Key GOP rep: Ebola misinformation could lead to panic

Misstatements and false assurances from the Obama administration on the Ebola risk could lead to public panic, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) warned on Sunday.

“My background is not medicine; it’s psychology. I know what creates panic,” Murphy, who was a psychologist for three decades before coming to Congress, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What creates panic is when people are given information that is proven to be false.”

{mosads}Murphy was a critic of the White House’s selection of Democratic insider Ron Klain — whom he characterized as a political professional without any background in public health — and said that the pick could prove problematic.  

“We need to stop these uncertainties from medical folks and I’m not sure that a czar that has no background can help that,” he said.

Murphy, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, led a hearing on the government’s response to the crisis last week.

He has called for a ban on travel from the West African nations that have been hit the hardest by the crisis.

The Obama administration has repeatedly resisted that step, arguing that it would lead to economic disruptions, make it harder to track people coming into the U.S. and create hurdles to sending aid back to those nations.

Some of those claims were “absurd,” Murphy said.

The U.S. has sealed off other nations in the past, shipped in aid during the Berlin airlift and can track passports to keep tabs on people entering the country.

“We can look at things, but this idea of only looking at fever scans and asking people to be honest — we know that those are two more assumptions that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has made that are not true,” he said.

“And if you want to restore faith with the American people and stop panic, you need to be more accurate here.”