Fighting Ebola: The American Argument Against an African Travel Ban

The death of Thomas Duncan in Dallas on Oct. 8 has provided another turn in the debate over containing Ebola. Infected with the virus, Duncan had flown from Liberia to Brussels to Washington to Dallas. That revelation provoked a blunt response from a few American politicians: Ban flights from West Africa. Texas Representative Ted Poe, a Republican, has written to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking it to recommend travel restrictions. In a letter to Michael Huerta, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz wrote that “it is imperative the FAA take every possible precaution in preventing additional cases from arriving in the United States.” Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, has called for a 90-day ban on travel from Ebola-affected countries to the U.S.

The White House is resisting those calls, and that’s the right thing to do. Restricting travel to and from the affected region will have little impact on the already minimal risk to Americans from the Ebola virus while further worsening the situation in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The history of the global fight against infection has demonstrated that we shouldn’t raise the drawbridge or run away but fight the disease wherever we find it.