Investigative journalist and author Charles C. Johnson – founder and Editor-in-Chief of independent news site GotNews.com – explains some of the problems he discovered early on as ill-equipped companies were hired to dispose of highly hazardous Ebola waste.
“Ebola kills us relatively quickly, and incubates over a long period – and that’s a serious problem,” he said about the complexities of now dealing with the disease in the United States. “The CDC protocols they were publishing that many of the nurses were following were for SARS, not for Ebola.”
Johnson points out that one company dispatched initially to remove Ebola waste had no experience in the medical field, but rather was used to cleaning up oil spills.
“If you’re job is to make sure we don’t all get sick from Ebola, we should ask, ‘Are you up to the job?’ We do have a right to look at their past track record, hopefully they’ll get better at this. But there have been other countries that have dealt with this problem – other countries that have had other public health issues – and maybe we should learn more from them.”
Watch the full episode to also hear Johnson’s views on getting suspended from Twitter, perspective on the news reporting that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown, plus his views on the practice of “checkbook journalism.”
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