Service has resigned. That information copping in just about 45 minutes ago. And it comes amid several controversial Security Breaches involving the president , his family and the white house specifically. Mike viqueira join us live from the white house. Mike, how exactly did julia piersons resignation come about today . Were just learning after an interview that she characterizes her movement as, quote, the noble thing to do. The white house yesterday and as late as this morning was expressing full confidence in julia pi erson as director of the secret service. But recent and accumulating events, thats the phrase of the day, had led the president and director of Homeland Security jay johnson to believe that it was time to look for a new direction. Ms. Pierson had undergone a grilling by both republicans and democrats at capitol hill. She said she was outraged as well. Nanny pelosi, chuck schumer, elijah cummings, who led the hearing yesterday, and the hearing where julia was excoriate
Executive does not resign. The director of the secret service has resigned. It comes amid several controversial Security Breaches. Were joined live from the white house. Give us an idea of how this recognition today came about. Its interesting if you listen to what the white house has been saying over the course of 24 hours after the former director of the secret had really been raked over the courscoles of bipartisans over i wants of breaches here at the white house and the president while he was on the road. First they had full confidence. The president has full confidence in the job Julia Pierson was doing. They said on television to continue as director of the secret service. Then later in the afternoon heres what they had to say. Director pierson offered her resignation because she believed it was in the best interest of the agency to which she has dedicated her career. The secretary agreed with that assessment. The president did as well. Over the last several days weve seen recen
That lets people know when thers been a problem there . There are multiple alarm systems within cdc. In this case, it was a crosscontamination of a culture. So somehow, and we havent figured out how yet, a relatively low virulence Avian Influenza was crosscontaminated with the highly pathogenic h5n1. Is there any evidence of cover up here from employees not wanting to let someone else know that no. Weve seen at this point no evidence of a cover up, but we do see the need to strengthen the culture of safety that encourages reporting. Anytime theres a problem or potential problem so we can assess it and take rapid and prompt action. Thank you. I now recognize ms. Degette for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Dr. Kingsbury, let me just make sure i heard your testimony right. You testified that theres an increasing number of labs that are handling these bioagents, correct . Correct. And you said theres really no one agency in charge. Is that correct . Correct. Now, in you said that to
Those are some of the things that the Contingency Fund is about. It is a fund we have submitted for because we want to make sure there is a block that the funding will not be used only as needed, but we want to plan for things we cant exactly predict right now. Youve asked for some money for fda for vaccines. Would you speed it up, bring more people into the process, are there steps in an emergency situation like this that there is a way to go through them more quickly or go around them to get to the end product quicker . Yes, sir. We have seen that in process right now. The Congress Gave us emergency use authorization that would allow us to approve diagnostics quickly. Weve used that authorization six times. Fda has used it six times. We approved from start to finish in 36 hours. One of those diagnostics. With regard to other emergency authorities that fda has, we have approved drugs. What happens is when a drug is not approved, if a clinician asks fda for approval for that individual
And not zero risk maybe you would have liked that. If you are, were going out the door. Right. Doctor, to dr. Freeden, head of the centers for Disease Control, what can you say to the American People today about their and its widespread of a possibly Ebola Outbreak in this country . We certainly understand peoples concerns. Ebola is scary, deadly. And the images from africa are frightening. But ebola spreads by direct contact with we know unsafe care giving in the home or Health Care Facility and unsafe burial practices. The burial practices that are spreading ebola in west africa are not things that we do here, not to be concerned about. But care giving is. That means for every individual who comes back from a place that may have ebola, very important to be monitored actively for 21 days. At the first sign of any symptom, even if its not severe illness, what were seeing now is, as appropriate. People are coming in, being tested. Coming in and being isolated. As soon as that happens, w