Who knew? I will tell you. Two of the geniuses over at MSNBC, that's who.

"Every day brings more details about the first case of the Ebola virus to be diagnosed in the U.S. And while experts say there is essentially no risk of a significant outbreak here in the states, much of the public remains worried. A poll by Harvard found that 39% of U.S. adults are concerned about a large outbreak here, and more than a quarter fear someone in their immediate family could get sick with Ebola.

If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take.

Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013."

Without an SG like Murthy to protect us, no one else could possibly do it, we Americans remain ignorant boobs. And why isn't the good doctor in office guiding and sheltering us?

"As I reported previously, Murthy’s nomination has been held up by Republicans and a few red state Democrats due to this surprisingly controversial stance: He believes that guns can impact your health. Well, to be fair, this conservative coalition is not troubled by his stance, so much as they are fearful of the NRA, which decided to try to scuttle Murthy’s confirmation. The NRA wrote a strongly worded letter, Rand Paul put a hold on the nomination, and Red State Democrats begged Harry Reid to not force them to vote. It’s funny that the strongly worded letters of ordinary citizens don’t seem to have quite the same effect.

So thanks to NRA power and Senate cowardice, we are left with no surgeon general during a time when, we not only have Ebola arriving on our shores, but are also dealing with the mysterious Enterovirus, which is infecting and contributing to the deaths of children in the U.S."

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-nra-makin...tors_picks=true

Curse you NRA. Oh, I know some of you are wondering about how the CDC and its leader Tom Frieden have been speaking out on the issue, but stop and realize: he's not the Surgeon General which makes his role and thus pronouncements have just a tad less impact than would those of an SG. There is also the smartest guy in any room, Barack Obama, who could speak the truth and comfort us all, but, hey, President or not, genius or not, he is not the Surgeon General. So I say again: curse you NRA.