What blatant lie has the CDC been caught in? And if you don’t know of the CDC ever having intentionally wrongly quarantined someone, why would you speculate that they would do so now? Assuming you see another possibility (i.e., that the CDC quarantined him in good faith, in light of a perceived public health issue warranting quarantine), why would you speculate that they are in this case acting through false motivations, when to your knowledge they never have done so in the past?
He was relying on his doctors’ assessments, not his own. There is a big difference. There was a neutral party involved.
Wait a second: When did Speaker ever ask the CDC for cites? And are you saying that if they refused to provide him with cites, therefore he was justified in disregarding their requests and their information and making a contrary determination himself? Because surely you see that he would have no MORE independent knowledge if the CDC declined to give him cites; he still would not know if he was a public health risk or not. Are you saying that the CDC had some obligation to prove to his personal satisfaction that he was a public health risk? Are you saying that if they could not or would not do so, he would be justified in just doing what he wanted?
Do you have information indicated that at the time he was contacted by the CDC in Rome his doctor told him he was not contagious or not a public health risk or otherwise was cleared to fly?
IOW, I don’t believe he had sufficient information from his doctor at the time to contra-indicate what the CDC was telling him. At least, I have not seen any information to that effect?
The testimony they provided re the CDC’s private jet was in direct conflict with the statement they provided the press last week.
I would speculate based on the fact that
- I had been given limited information, while…
- I am a person who absolutely needs to know all of the information
- It is my life that is on the line
- There are many indications that they will detain me from flying to Denver for treatment by days, weeks, or months.
Um, yeah … I think that 8 hours/50 percent chance scenario is an extreme example. The chart on the page that Arnold Winkelried quoted gives TB infection rates for a variety of culture samples. The level of contact is factored into those percentages. Since apparently Speaker is sputum-negative but culture-positive, that’s the infection rate I quoted (seven percent). The study indicated TB transmission is much greater in “enclosed, poorly ventilated areas”, such as a transoceanic airliner. So theoretically that transmission rate could be higher in this case than seven percent.
I have evidence that he received that information days prior to the telephone call, and evidence that they did not tell him the degree that he was contagious had changed. They also had no reason to believe it had changed.
And it’s my contention that by exposing others to what he believed was a deadly disease for which he’d been asked to go into quarantine, Speaker behaved like an asshole.
No, it most certainly was not th extreme example. It was the “on average” example for people with TB, including those who are smear positive. In other words, it says very little about the contact levels of those who were infected by smear negative people.
Good for you.
Because contact level isn’t germane to the study. They studied people who came in contact with those who were sputum-negative, culture-positive. That can include people who stabbed an infected person in the lung and intentionally inhaled from the chest cavity, along with those who passed the person on the other side of a hallway while wearing a gas mask. Guess what? Of that group, seven percent of them got TB.
Frankly, I’d bet that the transmission level for people near Speaker on a transatlantic flight would be greater than seven percent, because of the enclosed area and the recirculated air. But hey … seven percent is the figure that’s been quoted, so that’s what I’ll stick with.
Do I win a cookie?
Again, you are concentrating solely on contagion without taking into account severity of illness or drug resistance.
Assuming that the degree of contagiousness had not changed, and they had no reason to believe it had changed, they still put him on the no-fly list and told him not to fly. So therefore contagiousness was not the only issue, right? If they believed he presented a public health danger for reason other than contagiousness, why would it be reasonable for him (or you) to concentrate only on contagiousness to defend his actions?
IMO, this isn’t that hard. When he went to Europe, he was allowed to fly. (Obviously.) When he was in Rome, he was told not to fly. So now you’re saying nothing had changed? It was pretty obvious that SOMETHING had changed. If not contagiousness, then something else – like confirmation of drug resistance. If he honestly believed that nothing had changed on the issue of contagiousness, then surely he knew there was some other reason he was not supposed to fly. So – again - the issue of contagiousness is a red herring IMO. I don’t care if he thought he had the common cold. I don’t even care if he ACTUALLY only had the common cold. He was told by the CDC not to fly and he flew anyway – weaseled around in order to do so. Irresponsible, selfish, and dangerous: An asshole, IOW.
I think most of this could have been avoided had the CDC not hoisted several red flags and generally given him the mushroom treatment from the get-go. If my life is on the line & I have testimony from an expert in the field that I do not pose a danger to others, then I’m probably going to try save my own life. Since the CDC gave him no reason to doubt that expert’s testimony & obey their request instead, then it could be argued that he acted in a reasonably safe manner.
It is possible that those with smear neg TB only passed along the disease only after a great deal more exposure than 8 hours, or with direct physical contact. That study does not even address that point.
The fact that the CDC could not sit down with Speaker for a calm rational XDR-TB discussion with coffee, detailed color graphs, and an unlimited question-and-answer session is not the CDC’s fault.
No, they told him he had a really dangerous and fatal type of TB, and that he needed to go into quarantine, days after he last talked to the first doctors.
What on EARTH makes it justifiable or even sensible to think that the advice given by the first doctors, who didn’t have all the information, was more accurate and deserved following instead of the advice given by the second doctors, who knew more at that point?
And that’s completely ignoring your odd point that if he was told by the first set of doctors that he was fine, and the second set of doctors told him he was in danger of his very life, why THAT was worth listening to, but not anything else they said?
Wouldn’t the fact that the second set of doctors said “You’ve got a fatal strain of TB” when the first set didn’t know that kind of imply that it’s not the second set of doctors who should be doubted, but the first?
After all, they were right about the strain of TB and the fact that he needed to be quarantined (remember, he’s STILL IN QUARANTINE RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT), when the first set of doctors got both of those things wrong.
Straw man
So has Mr. Speaker. The CDC doctor said (see my previous post for the link) that Mr. Speaker assured the CDC doctor that he would not attempt to fly, and then did so anyway.
[post=8658109]Here’s where I have a link to the claim by the CDC doctor that Mr. Speaker lied to them[/post]
He was never given any information that contradicted what the first doctors told him. He received additional information about strain, but not enough to outweigh the fact that he wasn’t contagious and being asked to turn himself in to authorities based on very little information.
Right. So when he calls you and asks that you turn yourself in to Italian authorities against your wishes, you may want to question why.