White House backtracks after Biden says to avoid trains, subways over flu

The White House has backtracked over comments Vice President Joe Biden said this morning on The Today Show in which he remarked that he’d told his family to avoid subways, trains and “confined places” over the recent scare of swine flu.

A White House source purportedly called Biden’s remarks “imprecise” in comments early Thursday. “His statement this morning on the ‘Today Show’, just talking about his family certainly not the policy of the White House,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said.

Biden said Thursday if one person sneezes on a confined aircraft, “it goes all the way through the aircraft.” Going beyond official advice from the federal government, Biden said of his family’s personal precautions: “That’s me.”

RAW STORY has more details here.

This video is from NBC's Today Show, broadcast Apr. 30, 2009.

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