 1976 by the name of Dr. Peter 
Piot. He is a Belgian doctor. He discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. In 
fact, my staff and I said: Okay, we know Dr. Piot discovered Ebola. We 
know he knows about this virus. Let's find out from him the true 
information that we need to have. If this is such a dangerous disease, 
if this is such a dangerous virus, if it is so lethal, shouldn't we try 
to find out everything that we can about Ebola?
  And so I contacted Dr. Piot. He was in London. Let me just tell you 
who he is.
  Dr. Peter Piot is not only a doctor, but he has a Ph.D. He is a 
clinical microbiologist. He is the director of the legendary London 
School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the former Undersecretary 
General of the United Nations and a former executive director of 
UNAIDS. He lives in London, and he has spent his entire life studying 
infectious diseases.
  Despite the fact that when he was in med school and he had said: I am 
going to study infectious diseases, he was told: You don't have to 
worry about infectious diseases. I don't know why you would even be 
concerned about infections diseases. The world is no longer being 
troubled with or being threatened with infections diseases, Dr. Piot 
thought: That doesn't make sense. There is no reason for us not to 
continue to study.
  So he did study. In 1976, as I have already told you, he is the 
doctor that discovered the Ebola virus.
  Now, you may wonder, so what was our conversation like?
  I said: Well, Dr. Piot, I just want to tell you, here in the States, 
we are very concerned now about Ebola. In fact, we have written about 
Ebola. We have said this is a Paul Revere moment when people have to 
really understand that there is something coming that we are not ready 
for.
  Dr. Piot said to me: You know what, Mr. Kelly, I am glad you called 
me, because let me tell you a little bit more about Ebola. Let me tell 
you that right now what the world is looking at, and not just your 
country but the world is looking at a dress rehearsal for the next 
great virus. It is true that this one is very lethal, but this is 
tactile. In other words, you have to come in contact with it some way. 
But it is constantly mutating, as are other viruses.
  And I said: Okay, Doctor. Because our idea was, first of all, you 
must isolate those who have this disease.
  He said: That is right.
  I said: Well, I can remember growing up, if you had the mumps or the 
chicken pox or the measles, the first thing you were told is you can't 
go to school. You have got to stay home, because you don't want to 
carry this into a school or with your friends. So we would stay home. 
They would isolate us from the general population. Even though we were 
children and we would only go outside and play, they said, No, not 
until you are clear. It just seems so basic.
  He said: It is absolutely basic. We must contain it to West Africa. 
We cannot let it get beyond those shores.
  Now, because of who we are today and the technology we have today, we 
can be sitting in this wonderful House this afternoon and we can be in 
Rome tonight. We can be halfway around the world in a very short period 
of time. It is not like the old days where these diseases, these 
viruses were carried and it took months for them to get from shore to 
shore and from country to country. It now can travel very quickly. It 
mutates very quickly.
  So I said to Dr. Piot: What else should we do?
  Number one, isolate. Number two, quarantine.
  I said: I have heard of quarantines.
  He said: Well, you should have heard of quarantines. Back in Italy, 
when the bubonic plague broke out, they took people who were infected 
and they put them on an island. They left them there for a quarantine, 
or 40 days. They were then allowed to come back in if they survived, to 
enter the general population.
  Isn't it amazing that during those days everybody understood you must 
isolate, you must quarantine. Why? So you don't infect the general 
population. It is so basic. But yet we are trying to struggle today to 
find out how do we contain this disease, this lethal disease? What can 
we possibly do?
  The answers, my friend, are so obvious.
  The other thing that Dr. Piot talked about--I want you to think about 
this. Dr. Piot discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. Fast forward, 1986, 
1996, 2006, and now 2014. It has been almost 40 years since Dr. Piot 
discovered the Ebola virus. In those 40 years, we have not developed a 
vaccine to inoculate people against the Ebola virus.
  It is unthinkable that at this time in human history we are still 
playing around trying to figure out what we should do. The answer is it 
better be politically correct or we can't possibly do it.
  So we are going to risk entire populations. We are going to risk 
infecting people that have absolutely no contact but come in contact 
because somebody is able to travel the world freely--somebody wasn't 
isolated, somebody wasn't quarantined because it doesn't fit our 
political agenda. This makes no sense.
  This administration appointed an Ebola czar. That is as far as it 
went. We have got an Ebola czar. We don't have an Ebola agenda. We 
don't have an Ebola strategy. We don't have anything to combat this 
very lethal virus.
  What is it going to take to wake this country up?
  And I would just suggest that while it is no longer a headline, it is 
still very important--not just to every citizen of this great country, 
but every citizen of the world. And so the answer is to isolate. The 
answer is to quarantine. The answer is to develop a vaccine.
  The problem with developing a vaccine, there are at least four 
vaccines that are available right now. Dr. Piot told me the greatest 
advances have been made by our Department of Defense. The United States 
Department of Defense has made the greatest progress in developing a 
vaccine for Ebola.

                              {time}  1130

  I said: Then why don't we just bring it out?
  He said: It has not been tested on humans.
  I said: That doesn't make sense.
  He said: Of course it doesn't make sense, but that is how these 
infectious disease concerns work.
  I said: So what would the process be?
  He said: We have tested it on monkeys. We haven't tested it on 
humans.
  The biggest thing when it comes to a vaccine is what dosage should we 
be giving. You have to give the right dosage in order to defeat the 
disease.
  Now, think about if we develop a vaccine. We can now talk to the 
medical providers, and we can talk to the doctors and nurses that go 
into these infected areas and say: We are going to inoculate you. You 
are not going to come home with this lethal disease.
  How basic is that?
  Then the question is: So what are we waiting for? Why are we not 
developing this today? Why are we not fast-forwarding this? It is 
because there is a new headline.
  Now, we are going to talk about immigration. Forget about Ebola. That 
is by the wayside. The election, that is ancient history. It was 2 
weeks ago. We

[[Page H8150]]

are not going to worry about that, but we are going to worry about 
immigration today. We are going to turn our backs on a discovery that 
will save thousands and thousands of lives. We are going to turn our 
backs on science that we know to be true and on a cure that we know is 
there. We are at the threshold right now.
  I want to read from Dr. Piot's book because there were several things 
that really struck me. He not only worked on the Ebola virus, he also 
worked on the AIDS virus.
  He said: Perhaps, most important, I have seen over and over and over 
again how a catastrophe like AIDS brings out the very best and very 
worst in the human species, regardless of whether a person is well-
educated or illiterate. These experiences largely compensated for the 
numerous--coming to a cure for AIDS.
  This is what he said: These experiences largely compensated for the 
numerous--and just translate Washington into this--brain-killing 
meetings that I had to endure during my tenure at UNH, where I learned 
not to be guided by the modern plague, the quarterly result, the short-
term view, but to focus on the ultimate goal of saving as many lives as 
possible.
  What he is saying is forget the politics. Keep your eye on where it 
is you are trying to go. Let's fix this problem. Let's save as many 
lives as possible.
  As I finished up the book, Dr. Piot finishes it this way. He says: 
Above all, the history of AIDS is one of refusing the inevitability of 
death because of a lack of treatment, defeat, prejudice, and the 
institutional obstacles in moving mountains beyond familiar territory. 
It is perhaps the strongest example of global altruism out of a 
rational necessity in our evermore interconnected world.
  As I talk to you today, H.R. 5746 and a bicameral piece of 
legislation which is crafted with Senator Rubio from the Senate, all we 
are asking for is to please wake up. Understand that this is truly a 
Paul Revere moment for the world.
  As I talked to Dr. Piot, he said: Mike, this is a dress rehearsal, 
and I am going to send you my book so you can see why I feel the way I 
feel.
  The title of his book is ``No Time to Lose.''
  How many times in our lives have we looked back and we said, ``If 
only I had known, I would have fixed it. If only I knew what was going 
to happen if I didn't act, I would have fixed it''?
  My friends, there is truly no time to lose. The vaccine is right on 
the threshold of being available to us, but it is not just Ebola that I 
worry about, and it is not just Ebola that this country should worry 
about, and it is not just Ebola that the world should worry about. It 
is what is coming.
  Believe me, we have not seen the end of infectious disease. We have 
not seen the end of lethal viruses that will cripple us, as a Nation, 
and could become the weapon of bioterrorists that would use it at any 
cost without any regard for human life.
  We have the ability right now, within our hands, within our grasp, to 
develop a vaccine in order to defeat this horrible virus. All that I 
would ask is that we come together in this House, the American people's 
House--it is not a Republican House, not a Democrat House, but the 
American people's House--to once again conquer a disease that could 
infect not only our own American citizens, but the citizens of the 
world.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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