CDC Director: Ebola ‘Not a Significant Public Health Threat’

Republicans call for “all hands on deck” to combat the crisis.

Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on 'Examining the US Public Health Response to the Ebola Outbreak' on Capitol Hill in Washington on October 16, 2014.
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

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By Alex Wayne and Kathleen Hunter

October 16, 2014 at 5:20 PM UTC

Updated on

October 16, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC

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Republican lawmakers sharply criticized the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s response to the Ebola outbreak as agency director Thomas Frieden said the virus is not a “significant public health threat.”

“People’s lives are at stake and the response so far has been unacceptable,” Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said today as a hearing began in Washington. “People are scared. We need all hands on deck. We need a strategy.”