Is That TB Guy The Biggest Asshole Ever, Or What?

[Rusalka]

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]

Mr. Speaker is not a specialist in tuberculosis. He should have deferred to the opinion of specialists. I still haven’t heard any evidence that, once he learned of his most current diagnosis, a medical professional (preferrably one familiar with the XDR-TB strain) told him it would be safe for him to fly.
…
In Mr. Speaker’s case, he had other options besides trying to evade the do-not-fly rule imposed on him by the CDC. Like I mentioned before, a reasonable option would have been to check himself into a hospital in Italy, and have his father-in-law and wife do whatever is possible to get him the right care.
[/QUOTE]

Hear hear!
So let’s have it, where’s the evidence that a medical professional told him it would be safe for him to fly once he was in Italy diagnosed with the more serious version of TB?

It seems that some people think that it’s o.k. to flout the authorities based on a personal opinion. Nevermind that policies are put into place for a reason bigger than your personal situation. That’s the kind of person I would call an asshole.

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
Then you weigh the benefits to society that are being offered by flying this plane in a populated area, vs. the risks incurred by the people over which I am flying the plane. Which is why we have laws governing such actions.
[/quote]

Sure, but there are two problems with this argument. First, as far as I know, there is no law addressing the situation he is in. I couldn’t find any law making it a crime or an offense to disobey the orders of a CDC official.

Second, it’s not necessarily immoral to disobey a safety law. It depends on the risks to others and the benefits to oneself.

In Mr. Speaker’s case, he had other options besides trying to evade the do-not-fly rule imposed on him by the CDC. Like I mentioned before, a reasonable option would have been to check himself into a hospital in Italy, and have his father-in-law and wife do whatever is possible to get him the right care

If I were Speaker, I would have worried that once I was in the custody of the Italian authorities, it might not be so easy to get free.

But getting back to your point about law, I believe that there do need to be laws or regulations addressing these types of situations. If health officials instruct a person not to fly, there should be a special written order that is served on the person. The person should be able to challenge that order before a judge and also claim compensation for any financial losses sustained.

The law should also provide that if a U.S. citizen is ordered not to travel while overseas, the government, must arrange for prompt transportation for the citizen back to the United States at public expense.

[Tuckerfan]

[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
I’m not sure why you think it was his first thought, since he’s had the disease for five months.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but it’s not like he knew that he’d had the disease for that long. And again, I don’t care how long I’ve had it, I’m not going to be thinking about doing anything that puts distance between me and the doc until treatment’s started and the doc says it’s okay for me to go to the other side of the freakin’ world!

[Capatalist_Lion_Tamer]

[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Yeah, but it’s not like he knew that he’d had the disease for that long. *
[/QUOTE]

Uh, yes he did. Diagnosed in January.

[Kokopilau]

[QUOTE=brazil84]

If I were Speaker, I would have worried that once I was in the custody of the Italian authorities, it might not be so easy to get free.
[/QUOTE]

Why?

But getting back to your point about law, I believe that there do need to be laws or regulations addressing these types of situations. If health officials instruct a person not to fly, there should be a special written order that is served on the person. The person should be able to challenge that order before a judge and also claim compensation for any financial losses sustained.

I’m sure that’ll be a big help when the next global pandemic hits.

The law should also provide that if a U.S. citizen is ordered not to travel while overseas, the government, must arrange for prompt transportation for the citizen back to the United States at public expense.

Which is what the CDC says they were doing.

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=Kokopilau]

I’ve asked this in the thread before: do you think the CDC ordered him into quarantined and told him not to fly home on a commercial airline just for kicks?

And no, his belief wasn’t correct and justified for this very reason. Even assuming that he was told it was fine to fly TO Europe, the fact that once he was IN Europe and was told “turn yourself in for isolation from the rest of humanity, and whatever else you do, don’t get on a commercial flight!” implies that a) his medical situation and changed, and b) the CDC was worried about the possibility of his infecting others.
[/quote]

Apparently the only thing that had changed was they knew he had a drug resistant strain of TB. If they didn’t specifically advise him that he was more contagious than before, it doesn’t follow that he should have believed he was more contagious. And his doctor later stated that he was non-contagious. So he was correct and justified.

Uh uh. Either he thought he was perfectly okay, and thus could fly home with no problems despite the CDC explictly telling him NOT to, or he was worried he had such an advanced state of the disease that he was gonna die.

He can’t have believed both.

That’s false. You are purposefully confusing the gravity of his illness with his degree of contagiousness to others. It’s perfectly possible that he believed he was gravely ill but not a threat to others.

Again, that’s not what happened.

But how is it different?

No, I’m saying that people who have TB and are ordered into quarantine spread the disease more often than planes crash and kill people on the ground.

But you are ignoring the pertinent fact that his spit was negative for TB. Which was apparently why he was told he was not contagious. And why he correctly believed that he wasn’t a danger to others.

One is telling the media what other sources have already told them. The other is not.

What sources?

He’s refusing to release information, the same way Fulton County is doing. It’s either fine for both parties to do, or bad for both parties to do. It can’t be fine for one and bad for the other.

Not all information is the same. If Speaker refused to state what kind of underwear he wore to the meeting, does that make him less credible?

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=Kokopilau]
Why?
[/quote]

Because when a person is quarantined, they are sometimes held against their will.

Which is what the CDC says they were doing.

But nobody’s been able to say exactly what the CDC did. And nobody’s denied that they didn’t make any sort of promise or commitment to Speaker.

If they had said “Sit tight. Don’t leave your hotel room - we’ll have a plane for you in 48 hours,” that would have changed things considerably.

[Kokopilau]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Apparently the only thing that had changed was they knew he had a drug resistant strain of TB. If they didn’t specifically advise him that he was more contagious than before, it doesn’t follow that he should have believed he was more contagious. And his doctor later stated that he was non-contagious. So he was correct and justified.
[/QUOTE]

So, if doctors tell you one day that you’re not contagious, and then the next day they phone you up and tell you to go into quarantine and not to use public transportation, you’re NOT going to think the state of your contagiousness has changed? “Quarantine? Don’t take commercial airlines? Obviously I’m still not contagious!”

And the doctor later stated he was at LOW contagiousness, not NON-contagious (you have read all the posts in this thread pointing out the difference, right?)…and that was after three separate tests for infectivity.

There was no way for Speaker to know he was not contagious at the time he flew to the US, and had been explicitly told to STAY AWAY FROM ALL OTHER PEOPLE. If you really, truly, honestly think that he then was totally justified in believing he was not contagious at that point, then…well, words fail me.

That’s false. You are purposefully confusing the gravity of his illness with his degree of contagiousness to others. It’s perfectly possible that he believed he was gravely ill but not a threat to others.

With TB? And a father in law who knew all about the disease?

But how is it different?

I explained exactly how. Read the post you just quoted this form.

But you are ignoring the pertinent fact that his spit was negative for TB. Which was apparently why he was told he was not contagious. And why he correctly believed that he wasn’t a danger to others.

See the top of this post. I refuse to believe you are intelligent enough to register an account here, and yet so dumb you think being ordered into quarantine isn’t a sign that doctors may think you’re contagious.

What sources?

The CDC’s own press conference, for one.

Not all information is the same. If Speaker refused to state what kind of underwear he wore to the meeting, does that make him less credible?

You’re right, not all information is the same. However, information about the specific issue at point is definitely the same.

If the kind of underwear Speaker wore to the meeting was the hinge on which the whole issue of his moral culpability rested, then his refusal to state that does affect his credibility.

[Kokopilau]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Because when a person is quarantined, they are sometimes held against their will.
[/QUOTE]

And WHY are they held against their will? What is the fear that doctors have if someone who is in quarantine gets out when they’re not supposed to?

Maybe…oh, I dunno, just taking a stab in the dark here…infect others?

But nobody’s been able to say exactly what the CDC did.

Because he LEFT THE COUNTRY AGAINST THEIR ADVICE BEFORE THEY WERE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING.

And nobody’s denied that they didn’t make any sort of promise or commitment to Speaker.

If they had said “Sit tight. Don’t leave your hotel room - we’ll have a plane for you in 48 hours,” that would have changed things considerably.

They did…they told him it would take a few days, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted them to pay for a private charter, or arrange military transport.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
First, as far as I know, there is no law addressing the situation he is in. I couldn’t find any law making it a crime or an offense to disobey the orders of a CDC official.
[/quote]
See, I don’t really care if it was illegal or not. I never said he broke any laws. I said he shouldn’t have been on that plane. This is why we need to legislate every single aspect of every human behaviour - because of people thinking “well, there is no law against it, so it must be OK!”

If I were Speaker, I would have worried that once I was in the custody of the Italian authorities, it might not be so easy to get free.

I have no sympathy for him. He should have thought of those risks before he left the country. From a selfish point of view, sure you can argue that he did what was best for himself. I still say that what he did was wrong because I take others into consideration besides Mr. Speaker.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Apparently the only thing that had changed was they knew he had a drug resistant strain of TB. If they didn’t specifically advise him that he was more contagious than before, it doesn’t follow that he should have believed he was more contagious.
[/QUOTE]
We keep on saying the same things over and over again. If the CDC had told him do not fly, he should have gotten an opinion from at least one specialist telling him it was OK to fly.

[Martin_Hyde]

[QUOTE=Zabali_Clawbane]
Of all the people in this topic who have expressed their outrage at Speaker’s actions, you pick me. (Not the OP, not anyone else, me.) And, you don’t even get my gender correct. There is a reason (though little good it did) I have my location field reading “Female in Kansas”.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t normally look at the location for every poster whom I mention here on the SDMB. In any case, I am terribly sorry ( :rolleyes: ) I accidentally referred to you by the wrong gender, it’s not typically the case that just from reading someone’s post that their gender is obvious, and right or wrong I tend to default to using male pronouns when referring to people on message boards.

The reason I singled you out is because you’ve been singularly virulent towards Speaker. As I’ve said, I do think he was stupid and I think he was in the wrong. I just disagree about how much outrage should be directed at this guy.

[Tuckerfan]

[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
Uh, yes he did. Diagnosed in January.
[/QUOTE]

I thought it was discovered in Jan, but not identified as TB until later, and then not ID’d as XDR-TB until after he’d left the States, but no matter, the point still stands: TB in any form is not something you fuck around with! Even “ordinary” TB can turn into XDR-TB if you screw up the treatment program. Dude is an absolute dumbass for behaving the way he did. Yeah, yeah, it can be treated successfully, if nothing goes wrong during the treatment! What if he’d had “ordinary” TB, but was allergic to the standard medications given for it? That takes time to sort out, and during that time, the TB can mutate!

I’m not saying that dude should have panicked when he found out that he had it, but he damn sure should have nailed down everything before he even thought about going out of the country. Ever read any of the treatments that they have to use on people with TB? Many of the drugs can have some rather nasty side effects, and even when the disease does respond to treatment, they still can have to do some rather unpleasant proceedures that are pretty risky. One of which gives me nightmares. They take a long needle and use it to inject air between the ribcage and the lung to collapse the lung so that it can heal. If they screw up, you can die! Read Robert A. Heinlein’s Expanded Universe for his account where he watched several people die from the treatment while waiting to undergo it himself.

The fact that they wouldn’t start any treatment until they’d ID’d the strain of TB is a freakin’ ginormous warning sign that TB’s some serious shit. Most of the time, if you’re sick with something, the doc will give you something to treat the problem, even if he’s not exactly sure what it is that you have.

[Martin_Hyde]

[QUOTE=Barrett Bonden]
Speaker met with the Fulton County Department of Health on May 10 before traveling to Europe and before he or they knew that he had XDR TB. His father taped the conversation but did not notify the participants. Speaker claims he was told that he was “not a risk.” Fulton County Officials counter that they told him he was putting other people at risk.
[/quote]

To me, the truth behind what actually happened there will help shape my opinion of Speaker. If he was told, “you have a contagious disease, you need to stay at home and only leave home for your TB treatment” like one of the posters here who had TB says they were told, and then went to Europe anyway, that’s pretty irresponsible.

But if he was told that he has a “contagious disease” but the medical officials also said, “while your disease is contagious, truthfully it doesn’t appear to be very contagious and we just have to tell you this stuff to cover our ass” then I think his actions are a bit more reasonable. Most people don’t communicate well with doctors, and when a doctor or another medical professional tells you they’re just giving you a warning to cover their ass, I think many reasonable people would take the warning with a grain of salt. I mean, doctors tell overweight patients to lose weight all the time, they tell smokers to quit smoking all the time, how often do people actually listen? I think whoever it was that told him they were just warning him to “cover their ass” (if this conversation actually happened) acted irresponsibly if they did that, because people won’t take your warning seriously at all if you tell them it is just ass-covering.

Speaker says that he feared that if he didn’t get to Denver he would die. He said that before he had left on his trip it was made clear to him that his only treatment option was in Denver.

That’s a logical inconsistency that I’d like to see resolved in some way. Reporting is infamous for getting precise wording incorrect. It’s possible that Speaker was told something akin to, “look, you’ve got TB. We have to test to make sure you don’t have a particularly dangerous form of TB, if you do happen to have that form of TB, your best bet for treatment will be in Denver. And, while TB is contagious and we advise you not to travel, it’s really just a warning we have to give you to cover our own ass.”

Maybe not though, maybe Speaker was told unequivocally not to travel and that he was a risk to others and he traveled anyway. I still think it’s quite likely he genuinely didn’t believe he was a big risk to anyone and did not believe his condition was serious. I tend to think people are stupid more often than I think they’re being intentionally malicious.

Let me sum up. Speaker knew that he was traveling against the advice of the Fulton County Department of Health and knew there was a possibility that he would require treatment in Denver. He had his Dad record the pre-travel conversation with the Board but neglected to notify the other participants. (I find this suggestive.) Following the conversation, he hopped town two days early and put an ocean between himself and Denver. When notified that he had a particularly dangerous form of the disease and that he should ABSOLUTELY NOT board a commercial airliner he. . .immediately boarded a commercial airliner. Then hopped a much longer flight to Montreal. His excuse: “I needed to get to Denver.”

The time line of events suggests that before he jumped on that commercial airliner home, the CDC told him he only way to get back to the United States was to charter a private airplane. I think it quite possible that he then felt he had no way home if he went through the channels of the CDC, so he felt that his life depended on getting home some other way.

As to why they recorded the conversation, I’m really not sure. Maybe he’s aware of cases of TB patients being quarantined, and wanted to know how seriously contagious and whether or not he had to take their warnings “seriously” and thus he recorded the conversation.

Of the many conflicting versions of the story we’ve heard, there is no version in which Speaker behaved admirably. If we take him at his word that he naively believed the white-coated men when they (allegedly) told him that he wasn’t contagious, then why did he not also naively believe them when they told him ‘Stay in Rome and whatever you do, don’t get on a commercial airliner’? He’s either ignorant and yet inconsistent OR he is cowardly and disingenuous OR he is malicious and evil. And either way, he’s very, very whiney.

I never said he behaved admirable. I just think his actions are a combination of:

1. Conflicted or ill-worded advice from medical officials

2. A belief that he wasn’t really very contagious or really that sick prior to going to Europe. It is not uncommon for people with serious ailments to “disbelieve” doctors about how serious it is. If you’re getting conflicting information on top of that, I think a lot of people might react the way Speaker did.

3. Panic. Once it was without doubt he was seriously sick and could die, he wasn’t acting rationally. He was afraid the CDC had more or less turned their back on him and he was afraid of death. Would the “noble” thing have been to stay in Italy and not risk others? Of course. But most people aren’t noble, and I think a lot of normal people would subject others to a low level of risk to save their own life. I think the very fact that the story gets muddled at this point strongly suggests he was paniced and thus there is no real rational explanation for the things he did.

[Barrett_Bonden]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Not only that, Fulton County has “declined” to answer.
[/QUOTE]

If so, then you are correct that they have refused to answer the question. I’m sorry; I didn’t catch that in the article we were referencing.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Ok, so you admit that Fulton County has probably lied about at least 1 thing – their reason for declining to answer the question.
[/QUOTE]

Well, here we’re getting into semantics. I don’t think they lied. Their silence served two purposes; they acknowledged one purpose and assumed that reasonable individuals could infer the other purpose.

You want them to admit to the press that they are also covering their asses. I can understand your point of view although I don’t agree that it is obligatory.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Here’s another question for you: What do you think is the real reason that Fulton County “declined” to answer the question?

To me, the most obvious explanation is that they either know or suspect that Speaker is telling the truth, and they are afraid of falling into what basically amounts to a perjury trap.
[/QUOTE]

(I am not a lawyer but) I doubt Fulton County is worried about perjury because neither the confidential statements to a patient nor the statements at the press conference were made under oath.

I think you are correct that they are worried about contradicting what was said during the May 10 meeting. To accurately address questions pertaining to that conversation, Dr. Benning has his recollection of the events and probably some standard Health Department boilerplate from which to refresh his memory. If Father Speaker’s claim is true, he has an actual recording. Why would FCDOH&W want to risk making any additional sort of statement, even assuming Speaker has waived all confidentiality, before hearing the recording?

[QUOTE=brazil84]
Let’s see . . . it’s ok to reveal that a patient was advised not to travel, but it’s not ok to reveal that he was advised he was or wasn’t contagious? Do you really believe that?
[/QUOTE]

Had Speaker’s identity and the entire story not already been released to the press, it would have been entirely inappropriate for FCDOH&W to “out” him. Given that the information was already public, I think it was acceptable for them to say that Speaker traveled against their advice. They are invoking boilerplate medical advice, available to anyone willing to do the research. Specific information regarding a patient’s condition should not be as freely available to the public.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
That’s a weak justification for refusing to release their version of events. Because all they have to do is tell the truth and emphasize that they do not remember the exact words that were used. Then there is no danger of contradiction.

More importantly, it’s no justification at all for answering Speaker’s yes or no question.
[/QUOTE]

I agree that they could do exactly that. However, they are not obligated to. Press conferences are voluntary; they have not (yet) received a subpoena. I have no better answer for you, especially since it is only speculation on my part.

[QUOTE=brazil84]
If Fulton County advised Speaker that he was not contagious, do they not have a moral obligation own up to what they did?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! If any idiot at any point told Speaker after he had developed active TB that he was not contagious, he should own up.

This very afternoon I will purchase a very ugly hat so that if it turns out that Fulton County told Speaker that he was “not contagious,” (mind, no qualifiers allowed! Literally “not contagious”) I will eat it. Mark me.

[descamisado]

[QUOTE=brazil84]
But getting back to your point about law, I believe that there do need to be laws or regulations addressing these types of situations. If health officials instruct a person not to fly, there should be a special written order that is served on the person. The person should be able to challenge that order before a judge and also claim compensation for any financial losses sustained.
[/QUOTE]
So, let me get this straight. Let’s assume you mean a person should be able to file a claim to be compensated only after they’ve been ordered not to fly and the written order has been affirmed.

This is a written order issued by the CDC, the agency charged with controlling the spread of infectious diseases, who’ve ordered you not to fly and/or quarantined you on the chance you might infect others, however low the chance might be.

Let’s say your level of infectiousness doesn’t change up until the time you’re again permitted to fly or released from quarantine, but the CDC doesn’t know this until the ban/quarantine/test series run their course.

Are you saying that a person, who just happened to have a $100,000 wedding/honeymoon planned, should be compensated just because (a) that person got sick and (b) the CDC just did their job?

[QUOTE=brazil84]
The law should also provide that if a U.S. citizen is ordered not to travel while overseas, the government, must arrange for prompt transportation for the citizen back to the United States at public expense.
[/QUOTE]
He was told not to go overseas, so it was his fault that he had to be ordered not to travel back to the United States.

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=Kokopilau]
So, if doctors tell you one day that you’re not contagious, and then the next day they phone you up and tell you to go into quarantine and not to use public transportation, you’re NOT going to think the state of your contagiousness has changed?
[/quote]

I would ask the exact same question that Speaker asked: What’s changed between now and then? If they can’t give me a good answer, then I’ll conclude that I’m probably just as contagious as before.

With TB? And a father in law who knew all about the disease?

Yes. Do you concede that the danger to the infected person and the degree of contagiousness are not necessarily corellated?

I explained exactly how. Read the post you just quoted this form.

No you did not. Re-read your own post.

The CDC’s own press conference, for one.

Cite.

You’re right, not all information is the same. However, information about the specific issue at point is definitely the same.

No it’s not. An audio recording has special value as a trap for the other side.

And by the way, what do you think are the probabilities that a TB patient, negative for TB in his spit, will infect a fellow passenger on a commercial jet? How many times has it happened? And why do you think it’s far more likely than the odds of a plane crashing and hitting somebody on the ground?

[Capatalist_Lion_Tamer]

[QUOTE=Barrett Bonden]

This very afternoon I will purchase a very ugly hat so that if it turns out that Fulton County told Speaker that he was “not contagious,” (mind, no qualifiers allowed! Literally “not contagious”) I will eat it. Mark me.
[/QUOTE]

I believe the exact wording Speaker claims they used was “Not a risk”.

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
See, I don’t really care if it was illegal or not. I never said he broke any laws.
[/quote]

Then why did you rely on laws to distinguish my airplane example?

Here’s what you said before:

Then you weigh the benefits to society that are being offered by flying this plane in a populated area, vs. the risks incurred by the people over which I am flying the plane. Which is why we have laws governing such actions.

[brazil84]

[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
So, let me get this straight. Let’s assume you mean a person should be able to file a claim to be compensated only after they’ve been ordered not to fly and the written order has been affirmed.

This is a written order issued by the CDC, the agency charged with controlling the spread of infectious diseases, who’ve ordered you not to fly and/or quarantined you on the chance you might infect others, however low the chance might be.

Let’s say your level of infectiousness doesn’t change up until the time you’re again permitted to fly or released from quarantine, but the CDC doesn’t know this until the ban/quarantine/test series run their course.

Are you saying that a person, who just happened to have a $100,000 wedding/honeymoon planned, should be compensated just because (a) that person got sick and (b) the CDC just did their job?
[/quote]

Absolutely. I think it should be like the situation where the government needs your land so they can build a highway. They can take it, but they must compensate you.

As a practical matter, it would make people more likely to comply with these sorts of orders. Which is good for the public as a whole.

He was told not to go overseas, so it was his fault that he had to be ordered not to travel back to the United States.
[/QUOTE]