What help does this give? It doesn't matter how the disease is started, only that it is eradicated.

What happened to health tests before allowing entry into the United States? Remember Ellis Island?

Mental health is equally important to physical health. Imagine that 7,000 people would be alive if that man's mental illness had been treated. America has entire regions that do not get adequate health care, either for physical or mental health. Please, if you vote against health care, you are voting against the health of your own family if an epidemic strikes. It will be much cheaper in the long run if everybody is treated before a disease turns into an epidemic. Serious illnesses cannot be treated in emergency rooms: NO emergency room in the country has any chemo therapy medicine, nor can they handle catastrophes if their budgets have been cut to ribbons. In 2005, Medicare was cut, and every couple of months hospitals threaten to close unless those cuts do not take effect. Please vote for sanity this year!

There will always be "leakage" in the prevention armor. What worries me is that the family /knew/ that the guy had cholera (cholera is very...distinctive), and still let him die and be buried without proper precautions. If they had notified the international authorities, they would likely have buried the body properly and stopped the spread from Patient Zero.

It's a fine line between foreigners showing up and telling everyone how they know /so/ much better (which only makes locals angry...for instance, you'd be angry when your doctor talks down you like you are still young enough for a lollipop); and being so hands off that these kinds of things happen.

Cynically, it's also a test of how Haiti's public health system can react to outbreaks. This will not be the last outbreak, and we cannot be there at the beginning for every single one.