Special Assclown Award!

It's fun to be interviewed by the media for your expertise, but when you pull your pants down and spank yourself in front of God and everyone, on the biggest news topic of the day, probably not so much:

From Canada's National Post

In Akron, Ohio, officials dismissed students at the Resnik Community Learning Center at midday and said it would remain closed until Monday. In a letter to parents, the schools superintendent, David James, said that “a parent at the school had spent time with Ebola patient Amber Vinson when she visited the area this past weekend.”
Health care specialists expressed skepticism about the closings.
Dr. Paul Offit, the chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, likened the response to the early days of the AIDS epidemic “when people were afraid to walk into a grocery store and pick up a piece of fruit because they didn’t know who’d touched it.”
“This isn’t flu or smallpox,” Dr. Offit said. “It's not spread by droplet transmission. As long as nobody kissed the person on the plane, they’re safe.”

 Apparently Chief of Infectious Diseases is more of an honorary title.

(CDC Info): When an infection does occur in humans, the virus can be spread in several ways to others. Ebola is spread through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes in, for example, the eyes, nose, or mouth) with

• blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola
• objects (like needles and syringes) that have been contaminated with the virus
• infected animals
• Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, by food. However, in Africa, Ebola may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats. There is no evidence that mosquitos or other insects can transmit Ebola virus. Only mammals (for example, humans, bats, monkeys, and apes) have shown the ability to become infected with and spread Ebola virus.

Healthcare providers caring for Ebola patients and the family and friends in close contact with Ebola patients are at the highest risk of getting sick because they may come in contact with infected blood or body fluids of sick patients.
During outbreaks of Ebola, the disease can spread quickly within healthcare settings (such as a clinic or hospital). Exposure to Ebola can occur in healthcare settings where hospital staff are not wearing appropriate protective equipment, including masks, gowns, and gloves and eye protection.

In case the recommendation for masks and eye protection wasn't obvious enough, let's go to the CDC's current recommendation for Healthcare Providers, (which a normally intelligent person could be forgiven for thinking might actually apply to the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia):

CDC FAQ: If a patient in a U.S. hospital is identified to have suspected or confirmed EVD, what infection control precautions should be put into place?

If a patient in a U.S. hospital is suspected or known to have Ebola virus disease, healthcare teams should follow standard, contact, and droplet!!! precautions, including the following recommendations:

• Isolate the patient: Patients should be isolated in a single patient room (containing a private bathroom) with the door closed.
• Wear appropriate PPE: Healthcare providers entering the patients room should wear: gloves, gown (fluid resistant or impermeable), eye protection (goggles or face shield), and a facemask. Additional protective equipment might be required in certain situations (e.g., copious amounts of blood, other body fluids, vomit, or feces present in the environment), including but not limited to double gloving, disposable shoe covers, and leg coverings.
• Restrict visitors: Avoid entry of visitors into the patient's room. Exceptions may be considered on a case by case basis for those who are essential for the patient's wellbeing. A logbook should be kept to document all persons entering the patient's room. See CDC's infection control guidance(http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/infection-prevention-and-control-recommendations.html) on procedures for monitoring, managing, and training of visitors.
• Avoid aerosol-generating procedures: Avoid aerosol-generating procedures. If performing these procedures, PPE should include respiratory protection (N95 or higher filtering facepiece respirator) and the procedure should be performed in an airborne infection isolation room.
• Implement environmental infection control measures: Diligent environmental cleaning and disinfection and safe handling of potentially contaminated materials is of paramount importance, as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine and other body secretions represent potentially infectious materials should be done following hospital protocols.

Dr. Offitt, you're evidently an ignorant, uninformed, unprofessional assclown, who should resign your position immediately for the good of humanity, before your errant jackassery gets people under your care or supervision killed from your total lack of knowledge on this critical topic, supossedly your very area of clinical expertise. Especially for someone who took journalism to task and advocated "Journalism Jail" for bad medical reporting. Consider yourself busted, and go spend a year or two in self-imposed exile for criminal medical stupidity.

Only consideration for your years of good work before you evidently lost your mind restrains me from suggesting you change your specialty to cats and dogs, or go home for some quiet time with a gun and a single bullet.

But you're still a dangerous assclown, and a threat to the safety of every child within 500 miles as long as you practice medicine without your brains, or open your mouth on the topic.


Bravo. The Cocobongo School Of Witchdoctory would be proud of you.