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Ebola

New York doctor who survived Ebola speaks out

Liz Szabo
USA TODAY
Dr. Craig Spencer, who was the first Ebola patient in New York City, speaks during a news conference at New York's Bellevue Hospital, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014. Spencer was released from Bellevue Hospital on Tuesday, 19 days after he was diagnosed with the virus. The physician had been working with Doctors Without Borders.

After months of silence, Craig Spencer, the New York City doctor who survived Ebola, is speaking out about his experience, saying that both the media and politicians exploited his illness for their own gain.

In an editorial in today's The New England Journal of Medicine, Spencer says cable news shows and public officials stoked fear at a time when the country needed facts.

Spencer, who contracted Ebola while volunteering in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders, says some media "sold fear" and "fabricated stories" about his life when he was too sick to defend himself. His liver began to fail during his hospitalization, Spencer writes, and he lost 20 pounds.

Many news outlets carried stories about the paths that Spencer took around New York after returning from Guinea, mistakenly suggesting that he could have spread Ebola on the subway or while jogging. But it's virtually impossible for infected people to spread the virus before they have a fever and other symptoms, says Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with blood or bodily fluids and does not spread through the air.

"After my diagnosis, the media and politicians could have educated the public about Ebola," Spencer writes. "Instead, they spent hours retracing my steps and debating whether Ebola can be transmitted through a bowling ball."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, left, listens as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talks at a news conference, Oct. 24, 2014 in New York. The governors announced a mandatory quarantine for people returning to the United States through airports in New York and New Jersey who are deemed "high risk." In the first application of the new set of standards, the states are quarantining a female healthcare worker returning from Africa who took care of Ebola patients.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie both instituted strict quarantine policies for health workers returning from Ebola-stricken countries. Christie also sparred with aid worker Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was quarantined in Newark after returning from Sierra Leone, where she volunteered with Ebola patients. Although Hickox never had any symptoms of Ebola, she was kept for days in an isolation tent inside a Newark hospital, where she had no shower and only a portable toilet.

Politicians "took advantage of the panic to try to appear presidential instead of supporting a sound, science-based public health response," writes Spencer, 33. "At times of threat to our public health, we need one pragmatic response, not 50 viewpoints that shift with the proximity of the next election."

Christie did not respond to USA TODAY's request for an interview.

A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health, Monica Mahaffey, said, "We recognize the extraordinary dedication of these health care workers in helping to end this epidemic, but also recognize the need to protect the health of all New Yorkers. Our quarantine plan struck this balance."

Spencer says many politicians appeared to stop caring about Ebola after Election Day, Nov. 4, which happened to be the day when Spencer's fever broke, a sign that he was getting better.

Spencer notes that the outbreak continues in West Africa. According to the World Health Organization, 837 health workers have become infected with Ebola and 490 have died since the outbreak began more than a year ago. More than 23,700 people have had Ebola — mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — and 9,604 have died. Although the number of cases has fallen sharply, dwindling to one a week in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone continue to struggle to control the epidemic.

Spencer says he understands the fear of Ebola. While working in Guinea, he writes, he often woke up in a sweat in the middle of the night, with his heart racing with fear. Although he didn't have a fever, Spencer says he sometimes felt ill from the stress.

Even after returning to New York, Spencer writes, he became depressed for the first time in his life, overwhelmed by exhaustion and the suffering he had witnessed. Yet instead of being welcomed home as "respected humanitarians," many Ebola aid workers have been treated as pariahs, he says.

Nurse Kaci Hickox leaves her home on a rural road in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend Ted Wilbur, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014.  The couple went on an hour-long ride followed by a Maine State Trooper.  State officials are going to court to keep Hickox in quarantine for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on Nov. 10. Police are monitoring her, but can't detain her without a court order signed by a judge.

Other Ebola volunteers say they had very difference experiences, both in Africa and after returning home.

Physician Joel Selanikio, who treated Ebola patients with the International Medical Corps in Sierra Leone, says no one made him feel unwelcome after he returned from Africa.

Selanikio, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University in Washington, says far from being treated like a pariah, "I've gotten nothing but 'thank you for your service' and similar words of encouragement."

In his editorial, Spencer says mistreating returning aid workers could discourage other professionals from volunteering.

"When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we'll recognize that fear caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when we finally did," Spencer writes. "I know how real the fear of Ebola is, but we need to overcome it. We all lose when we allow irrational fear, fueled in part by prime-time ratings and political expediency, to supersede pragmatic public health preparedness."

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