Obama Appoints 'Ebola Czar'
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Latest Infectious Disease News
FRIDAY, Oct. 17, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- President Barack Obama on Friday appointed Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and a trusted White House adviser, as Ebola "czar."
His role: to oversee the federal government's response to the small but anxiety-producing presence of the often lethal virus in the United States.
Klain has been out of public service since leaving Biden's office during Obama's first term. The White House said Klain would report to national security adviser Susan Rice and to homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, the Associated Press reported.
A lawyer, Klain also served as chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore.
Klain gained a reputation for skillful handling of high-stakes political challenges. For instance, he was the lead Democratic lawyer for Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount dispute, The New York Times reported.
On Thursday evening, Obama said "it may be appropriate for me to appoint an additional person [to oversee the Ebola response], not because they [federal health officials] haven't been doing an outstanding job, really working hard on this issue, but they are also responsible for a whole bunch of other stuff."
Obama said he was considering such a move "just to make sure that we are crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's going forward."
Obama's comments came several hours after a Congressional subcommittee hearing where top federal health officials faced tough questions about their response to Ebola infections in the United States. The officials also defended their opposition to a ban on travelers from the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the sites of the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
To date, there has been one death and two infections from Ebola in the United States. The deceased was a native of Liberia who became infected in his home country before arriving in Dallas last month to visit relatives. The two infections involved two nurses at the Dallas hospital who helped treat the Liberian man.
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Obama Appoints 'Ebola Czar'