Below, a post from Media Matters
Reporting that “President Obama went golfing and the Department of Health and Human Services is short a secretary, so other U.S. officials took the controls” dealing with the swine flu, FoxNews.com omitted Senate Republicans’ role in delaying Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination as HHS secretary.
In an April 26 article on the government response to the swine flu, FoxNews.com omitted the fact that Senate Republicans have delayed a vote on the nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services and misrepresented an exchange during an April 26 White House press briefing to suggest the administration may have held the briefing to distract from President Obama’s golfing that day.
Fox News.com reported that “President Obama went golfing and the Department of Health and Human Services is short a secretary, so other U.S. officials took the controls Sunday as the Obama administration ramps up efforts to find and isolate U.S. cases of swine flu.” Referring to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s recent announcement that the government was declaring a public health emergency regarding the swine flu, the FoxNews.com article further reported, “Ordinarily, such an announcement would have been made with the secretary of Health and Human services present. But Obama’s nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, is still awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Senate, which is expected to vote this week.” The article added: “[White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs said the effort to get a team in place to respond to the health scare has not been hindered by the lack of a secretary at HHS, a vacancy in the surgeon general’s post or the acting roles for the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and CDC.” But FoxNews.com did not note that Sebelius is “awaiting confirmation” because Republican senators objected to holding a vote on her nomination on April 23. Indeed, the Associated Press reported that day: “The head of the Republican Party called on President Barack Obama to withdraw Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination as health secretary unless she answers more questions on abortion.” A Senate vote is currently scheduled for April 28 with 60 votes needed for confirmation.
Maggie – thanks so much for calling attention to this Media Matters post. I’m shocked that Fox News would omit that information, especially when Republicans were so proud of their blocking of Sebelius just last week. Looks like no one wants to take credit when the real cost of politicking comes to light.
“When pigs flu”
No way to know yet, but there is every possibility that American owned factory feeding facilities in Mexico (Ham, anyone?) may be as dangerous mutating new strains of flu as the jungles of South Asia.
Were those “young, healthy” victims who died with swine flu in that line of work?
Just asking.
When they pin the tail on this donkey it might turn out to be an elephant.
There was a total cutoff of municipal water in Mexico City about 10 days ago for several days due to a severe shortage in the reservoirs.
It would be useful to know if this led to bad hygiene and use of contaminated water as a contributing factor in the outbreak. I haven’t seen any mention of the water issue.
The Federal government has put considerable effort into planning for a potential pandemic situation.
I feel confident that despite the vacancies that the plans in place are as good as they ever were going to be.
Aside from saying “do it” and appearing on television the response is in the hands of the institutional government.
I believe that clean water is one of our best weapons against disease, and I too would be interested to know if that breakdown in infrastructure made a difference.
Few human influenza virus infection in pigs. But in recent years also found a number of human cases of swine flu infection, most of them with direct contact with sick pigs have been people.
Maggie – interesting post, thanks. Certainly sheds light on the constant questioning of “media constructed” concepts which act as filters to our general perceptions and understandings. And reminds me of the partiality of stories told (and not) about rather important issues. For that reason, swine flu is underscoring the importance of social media and collaborative health efforts that I think are helping to flesh out and respond to some of the other potential tensions contributing to this outbreak…
Jess,
Jess– Yes, Fox news has no problem picking and choosing what it reports.
At least now Sebelius is confirmed . .
Hootsbuddy– Yes, it would be interesteing to know more about those American-owned feeding factories.
Maybe Lou Dobbs could report on this?
Robert- I too would like to know more about the water– there is so many pollutants in Mexico’s environment. This might be a reason why Mexicans appear to be more vulnerable to the disease . . .
Ginger– I abolsutely agree that the plans in place now are “as good as they are ever going to be.”
That’s well-put.
We have to realize that there is a limit to what we can do to be “prepared” for a pandemic. We have put thought into this–as we should. But we don’t want to over-react.
What we should do is continue our efforts to improve the environment & inspect foods (the new FDA commissioner is likely to improve that situation).
runescape- Yes, it looks like this is not the first time swine flu infection has popped up . . .
Carey- Thanks, and yes, the way the media frames the question tends to determine what we see–and don’t see. . .
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