I'm sure by now even our pets have heard about the guy with drug resistant tuberculosis who carelessly traipsed back and forth across the Atlantic putting many many people in danger of being infected by being on his plane. It's the first "bad thing that happened to a white person" wall-to-wall coverage that makes sense. Or at least in a long time.
But, has anyone else felt like something was weird about this story? Questions/observations:
- Our epidemic prevention response is scarily bad. They're claiming that the problem is that they need new procedures, authority, equipment, etc., to move into the 21st century and to side step potentially crippling constitutional issues. Still, the border guard who got the "WARNING - BIOHAZARD - DETAIN AND DON BIOHAZARD PROTECTIVE SUIT" thought it was a suggestion and that in his oh so in formed medical opinion, "The guy looked healthy." He was allowed to board a plane returning to the North America. Canada let him into their country. The CDC apparently told him that while he should not travel, he was not really infectious and they were only telling him that to cover their butts. And his father taped the interview. Why would he do that? What made him think, "Oh, sh!t, this sounds so serious that I, as a lawyer, believe I need a recorded record of the meeting. We might get ourselves in trouble and need this"?
- The guy's new father-in-law is a 32 year veteran scientist at the CDC's TB research unit! So if anyone knew the risks, this guy did. And presumably he accompanied them or showed up for the guy's wedding in Europe so he would certainly been available for advice. Furthermore, if the CDC had this guy in for a meeting which was so serious it was recorded by the father, certainly the new father-in-law-scientist was aware of it. Yet it seems he did not try to intervene with the infected guy. Then the guy was informed he had drug resistant TB. Again, the father-in-law must have known and certainly would have been consulted. Yet despite the availability of his advice, the guy tried to sneak back into the country. That does not make sense. What did father-in-law tell him? Especially considering that the guy would be traveling back to the US in the with the father-in-law's daughter and granddaughter! Doesn't it make sense that the scientist, TB expert father-in-law would insist that he not travel? Wouldn't the father-in-law tell his daughter not to accompany the guy if the guy wouldn't listen? Wouldn't the father-in-law appeal to her motherly instincts not to put the granddaughter at risk? The guy also said that he did not turn himself in in Italy because he was afraid he would die. Digby the other day postulated that it was the embedded belief Americans have that socialized medicine equals death given all the propaganda on that we get. But with the guy's more recent comments he really really really thought he would die unless he got to the clinic in Denver. Now, where would he get that idea? And how would he know about that clinic? Did the father-in-law tell him that and tell him that he'd die in the hands of the Italians?
There is A LOT of this-doesn't-smell-right here. And a lot of questions that are still missing. And a lot of what makes me skeptical on this comes from the stuff unsaid in the interviews, especially with the scientist father-in-law. His answers sound very very careful. Maybe it's as simple as this was not actually a big deal. That maybe he is not really infectious. But to be overly cautious they quarantined him and since he was the first quarantined American in 40 years, it became a news story and it got out of hand. But drug resistant stuff is too scary and I can not imagine the CDC f#$ks around with this kind of thing.
So, Darksyde, where's my drug resistant TB diary?
(Sorry for no embedded links. There are stories all over the place on this each with different tid-bits, most with most of the tid bits so it should not be hard to find relevant stories. If I've made a mistake, point it out and I'll try to correct.)