The CDC did not err. When you have a disease such as TB your responsiblities overweigh your rights!

It was those night time show jokes at him expense. Jay Leno joked a lot about him.

He has all the right in the world to sue them. If they broke rules then they should have to pay the consequences. Additionally, he should be open to being sued by anybody who might have suffered due to his actions also. I wouldn't doubt that if he wins and is awarded some odd millions of dollars, somebody who was on a flight with him, or had some sort of other contact with him will sue him to get a piece of that money. And if they can prove their case, then they should get a chunk of change from him.

Just cause this guy is a jerk doesn't mean he shouldn't be awarded compensation for any wrongs that may have been placed upon him.

It is the CDC's mandate to manage deadly infectious disease. It's the law. Given that this man completely violated the orders given, it was impossible to get compliance without alerting authorities and the media. CDC issued a federal order of isolation and he appeared to be evading detention by authorities. He did not "voluntarily" give himself up until the media storm made everyone aware of him. He had a deadly infectious disease with a 30%-50% cure rate!

http://www2.cdc.gov/phlp/fphelfaq.asp

www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22672.pdf - Report on this man's case.

On May 12, 2007, a man with tuberculosis flew from Atlanta, Georgia, to Paris,
France. After his wedding in Greece, he went to Rome, Italy, where he was contacted by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and told that he had XDR-TB, a
drug-resistant form of tuberculosis with a cure rate of approximately 30%-50%. He was
told that he should not get on an airplane and that his passport was the subject of a no-fly
order. However, fearing he would not be able to return to the United States for treatment,
he flew to Canada and entered the United States by car on May 24. ... CDC issued
a federal order of isolation under the Public Health Service Act, the first since 1963.

Federal quarantine and isolation authority may be found in Section 361 of the Public
Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 264, wherein Congress has given the Secretary of Health
and Human Services (HHS) the authority to make and enforce regulations necessary “to
prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign
countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other
State or possession.” Executive Order 13295 lists the communicable diseases for which
this quarantine authority may be exercised and specifically includes infectious
tuberculosis. In 2000, the Secretary of HHS transferred certain authorities, including
interstate quarantine authority, to the Director of the CDC.

Completely agree!! If he had just been a responsible adult and not blatantly ignored medical advice, putting hundreds of others at risk (and even if it's a lesser form of TB, it's still transmitted airborne if I'm not mistaken... and still means the people who are exposed to it will need medical care and months of medications, most likely), they wouldn't have had to track him down at borders and whatnot, announcing his name everywhere. I mean if he's that excited about suing... he should volunteer to be sued by anyone he knowingly and carelessly infected with TB. It's not like he was flying to visit his dying mother... he was on a freaking vacation. Take your vacation next year.

This is precisely where your rights meet your responsibility. What was more important... his right to move about or the lives of the hundreds of thousands who he exposed, and in turn who they exposed because of him? TB is deadly, it can kill. Him being treated would not kill him. It might slightly inconvenience him but it posed no risk to his life unlike those who unknowingly were exposed and who they unknowingly exposed in turn.

Rights are not paramount, they need to be handled responsibly.

His form of TB XDR is deadly and has a 30% - 50% cure rate.

In other words it has a 50% - 70% fatality rate!

CDC had to issue the first federal order for his detention since 1963! He appeared to be evading the authorities. He only stopped his evasions when the mass media outed him and forced him to turn himself in.

Which is why he should be liable to pay back the CDC all the money they used to hunt down his worthless arse AND allow the countries he fled through to sue him for endangering their citizens!

Do you have a photo, or can you cite some direct evidence for him either being a son of a dog, or has indeed spit in eyes? Wow..Judge Garry has pronounced! Behold the mighty internet judge!

Fail.

He was not non compliant it said.. they let him go and waited for his return before going any further with his medical condition.. which turned out to be not as severe as they 1st diagnosed.

i do agree he was not very considerate to anyone else by going ahead and flying.the innocent, unknowing ppl on board could have gotten very ill, or death.. becuz of him.

it'll be quite the court case. i think he will loose in the long run. therez to many if/ands already. should someone step forward who has became infected. while on his selfish rondavoo.. i hope he has a high paying job.

See the report. www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22672.pdf

He evaded authorities after being ordered not to fly from the time he was notified in Rome. He continued to evade authorities until he was outed by the media storm after he got to New York. Yeah, he gave himself up. When people disobey orders and evade the authorities it is their responsibility to take all appropriate measures to apprehend them.

The CDC had to issue the first federal order of isolation since 1963. It is their responsibility to do so since his XDR-TB disease has a 50% to 70% mortality rate. He had no privacy rights after that. He certainly had no privacy rights after violating and evading.

Ellen (#5.2)The article says that it turned out to be "a less serious" form of the disease. The CDC made a misdiagnosis. All TB can be serious and the guy made a serious mistake, but some strains of TB are more difficult to contract than others. For example, some strains of TB are far more easy to contract if a person has AIDS or is on chemotherapy. Is your statement about the mortality rate correct given the fact that it is a different strain?

I cannot believe he endangered so many people and it was a selfish act, but it seems to me that the CDC erred as well. They violated HIPPA laws, they misdiagnosed his case and they did not isolate him immediately. I have worked on a TB ward. The patients DO NOT LEAVE and come back later because many of them will flee since it is a form of incarceration. This guy was educated, supposedly, but panic and denial do strange things to people. I think both he and the CDC made serious mistakes. I am more concerned that the CDC dropped the ball and could do it again than I am about this guy (only because it was a "less serious" strain. I don't think he should be able to sue, but the feds make the rules that allow him to do it and they had the laws in place to detain him and did not act.

Except...he was not contagious. No more than you are, at least.

TB is highly contagious regardless of whether it was XDR (as they thought) or MDR (as it apparently was). Those letters just indicate how susceptible it is to antibiotics... they have nothing to do with how contagious it is.

Eleanor: Atypical TB is not highly contagious except in immunocompromised individuals but can be MDR. Are you an MD or infectious disease expert? I concede that atypical TB is sometimes referred to as nontuberculous mycobacteria. Is that what you mean?

Eleanor: Atypical TB is not highly contagious except in immunocompromised individuals but can be MDR.

So because he didn't sneeze in the face of someone with undiagnosed HIV it's okay?

I'm immunocompromised due to my severe asthma... I get infections all the time. So if he had infected me, and he could have since I don't look any different, then you admit he should get in trouble. Glad you cleared that up!

Rahlly, Atypical TB is thought to be transmitted a different way these Mycobactera are ubiquitous. They occur in the soil. They are generally not transmitted from one person to the next. Look up atypical TB.

Jack-1962499,

Are you a microbiologist? I'm sure you are not. I am and I can tell you, you are wrong. It is true that some Mycobacteria are soil inhabiters, however he had Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). You are refering to atypical TB most commonly caused by Mycobacterium avium-complex (MAC). This is the most common atypical TB seen in immunocomprised hosts. If it was an atypical TB they would not have refered to it as TB. He had an active MDR-TB stain. He was contagious.

Eleanor is correct in her statement of the antibiotic susceptibility

So he was contagious and running around infecting people. Glad I never met him, considering my own susceptibility. Which makes me wonder about others.

Microchick: No I am an Internal Medicine specialist who has worked on a TB ward treating TB patients. The CDC ALREADY made a mistake. I'm wondering if they have gotten this right at this point. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that he could have been contagious, but I also have not heard of anyone, including his wife, who has contracted TB from him yet.

I am amazed at how many clarevoyant people like you write such presumptuous posts. You were sure I was not a knowledgeable Are you absolutely sure we have all the facts in this case? It sounds like a Marks' brothers movie to me.

Jack: I agree that I do not have all the facts, but nor do you. You were also being one of those "clairvoyant people" writing presumptuous posts and assumed that Eleanor was not knowledgeable either. You were also talking about two entirely different illnesses (causation-wise) with atypical and typical TB. Not once in the article did it state he had atypical TB. He had TB caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) as opposed to what they originally thought was extremely-drug resistant TB (XDR-TB). They're both bad just MDR-TB is a little better to get than XDR-TB.

I do not want to argue with you. We both don't have all the facts.

I do not disagree and I was trying to learn something. I did not intend to question anything other than the meaning of some of the terms she used. Sorry I ruffled your feathers.

Jack,

No biggie! Have a nice day! :)

For the record, the only terms I used were MDR and XDR, which I stated didn't classify the disease as more contagious or less contagious, rather the terms classified them in terms of how susceptible they were to classes of antibiotics. I don't think there is a lot to question about that. But, glad to see I sparked such a lively discussion.

Boy, you sure did! But again, is all MDR TB that contagious? I researched it again on UpToDate and it appears that TB can be MDR and yet not highly contagious. I'm still treating TB but not on a TB ward anymore and I know that even good reference sites may be behind. Microchick is not your big sister, is she? :-) I know when I've crossed the line.

Oh? And you know this how? Someone with whom he came into contact may not realize they are ill, at least with TB, for months/years.

not from his stupidity, nor from his TB BECAUSE HE WAS NOT CONTAGIOUS.

Christ on a Trisket!

Again... TB is highly contagious... who gave you the idea that it wasn't?

Even if it was a less contagious variant that would only hit those with compromised immune systems... do you know the status of everyone you are around? Do you know who has cancer and asthma and HIV? Do you know if he covered his mouth and nose every time he sneezed? Do you know if eve touched anything with wet hands? It may not be virulent but it is contagious and so many people could have been infected. Worse t hey could carry it and infect other people who have weaker immune systems.

er...He went to law school. He has a degree. And you...went in the Armed Forces instead, and use that fact as justification to lay your particular political POV on others, as if it were a magic shield. IF I researched some of your posts, I'd find you probably hate Obama, concerned veteran.

If you consider this man you do not know except through what the Main Stream Media allows "stupid" then you must be the smartest man in the world. If so, quit complaining and start solving the world's problems, Braniac!

Schoolyard name calling Fail.

Speaking of unresearched opinions -

Being a veteran doesn't mean one does not have an education, it merely means one served their country in the armed forces, and identifies strongly with that experience. I'm a verteran, have several degrees and work as a 'professional'.

And you Rick?

Well, we don't know do we?

I guess we could presume from your rant, you DIDN"T serve your country (at least in the military) For all we know, you might be an amoeba colony impersonating an irate human.

Oh well

(yawn)

I'm all for childhood vaccination, and I totally understand a school/daycare/or program who does not want an unvaccinated child to attend. Whooping Cough is coming back... for LADY'S SAKE....SMALLPOX!!!!! Isn't that just a bit ridiculous?

Smallpox is not a childhood disease and there has not been a routine immunization order for it in the US since the 1960's. I was born in 1965 and was immunized. My sister who was born in 1967 was not. It has been considered globally eradicated in 1979, except for what is used for "medical purposes" in the Atlanta Plague Center and whoever Russia has sold parts of it illegally off to.

Yes it was considered to be eradicated but there's been investigations by the WHO of re-emergent cases. Which is totally scary. In other cases, Whooping cough as I said is coming back... I want you to know that I never even heard of Whopping Cough except in historical novels before last year. Now four times an hour, the ad to get the vaccine comes on. And German Measles aka Rubella, which the US thought was gone but is coming back. ::shrug:: All because some flake doctor who was discredited, disbarred, and dismissed manipulated his data (which is why he was discredited, disbarred, and dismissed)to prove a conclusion that he already had. Which of course violates scientific method, which proves he can't have been a good doctor in the first place.

www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22672.pdf - Read the report.

The CDC did its job. He did not comply. They obtained a federal order of isolation. That is what they are required to do. They used all available means to enforce it, just like anybody else being pursued by DOJ.

CDC has these police powers. They did their job.

I think, that those other countries should file suit against him for placing their citizen's in danger.

That has to be one of the most idiotic comments in this thread. I am NOT a Teabagger but c'mon, get real! The judge that overruled the lower court must have been appointed by Obama...LOL!

Seriously, Speaker should have been prosecuted and thrown in jail for putting so many people at risk. I agree with the poster that this guy will not find a sympathetic jury!