and thank you so much for being with me on this saturday. i'm brooke baldwin live in new york. don't go too far, i'll be back at the top of the hour with much more on the comprehensive coverage of u.s. air strikes in iraq. we have you covered on that. for now, i'll turn you over toe sanjay gupta. sanjay gupta m.d. starts now. the world health organization now finally and officially declaring ebola a public health emergency, and admitting the virus is spreading faster than they can control it. >> i am declaring the current outbreak of ebola virus disease a public health emergency of international concern. >> this is the largest outbreaker of the virus. the state department ordering families of embassy staffers to leave, as this epidemic does continue to spread. in a few minutes i'm going to try to answer some of your questions about the risk for

example of getting ebola, and how to keep your family safe. but first, a quick look at how this deadly outbreak got so out of control. >> the international response to the disease has been a failure. >> blunt words and they were just getting warmed up. >> many people are not cooperating with efforts to contain the disease. >> the house foreign affairs subcommittee, calling an emergency recess hearing on the ebola outbreak. >> there was little action to take to get out in front of this problem. and now we're seeing the consequences. >> the largest ebola outbreak in history. more and more countries involved. when i travelled to these remote villages, i knew the numbers were going to be almost impossible to determine. but officially, nearly 1,000 people dead and twice that number infected. including two americans who were brought back to the united states. not an easy decision for the chief infectious disease doctor for the country.

what's so concerning about ebola is that the stakes are so high. a single lapse in standard infection control could be fatal. >> i want to show you just how quickly an infection can spread. here's a real world example from ebola outbreak in the early 2000s. a woman in uganda didn't know she was sick with ebola, she was in close contact with six people. her baby and father-in-law got sick. the baby got his grandmother sick, and she had contact with two more people as well. the father-in-law had close contact with 12 people out of that his brother and cousin both got sick. the brother then had close contact with four more people, and the cousin had close contact with five more people, including another brother who used his blanket and also got sick. >> if you leave behind even a single burning ember, it's like a forest fire, it flairs back up. >> that's why breaking the chain

is essential to stopping the epidemic. >> we do know how to stop ebola. meticulous case finding, isolation, and contact trace management. >> reporter: congressional leaders grilled the doctor specifically about the experimental drug. it had never been used on a human before, just animals. representative bass wanted to know, why did just two americans with ebola receive the serum, with so many africans so sick? >> i would like you to talk about that that there's concern that we have access to this and are not providing that access. >> reporter: dr. frieden took a pass on that one. >> i would need to refer you to the national institutes of health, which would be the lead on developing new treatments and vaccines against ebola. >> ken isaacs testified on behalf of is a marit an's purse. he disclosed that the national

institutes of health knew about the experimental treatment from the start and testified it had worked for brantly and writebol. >> that medicine was administered after it was brought to us by the nih people. aside from brantly and writebol ebola can make its way to the united states from others. >> there will be people who come to america from lagos and are here with symptoms. >> thursday's hearing was to make sure we are ready. now, the reason people are so alarmed about this particular outbreak is because it's never before spread so widely, it was typically confined to these remote areas of central africa, now it's within a stone's throw of an international airport. it's on the move. i hear from social media, wanting the truth about what this all means from you at home.

we heard the cdc director saying, it's inevitable that additional cases of ebola will come to the united states. it's not going to lead to an outbreak here, it's important. and why is that? >> because simply put, the united states hospitals are more equipped to isolate and provide better treatment. what we have in place is it a stark contrast to what i saw reporting on this case in guinea. it's also what david mckinney witnessed this week in sierra leone. >> taking incredible care to combat an unprecedented outbreak. >> gloves. ebola can lead to death with just one drop of infected fluids. >> that's why we take every possible precaution to prevent that. >> already, dozens of doctors and nurses have died in this outbreak. still, dr. kruger said he had to come. >> this is where they need us. there's a really big lack of resources.

if we weren't here, in would be nothing. >> ebola hits many countries. this outbreak is out of control. >> in the last two weeks, they've doubled their capacity here for confirmed ebola patients, and they're doing all they can to help those who are sick, but they're absolutely at capacity here. >> the level of effort that it is right now, will it stop this disease? >> no, to be clear, no. and it's really difficult. we are -- we don't know where we're staying. it's frustrating for us, we don't have the capacity to go everywhere. >> here they do what they can. in the high risk zone, this woman calls out for help. she has ebola, so does her son. ebola is so deadly, it's killing

our citizens, killing our country. her husband and son died of the disease. 70% of confirmed cases here will die too. >> she's confident -- >> to talk to her we must stand a few feet away. the strict protocols protect us. the cruelty is, they isolate her. still, she believes her 12-year-old daughter will make it, and so will she. we are feeling much better she says, we are strong and we're going to fight. >> what happens when you actually beat this disease? >> that's the real hilt of everything that we do here. everybody comes to watch the passion come out of isolation, i think it will continue. >> david mckenzie, sierra leone. >> thanks so much. incredible reporting, very proud

of david. up next, we have an incredible look inside an emergency room in gaza. the doctors and nurses who struggled to take care of victims of the seemingly never ending israeli/palestinian conflict. . it's great because it has the four cornerstones of nutrition. everything a cat needs for the first step to a healthy, happy life. purina cat chow complete. share your rescue story and join us in building better lives. one rescue at a time.

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eyes on the middle east and gaza today. even if peace does take hold. it's going to be tough to repair. something's lost, can never be regained. i've been in war zone hospitals all over the world. and the stories of patients and the health care teams that risk their lives to save them are extraordinary. karl penhaul took us inside one of them and showed us the struggle to keep up with the stream of desperation that kept rolling in the door. dead on arrival. the horror, civilians and medics, a breaking point. >> we feel exhausted. we feel depressed.

>> no time to rest. it's a scramble to rescue survivors. soldiers told us not to film this casualty, a hint perhaps he was a militant fighter. most on the operating table are clearly noncompetents. their patient is a 23-year-old female, and they showed me on the x-rays, she has a basic fracture on her leg. they say that was caused by a rocket blast the surgeons focus, the blink of the patient's eye. the beep of vital signs. the doctor is sick of it. sick of war. >> we see 61 injured patients.

we don't have enough for this patient. >> down the hallway, surgeons patch up a toddler. the rest of his family is dead. bone and brain surgeons do skin grafts, they just can't transfer him to a plastic surgeon. medicine and supplies are running low. >> if the war is one more week or -- we don't have suture enough for the injured. >> the fight for gaza has become a dirty war. no sanctuary for the innocent. >> no place in gaza, not even one square meter is safe. >> dr. massry is afraid he like others could be killed any time. he carries his i.d. everywhere. >> you're preparing for death as

well? >> yes, we are preparing ourself -- >> men dazed with amputated limbs, a child with head trauma battling to get up. many medics tell me only faith can keep them on their feet. >> we got to give the power to work. we work sometimes 20 hours continuous. >> but even the call of god drowned out by the agony. carl penhaul, cnn, gaza. >> that was a couple weeks ago, but it's a perspective. a medical perspective that i hope doesn't get lost in all of this, we do know the hospitals that you just saw is still up and running. thanks to carl penhaul. up next, we're shifting gears. many people thought this was never going to happen in their lifetimes, a federal law introduced in congress to legalize some types of marijuana.

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it used to be a fringe issue. congress is looking at proposals to loosened federal laws against medical marijuana. one new bill would legalize a treatment i've been reporting on quite a bit. cannabis oil to treat seize yeshs. let's talk about marijuana and your brain. it's a rather complicated process, so let's start off with what's familiar to you. thc. the chemical in weed that gets you high. feel lightheaded. feel giddy, sometimes relaxed. marijuana, can you smoke it, eat it, you can inhale it, consume

it. it's especially good for little kids who are taking it as a medicine. no matter the method, thc goes through your blood stream and into your brain. there it's going to latch on to these special receptors, when they're stimulated to release dopamine. it sends signals around your body and makes the user feel high. not all cannabis is going to get you stoned. it contains another chemical known as cbd. marijuana plants that have low thc and high cbd can work really well as a medicine. they can treat things like epilepsy. it works because the chemical can quiet excessive electrical and chemical activity in the brain. i know this 3-year-old girl who went from having 300 seizures per week to two per month. when it comes to marijuana there's some 500 different

chemical compounds. they all work together. you can't just take a chemical out of marijuana and make a medicine, you need the whole plant. especially when it cops to making pot instead of pills. joining me now is a senator from pennsylvania. it would take some of these strains that are used to treat seizures and make them legal under federal law. thanks for joining us, welcome to the program. >> thank you very much, great to be here. >> let me just start by asking, why are you doing this? what prompted this? >> well, i had some families come into the office, just set up an office visit and they came in to see me, i heard their story, and i'll tell you, i think when i went back to my staff and said, we have to fix this, they kind of looked at me like, medical marijuana? i said, yeah, the federal government is in the way of treatment for these little kids, i feel like i have -- this is my duty, this is a duty to fix

this, so i said, figure a way out. let's figure a way to do this since last october. >> there are states out there, they do have federal marijuana laws. you run into a crazy situation where people are taking the medicine in one state, but couldn't take it back to their home states. they could be arrested for drug trafficking. >> the families i spoke with, i live in pennsylvania, they said they were considering moving at least a portion of the family, of course, the afflicted child and one parent to colorado so that they could avail themselves to the cbd, literally making them refugees. i thought, this is america, that's absurd, why would we encourage the breakup of the family, put these people in peril for something that doesn't

make you high? what we wanted to do is remove the federal barrier so that they could avail themselves to the treatment. and there would be no excuse for the states to stay, we're not going to do this. if there's no federal prohibition they were we could regulate it, just like most states regulate alcohol, same 24i7k. >> i'm curious -- and i'm not a politician, but let me ask this, politically, how challenging was this for you. i wonder if this issue is just not a winning issue, it could be a losing issue for a politician, but not a winning issue, did you consider that? >> i'll tell you. if you were to ask me five years ago, three years ago, you're going to be the champion for cbd, for medical marijuana, i would have said you're crazy. i've never been for recreational drug use, but i will tell you i

really didn't think about whether it's politically viable. i looked at these families, i said, this is my job, ran for this office, we have a duty, the federal government is standing in the way of their treatment, we need to break down this barrier and allow them to treat their children, keep their family together, in a way, i think that's why my staff looked at me, like are you crazy? i feel like this is important, and we need to be doing this? >> it can work when nothing else has worked. it's amazing. thanks again. appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> when we come back, i've been fascinated by how we have responded to all this news about ebola, the fear, the near hysteria at times, where does this all come from? and why do so many people share it?

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before we go, we talked a lot about ebola this week, and there's been a lot of fear, i saw tweets that wondered allowed if ebola was going to wipe us out or if this was the big one. the answer is no to both those kayes. it's easy to see where the fear comes from. like in the movie outbreak, a terrifying disease comes from some remote part of the world, takes hold and threatens all of mankind. that story line has become such a part of our collective consciousness, we almost expect it, even if there is no science, no rational, no logic to back that up. make no mistake, there is a virus out there that kills a lot of people, it's known for stealing away babies, pregnant women and people who have finished a lifetime of work and are ready to enjoy a lifetime of retirement. those are the people who are

likely to succumb to this illness. tens of thousands of people die from it in the united states alone. what i'm describing is the common flu, not ebola, something not so scary, right? because we understand it. information is power, we do have a vaccine for the flu. one day we may have a pandemic that plays out like a movie. thankfully, it's not ebola, and it's not now. hope that helps ease your mind a little bit. time to get you back to the cnn newsroom with brooke baldwin. we have to begin with our complete coverage of what's happening on the ground in iraq. tae u.s. military destroying