[QUOTE=Jodi]
This post doesn’t make any sense at all to me. It carries more than a whiff of conspiracy theory nutter-ism, so I’d appreciate it if you’d clarify what you mean.
[/QUOTE]
What I said was extremely easy to understand.
[QUOTE=Kokopilau]
People don’t get told to go into quarantine because their diseases are worse. They get told to go into quarantine because their diseases are more contagious.
[/QUOTE]
People can be placed in quarantine for either, as you with the face said. Drug resistant diseases also present additional concerns based on difficulty of treatment, as an additioanl factor to be considered along with severity and infectivity. There is a major public health motivation to contain drug-resistant disease strains, because the proliferation of drug-resistant strains endangers our ability to treat the disease, and the disease may well become more lethal as it becomes more drug-resistant – which is precisely what has happened with XDR-TB.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
So what? So what if he was only told he had a more serious strain? By the time he was in Italy, he was told NOT TO FLY. Rather than do as he was told, he fled the country, made arrangements to fly from another country and into Canada, because he knew he was not supposed to fly. He knew he was on the no-fly list. Did he think they put him on that list just to make his life harder, 'cause they hated him? Or maybe – and this might be crazy talk – they put him on the list because they considered him a very serious public health risk, if not due to level of contagiousness, then due to level of drug resistance of the strain he has.
The CDC says “do not fly,” you DON’T FUCKING FLY. End of story. If you have managed to strand your ass in a foreign country because you didn’t wait to find out the details of your diagnosis – knowing there was at least the possiblility that it is XDR-TB – then you stay in that country until things can be worked out, but you DON’T FUCKING FLY. Because the freaking CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL told you not to. I
Personally, I don’t give a shit what the Fulton County Health Department told him before he left for Europe, though I do find it interesting he moved his trip up two days after meeting with them. There’s enough “he said/she said” in those communications to cast doubt on what he actually knew, as opposed to should have suspected. But I continue to find his actions once he received his diagnosis to be indefensible. They were in direct contravention of the CDC’s directions.
They were also in flagrant disregard to the public health risk, which is measured not just in quantity (how many will be sickened?) but also in quality (how sick will the sickened become?) IOW, “What are the chances I will make other people sick?” is not the only relevant inquiry. The other relevant inquiry is, “In the unlikely event I do make someone else sick, what are the chances they will be very sick or even die?” EITHER presents a public health risk. And the determination as to whether that public health risk was acceptable or not was not his decision to make. So you can argue all day long about what the risk was or wasn’t, high or low, negigible, even non-existent – that was not his decision to make. And he KNEW that, because he knew he was on the no-fly list.
[/QUOTE]
You’re entire OP has been reduced to “The CDC said so”. That isn’t an attack on your position, I just want to make sure I understand you.
And you are wrong about it not being his decision to make, as evidenced by the fact that he broke no laws.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
People can be placed in quarantine for either, as you with the face said. Drug resistant diseases also present additional concerns based on difficulty of treatment, as an additioanl factor to be considered along with severity and infectivity. There is a major public health motivation to contain drug-resistant disease strains, because the proliferation of drug-resistant strains endangers our ability to treat the disease, and the disease may well become more lethal as it becomes more drug-resistant – which is precisely what has happened with XDR-TB.
[/QUOTE]
This whole argument reminds me of the AIDS controversy in the 80’s. The idea that the severity of the disease makes “any risk unreasonable”.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
What I said was extremely easy to understand.
[/QUOTE]
That’s completely POV-dependent, of course. Since you said it, of course you understood it. But I, as the hearer, did not undertand it. As I said. So you can certainly stand on the position that it is “extremely easy to understand,” even after being notified to the contrary by your audience, or you can try to clarify as requested.
To be more specific as to what I don’t understand: What situation did you have in mind what you spoke of people being “unnecessarily placed in quarantine”? What motivations do you ascribe to the CDC that you are questioning? What alternate motivations do you theorize, if you don’t belive the stated ones?
[QUOTE=Jodi]
That’s completely POV-dependent, of course. Since you said it, of course you understood it. But I, as the hearer, did not undertand it. As I said. So you can certainly stand on the position that it is “extremely easy to understand,” even after being notified to the contrary by your audience, or you can try to clarify as requested.
To be more specific as to what I don’t understand: What situation did you have in mind what you spoke of people being “unnecessarily placed in quarantine”? What motivations do you ascribe to the CDC that you are questioning? What alternate motivations do you theorize, if you don’t belive the stated ones?
[/QUOTE]
One possibility: Situations where the CDC understands that the patient isn’t a risk to others, but places him in quarantine in an effort to reduce public outcry.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
This whole argument reminds me of the AIDS controversy in the 80’s. The idea that the severity of the disease makes “any risk unreasonable”.
[/QUOTE]
“Any risk is unreasonable” isn’t a fair statement. However, I think there’s a a difference between “reasonable risk” and “a 4.9 percent chance of killing multiple people whose only crime is sitting near a person on an airplane, particularly when the infected person has been told not to fly.” The latter, to me, is not a reasonable risk.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
You’re entire OP has been reduced to “The CDC said so”. That isn’t an attack on your position, I just want to make sure I understand you.
[/quote]
Well, that’s pretty over-simplified but – sure. You make personal decisions based on the information you have, taking into account your own level of expertise and knowledge, and the level of expertise and knowledge of the people giving you the information (and also the urgency with which they are imparting it). In this case, it was irresponsible, selfish, and dangerous for this layman PI laywer to reject the advice, requests, and directions of the CDC. Period.
I guess I don’t object to you taking the position that anything which is not strictly illegal is therefore permitted, though it neatly avoids the moral and ethical in favor of the strictly legal. But in that case you may recast my opinion as being that he made an irresponsible, selfish, and dangerous decision – a series of irresponsible and selfish decisions, actually – that he was, in other words, an asshole. As stated on page 1 of the thread.
Given the knowledge of HIV in the early '80s and the dearth of effective treatment options, there was certainly a valid argument to make that at that time and under those circumstances, any risk was unreasonable. Certainly if you as an HIV infected individual are told by the CDC not to engage in certain behaiviors (like, say, sharing needles or having unprotected sex) and you knowingly do it anyway, you too are an idiot. If they’ve tracked you down in Europe to give you the information and instructions and you still do it anyway, you too are an asshole.
I just want to clarify that I don’t find either Jodi’s or Kokopilau’s positions to be unreasonable. I think the majority of the breakdown happened when the CDC made the phone call to Italy & failed to give a guy who had been repeatedly told he was non-contagious a solid reason to check himself into quarantine. On top of that, they offered him no assistance in arriving home, and acted in a shady manner from the beginning of the fiasco.
If I’m speaker, every alarm in my head is going off, telling me that I’m being hung out to dry. I think he had a damn good reason to believe that he would be detained from traveling to Denver for some period of time.
[QUOTE=Sauron]
“Any risk is unreasonable” isn’t a fair statement. However, I think there’s a a difference between “reasonable risk” and “a 4.9 percent chance of killing multiple people whose only crime is sitting near a person on an airplane, particularly when the infected person has been told not to fly.” The latter, to me, is not a reasonable risk.
[/QUOTE]
No one had demonstrated in this thread that the risk was 4.9% in a situation where direct physical contact is not involved.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
One possibility: Situations where the CDC understands that the patient isn’t a risk to others, but places him in quarantine in an effort to reduce public outcry.
[/QUOTE]
Let me ask again: What situation did you have in mind of people being unnecessarily placed in quarantine? Have you heard of this happening, or are you just theorizing that because it could happen, therefore it must happen? And on what basis are you rejecting the CDC’s stated reasons for placing Mr. Speaker in quarantine? Because “they did it because of adverse publicity and not for medical reasons” seems like a hell of a leap.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
Well, that’s pretty over-simplified but – sure. You make personal decisions based on the information you have, taking into account your own level of expertise and knowledge, and the level of expertise and knowledge of the people giving you the information (and also the urgency with which they are imparting it). In this case, it was irresponsible, selfish, and dangerous for this layman PI laywer to reject the advice, requests, and directions of the CDC. Period.
[/QUOTE]
That is certainly a valid opinion. I just think that Speaker’s fear & doubt caused the CDC’s actions to speak louder than their words. I think that continues to be the case, up to yesterday.
…and I honestly don’t think he believed he was a risk to any other person.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
No one had demonstrated in this thread that the risk was 4.9% in a situation where direct physical contact is not involved.
[/QUOTE]
Again, he did not know the risk when he undertook his actions. So attempts to quantify the risk after the fact are kind of beside the point. It wouldn’t matter if the risk was absolute zero and the diagnosis completely wrong; he did not know that at the time.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
Let me ask again: What situation did you have in mind of people being unnecessarily placed in quarantine? Have you heard of this happening, or are you just theorizing that because it could happen, therefore it must happen? And on what basis are you rejecting the CDC’s stated reasons for placing Mr. Speaker in quarantine? Because “they did it because of adverse publicity and not for medical reasons” seems like a hell of a leap.
[/QUOTE]
Do I know of a case where the CDC has done so? No. Are there cases throughout history of such things happening? Yes. Has the CDC been caught in at least one blatant lie since this whole thing started? Yes.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
Again, he did not know the risk when he undertook his actions. So attempts to quantify the risk after the fact are kind of beside the point. It wouldn’t matter if the risk was absolute zero and the diagnosis completely wrong; he did not know that at the time.
[/QUOTE]
We’re going round and round this point, but I still maintain that he believed he wasn’t contagious after several doctors told him so, and after the CDC failed to tell him otherwise.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
No one had demonstrated in this thread that the risk was 4.9% in a situation where direct physical contact is not involved.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, they did … in fact, I’m the one that posted the info. Again, here’s the link:
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
That is certainly a valid opinion. I just think that Speaker’s fear & doubt caused the CDC’s actions to speak louder than their words. I think that continues to be the case, up to yesterday.
[/quote]
Thanks for validating my opinion. 
Unfortunately I can’t do the same for yours. But out of curiosity, what in your mind changed yesterday?
He wasn’t in a position to assess that risk. The CDC was. He was irresponsible and selfish to replace their judgment with his own. The seriousness of the situation was made starkly manifest by his placement on the no-fly list and the machinations he had to go through to get himself home. Under the circumstances as explained to him in Italy, his actions were IMO inexcusable.
[QUOTE=Capatalist Lion Tamer]
We’re going round and round this point, but I still maintain that he believed he wasn’t contagious after several doctors told him so, and after the CDC failed to tell him otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
And I still don’t really give a shit what he believed, unless you can give me some rationale why it would be reasonable for him to replace the CDC’s judgment with his own in regards to further travel by air, once they had contacted him in Rome and told him not to fly.
[QUOTE=Sauron]
Yes, they did … in fact, I’m the one that posted the info. Again, here’s the link:
http://www.in.gov/isdh/dataandstats/epidem/2003/may/tb.pdf
[/QUOTE]
I’m not being combative, but I didn’t see anything in that study that indicated what level of exposure was involved. It said “It has been estimated that, on average, it takes the equivalent of 8 hours of exposure per day for a person to have a 50 percent chance of becoming infected.” However, I didn’t see any statements that indicated that those people who contracted TB from Smear Negative patients didn’t have more contact, or even direct physical contact, with the patient.
Even if the risk was as quantifiable as you say, why wouldn’t the CDC have just communicated that to Speaker? It is my contention that their method of communication was the primary source of the problem.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
And I still don’t really give a shit what he believed, unless you can give me some rationale why it would be reasonable for him to replace the CDC’s judgment with his own in regards to further travel by air, once they had contacted him in Rome and told him not to fly.
[/QUOTE]
We are on a website that constantly begs its members for cites. When the CDC failed to provide speaker with any, it became more reasonable for him to question their requests.