Homeland Security Hearing on TB Incident
Watch the hearing live via committee webcast or on C Span 3.
Witnesses
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Jeffrey Runge, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Homeland Security
Mr. W. Ralph Basham, Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security
Accompanied by: Mr. Jayson P. Ahern, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations, Customs and Border Protection
| Chairman Bennie Thompson: "I've got a question that I want the Administration to answer. When are we going to stop dodging bullets and start protecting Americans? As you know we were just very fortunate in this situation. The 9/11 Commission asserted that the terrorist attacks in 2001 were the result of a failure of imagination by the federal government. Our intelligence components weren't talking to one another, intelligence information was stovepiped, there was a failure to connect the dots." |
| Rep. Harman (CA-36): "This could have been much more serious because had this fellow had a real, and he could have, communicable disease -- his form of TB apparently wasn't communicated to anyone or hasn't been yet -- but had it been, or had it been smallpox or had it been something else, we could have right this minute a major national emergency both in health terms and economic terms. So I think that the potential here is very serious. My question to these witnesses is, if your sister or your wife or your mother had been seated next to Mr. Speaker on this airplane going to Europe, or his airplane returning to Canada, what would you say to them?" |