>> venezuela was producing 3.6 million barrels on the day he took over and the plan was to be at 5.5 million barrels a day, you know, gustav knows all about it. and instead of that, they're down to 2.4 and they can hardly keep 2.4 because they can't run that company. they're running that company politically and they're running it into the ground so that's his weakness. he can't produce the oil actually. >> i think there's time for one more question here. so let's -- the gentleman in the back. >> hi. i'm professor robert. first of all, i they'd to tell you that i really admire you

guys, you know, for what you are doing. but let me tell you what my side and your side. as you had said human rights are being violated every day in venezuela. also there is enough evidence of hugo chavez supporting columbian guerillas and intervening in other countries in the hemispheres. but there's not too much that us americans can do. the last administration i know for the first time that they were told stop buying oil from venezuela. you haven't done anything, you know, it's 10 years he has been in power.

but also you mentioned -- actually, i personally admire madam secretary of the state, you know, hillary clinton. she had said, you know, in china, hey, just put aside the human rights and let's just try to -- >> please, can we have the question. >> yeah. it's really, you know, an issue that venezuela, you know, in the united states agenda? >> i would like agree with that. >> the question is, is venezuela an issue on the u.s. agenda? at the national level, you have to realize that the president of the united states, the national government be, is faced with the most severe economic crisis since the last severe economic crisis which is about 30 years ago. i'm not trying to be facetious

but, you know, we have to keep this in perspective. we have to pay attention to the economy and to domestic issues. i get asked that question a lot. i get asked why don't you pay more attention to latin america. believe it or not latin america compared to other parts of the world has been doing better than africa or israel-palestine, you know, the middle east, southwest asia, pakistan, central asia. so latin america has been relatively well off. second, the latin americans -- the lathan leaders do not help themselves in relations with the united states. when you have leaders of -- freely elected and democratic governments like chile, for example, going to havana to kiss the ring of fidel castro because that's basically what they were doing, it doesn't elevate the president of chile to the level

of fidel castro. it lower them to the level of fidel castro. it helps fidel castro. or when you have a summit meeting like in brazil not too long ago where all these presidents of latin america get together and all they do is criticize the united states. that's all they did. they were lucky, frankly, that this received zero coverage in the u.s. media because if it had been covered, it would have just added to this bad image that latin america has in this country. so when latin americans why don't we get more attention from the united states, listen, glad you don't. [laughter] >> on that highly positive note. let me thank our speakers for their excellent comments. [applause] >> for more information on the book, "the threat closer to home, visit the publisher at

simonsays.com and search the title. >> today on in depth bill ayers joins a three hour talk from the printers row lit festival in chicago. we'll take your calls at noon eastern. >> ross donaldson talks about his experience working in a sierra leone hospital ward filled with people suffering from lassa fever. he went to sierra leone in 2003 while still a medical student and was put in charge of the ward. this event hosted by barnes & noble booksellers in santa monica, california, is an hour. [applause] >> all right. thank you, everyone, for being here. it is a pleasure to see faces both new and old. and i'd like to thank the barnes & noble staff for having us at

this event and also c-span book television for filming it. the "the lassa ward" is a story of my time in sierra leone but more than that, it's a story of facing your own fears and turning adversity into something positive. although the background of the story is probably foreign to most of you here, with a deadly virus and an african civil war, the emotions and the underlying message is something i think we can all relate to. in this day and age, especially, with everything that's going on around us, i think that it's beneficial for us to examine a little bit our own fears because there's lots of forces aligned in our society to make us have more fear. the government and the media and a lot of people out there -- if we look at just the normal nightly news we see a list of bird flu and natural disasters.

we see child abductions and terrorism and i think there's a lot of forces out there that really are making us be very fearful. and i think all that fear really keeps us from human growth. and development. as i get a little bit older, i'm not all that old, but i think that we see more and more that the walls of fear really prevent us from our own growth. oddly, when it's when we're faced our own fears and most of the time we're forced to face our own fears we rarely do that out of choice but that we that he will see that there's a reward on the other end of that wall. and on the other side of all those fears, there's always some type of freedom. in "the lassa ward," i describe a lot of the fears that many of us share, the fears of being responsible for another person, the fears of our own mortality. and as we break down those

walls, you can see that behind the fear of being responsible for another person is really the freedom and the ability to actually care for other people better. and behind the fear of our own mortality is the ability to go forth and to enjoy the life that we do have. to the utmost. because really to live a life in fear is not so much to live a life poorly as it is to take a long time dying. and whether you agree or not with our current administration i think we can take a note from them. there's been a lot of talk with our current financial crisis and the obama administration has been quite up front in trying to use a crisis to good end and they frequently talk about ever wasting a crisis. and i think similarly albert einstein had a similar quote that said in the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity. and "the lassa ward" is really a book that embodys that spirit. at the end of the book i talk

about -- me myself being sick and really without that illness that i went through, i think it's very unlikely that i would have actually sat down and written a book if i wasn't forced to not be able to move from a couch for an unduly period of time. and similarly, without the death of my friend and mentor, dr. conte at the loss of the lassa virus i would not have the perseverance to get the book published. as people and beings capable of free will, we don't have to sit around and search for meaning in the events of our own life. rather, we have the choice if we so choose to actually give meaning to our life. and i think that's one of the main messages that i try and convey in the book. so the book itself was written

about a period in for my life between 2003 and 2004, right before that, i was a medical student here nearby at ucla. and i was just finishing up my third year of medical school and of those of you who are familiar with medical school, you know that at the end of third year you've gone through a lot of class and you've had a little bit of experience in the hospitals but really you don't know too much of the actual practicality of medicine. something that i think i was only partially aware of at the time. and so i left ucla after the third year of medical school and i went out to london. in london i was studying public health and at the end of that period of time is where i went to sierra leone and the events of the lassa war. i was very interested in the time at studying lassa. lassa fever for those of you aren't familiar with is a disease similar to ebowla that's

communicatable from person to person. the noise itself you get a fever and a couple days later you get the flu-like symptoms that everybody is talking about and if they have a severe version of the disease they believe out. just on one day they suddenly bleed out and a lot of people can die of the illness. because of the kind of horrific manner of the death and because of the fact that it can be transmitted from person to person, especially, when the people are bleeding out, especially, in africa and in other parts of the world, it is feared for some good reasons. and i think a lot of people have asked me why i wanted to go to sierra leon to study lassa fever at the time. it sounds like a very dumb thing to do. and i had friends who told me that before i went. [laughter] >> as well. and i think a couple of

different things. certainly, there was a sense of adventure. i got into much more of an adventure than i was planning on. when the time i got on the airplane. but also i think it's that there's a lot of opportunity in those areas that other people are scared to go to. in sierra leon they were coming out of war and i thought it was an opportunity to help them and with lassa fever i thought i could help because other people were scared to do so. that's one of the main reasons when i headed off. when i headed out it was -- i got on a plane and by the time i landed, things had changed a little bit on the ground. this came up right when i was just about landing there. and the conflict was heating up.

and i saw a lot of refugees coming from the liberian border to where i was. and that movement of people around seemingly caused an increase in the outbreak and in the burden of lassa fever so there's a lot of extra patients to be seen at the lassa ward. so i started my journey over there. and by the time i got there, it seemed like it was still getting a little bit more and more increasingly potentially dangerous. but at that point i kind of felt, well, i'm already here and each little one was just a little slight increment above the one before so it's a little bit like the story of -- i guess, you can cook a frog in a pot if you slowly turn up the heat. in some ways i was that frog in a little bit of the hot as the heat was slowly growing up. so when i got to sierra leone i

looked are for the lassa ward. i went to study underneath under a well-known humanitarian named dr. conte. he had stayed in sierra leone despite the decade-long war that had just finished in that country. and as the -- that -- during up a that conflict, he would describe to me the war that had gone on and as the war started, all the other eight organizations and people pulled out and as they pulled out, he was the -- essential the only caregiver there who knew anything about lassa fever. so when everybody pulled out he noticed a patient who still had lassa because lassa was still being transmitted and the aid workers that were there sput him in charge of the lassa ward which is the only facility in the world solely dedicated to the treatment of a viral fever.

as he stayed there, he told me a lot about experiencing all the different traumas in the country, the trauma that happened in sierra leone is quite well-known. there's many amputations of the civilians and a lot of trauma to the populace. and in some ways he was protected a little bit by the fact that he was the only person willing to take care of lassa fever because there's big walls around the lassa ward and even rebels were too scared to go close to that. so from there, we're going to read a little bit. the first passage is about my essentially first day at the lassa ward. and just a way of explanation, at the lassa ward was dr. conte who was the only doctor there. and then there were three nurses, amy was the head charge nurse. then we had zuri and bryan were two of the other nurses.

it's the nurses that are actually running all the things. so -- so my first day at the lassa ward, which was in july of 2003. blood soaked sheets covered the unmoving bodies as the wales pierced the walls. the boy had died that morning just before i arrived. his boded spout fluid out of every orifice and former iv site. the child had drowned as the liquid quickly filled his lungs. the guard did not allow the boy's family to enter. their precious youngster had transformed into a mass of infectious waste potentially spreading disease to anyone who touched him. his parents would never again caress his face or hold his small body in their laps. there could be no goodbye kisses. the father brought a shawl to the front gate and handed me the clean white cloth.

i took it in hands that faintly trembled from the site i had just witnessed one that made me want to flee far from that face. we exchanged no words and i again closed the door. what was there to say? through the crack in the fence i could see man's wife standing next to him. riv lets streaming down her cheeks. there was no end to hem. amy was showing me putting on the protect equipment, boots, gloves dressed like a surgeon marooned in a distant land she proceeded the prepare the boy's body for burial. that was one of my first days at the ward. as you can imagine it was a bit aftershock for me. i went down originally thinking i was just going to be doing mostly research and i was a medical student and i wasn't supposed to be really doing that much clinical care.

of course, once you're down there things change. some people say that a plan that -- a full plan is never experienced a war or something. it's a military saying. the same is true doing this kind of humanitarian work in low and middle incomed countries. is that what you're thinking to do by the time you get down there suddenly changes. and so as soon as i got down there, dr. conte wanted me to learn about about lassa and the best way to do that was to be in the lassa ward. now, dr. conte and i developed a very close relationship. he was a mentor to me. he was -- actually by american standards he wasn't really particularly old. he was only in his late 50s to early 60s. but in that part of africa, that was about as old as anybody ever got. so in their eyes and also, i think, a little bit from having gone through all of the disease burden that is in that portion

of africa, he really did kind of seem even a little bit older than that. and he and i developed that typical mentor/meantee relationship showing me all the knowledge he had learned over his long life treating lassa patients. and so i worked under his tutlage at the ward. one of the patients that really struck me -- one of the first patients that i saw there and i think those of us in medicine can say that sometimes the first time you see something it really touches you the most. it was a young child who was called little cia and he was just a couple of years old and he had lassa fever and had been in the ward and just gotten in the ward when i arrived so i kind of felt a bond for him from being there. so this next chapter or piece is a little bit about me being

there with little cia. so the ward was quiet for a while after that with dr. conte away at a hospital meetings and bryan off to work in the pediatric work. i was trying to use my research paper. what? i said. >> little cia be seizing he reported. >> now, i said? zuri not his head. i jumped to me feet and ran a few feet to see his bedside. amy was there. watching the 2-year-old boy shake from his head to toe. with only the whites of his eyes showing as if possessed. cia's mom stood next to him crying fearfully as amber and her mother looked on from the adjacent bed. dr. conte was away so i waited for amy and zuri to respond. although short seizures are not

really emergencies if they last too long they can lead to permanent disability and death but the nurse's lack of reaction became increasingly worrying. were they waiting for me to do something? [laughter] >> i'd made it clear i was just a medical student doing research. although i'd helped out with leila's malaria episode my position was in the far back corner of the room during any hospital emergency. so, i said? trying to spur them into action. [laughter] >> what do you guys think? my heart pounded in for my chest and the adrenaline now coursing through my veins had wiped my mind blank. i tried to remember the standard medical regiments used for seizures in the states but i'd been doing public health work for the last year. my past clinical work suddenly seemed a vague memory. well, sometimes we give valium, zuri said. should i get some? [laughter] >> yeah, that's right, i said. feeling stupid that i had not remembered the name of the drug.

go get some, i continued with growing anxiety of the seizure. what other supplies do you have i asked amy. like where's the ambo bag i asked. her blank face forcing me to continue. you know the bag valve mask the thing you put on somebody's face to breathe for them. it was a simple device when squeezed forced air in the lungs in a mask in the face. in the states every hospital had at least one in case someone stopped breathing. we do not be having anything like that amy said sternly. looking at me as if i was from another planet. and i began to think i was. a few terse questions that the lassa ward had no real emergency equipment or drugs. i tried to think what to do. what was cause the seizure i quickly put on my own protective equipment and felt his forehead. the child did not seem to have a

fever. the most obvious reason too little sugar in his blood was another possibility. i had amy give a dose of sugar water in his iv we waited but the nutreincident had no effect. he had been seizing for five minutes by the time she returned with the valium. okay, let's give the valium, i said hesitantly. how much, zuri? how much do you normally replied while flipping hurriedly in a small medication back. i wish dr. conte was around. the nurses vague responses were quickly. the main side effect decreased respiration would be fatal. breathing sensation would be lethal. even old-fashioned mouth to

mouth was feasible since cia was highly infectious. two milligrams i said before drawing the liquid into the syringe. no one injected it. messes merized by his quivering body i worried if i caused too much would i cause the child to stop breathing and die right before my eyes or was i not being aggressive enough or was i watching him develop more and more brain damage before me just before i was about to give the valium the seizures abruptly stopped. i waited to see if held breath if he would keep breathing. the child lay with his abdomen pumping up and down and i let out a deep sigh of relief. little doctor ia was unresponsible and i had amy and z your honor ri go over his file. he was given from everything they had. i wish we had oxygen i said

aallowed to myself. i had taken the machines for granted in u.s. where we used them on so many patients. it doesn't even seem part of the therapy. i think we have one of those zuri said to me. i looked at him questioningly and then around the room. half broken screens dangled from the windows and tattered windows around me. i followed zuri in the storage room where he rummaged equipment in the box. the nurse revealed a portable oxygen concentrator. the same kind we used in the states about people used them in the room. you're a genius. where did you get it. donated zuri said. he offered no explanation. the three of us plugged in the machine and i showed them how to turn it on. finding its low purring hum more beautiful than mozart. stashed in the back compartment

where even the rolls of the requisite plastic tubing to connecting to the patient i couldn't imagine how the device had gotten all the way there. zuri and amy were excited to learn about our new piece of equipment although it only had two buttons one to turn it on and one to set the speed, they had not known what to do with it previously. i gave them an impromptulecture. i said nothing could live without oxen i told them sagely. we were able to set up the machine for cia. it barely fit in his nose but at least we were helping his breathing. after that, there was little else to do. i found it hard to relax and went to his room repeatedly to stand quietly next to his mother by her side i watched the undulations of the child's smooth belly. dr. conte eventually returned from his meeting to find me still at cia's bedside.

i immediately felt relieved that the ward was back under his capable supervision. and i could return to my safe role as medical student. but still i took my mentor's words to pull me away. not in our hands anymore, he said. with the wisdom of many years. now god will have his way. so that was kind of the transition point of me being totally just in research and trying to be hands off and then coming to terms with the fear, i guess, in the first part -- is coming to terms with the fear of my own mortality with dealing with the lassa virus and then the second portion which i think in many ways was actually harder was coming to terms with the idea of having other people's lives in your own hands. and that's something that everyone in the medical profession, i think, goes through in a transition through their own work but normally it's over a slower period of time with people watching you and so forth. and when i was in africa, at

least, in the beginning, it was -- it was by a couple events like that and then eventually what happens in the story and in life was that dr. conte decided one day that he needed to go and do something in a different portion of the country. and so he suddenly told me in the middle of the day -- he walks up and at the end of the day he said we've been talking about doing this training. you're here. it's my opportunity to train people in the different part of the country so the knowledge i have can spread further. it was a utilitarian philosophy he thought he was doing much more good for the greater good. he needed to go away. and essentially what he told me is -- he just looked at me one day and we were talking about something else. i think for whatever reason he didn't really give me much warning and he told me, okay, so you need to be in charge of the

ward and that's the last thing i wanted to be in charge of. i think mostly i was just stunned and shocked that anyone would say that to a medical student which i was in my eyes. and he kind of looked at me like, you know, you're not in the states anymore. this is africa. and things are different here. no matter how low a cot gentry falls it's still higher than the grass. and i was sitting there shocked. things did not work out according to plan. so he left and went to a different area of sierra leone and eventually he ended up actually getting sick while he was out there. and after getting sick there we