By now I think most everyone has heard about the man with the drug resistant TB traveling around the world and panicking airline passengers everywhere.

The news people have been all over this story breathlessly talking about passengers who traveled with him who might have been exposed.

Health officials in North America and Europe are now trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on the two trans-Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe.

While I realize that airplanes are a special case, in that air is recirculated, and many people pick up all kinds of colds, flus, even other infectious diseases, this is not what's bugging me most about this story.

No one seems to think about all the places he's been that are outside of the airplane. Let's start with the airline terminals - how many people have you spent time sitting close to in terminals waiting (sometimes hours) for your plane to load?

What about places he regularly visits in his home town? His office and the people he works with? What about the restaurants where he's had dinner? The stores he's entered and shopped at? Does he attend church? How about the hotels he used during his stay? The staff he had interactions with? The person who officiated at his wedding and the guests? (when is the last wedding you attended where half the women didn't hug and kiss the groom...) Did he rent a car while he was in Europe? Did he take public transport while over there?

Just think about all the interactions you have in daily life... each of those is a vector for this man to spread the disease. Much of it before he was diagnosed! After the diagnosis, the doctors should have quarantined him until the test results were complete. Right then and there. I know it would have been hard on him, but wouldn't that have been so much better than trying to track down people and have them tested? Or worse yet, having him pass it on to someone who isn't in good enough health to fight it off effectively... thereby leading to their death?

How much did he really know? How much did he think was bogus?

Speaker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper.

As it's obvious he was not immediately quarantined, I have to wonder how "strongly" he was urged not to travel. Although I must say, if you're told you have TB (no matter the strain) you are certainly NOT "fine".

There are so many unanswered questions here, I am simply astounded. Yet the press seems to be completely focused on the airline flights, as if this is the only thing we need to worry about. Perhaps it is, but they really need to explain to me why we shouldn't be worried about where else he's been and all the other people he's had close contact with.

You may wonder why I'm so worried about TB... my grandmother lost half a lung to TB at the age of 45 (of course she lived to be 99 - so they were able to help her). I had an uncle who also had TB as a young man and had many breathing issues later in life. It's not a disease that should be treated lightly.

This, however, is extremely amusing...

...New York Senator Charles E. Schumer asked why border agents didn't prevent Speaker from crossing into the U.S. from Canada.

``While the failure to detain the individual so he could be quarantined exposed a gaping hole in the country's system to protect the public from disease, it also underscored the nation's vulnerability to stopping terrorists from slipping past border guards and gaining entrance,'' Schumer said in a statement.

So what's Schumer's stance on illegal immigration from Mexico? How about the wall that has been proposed between the US and Mexico? Or does he think that terrorists and disease can only come from Canada?

Just wondering...

(BTW - If I was Canadian, I think I'd be insulted by that...)

Posted by: Teresa in Medical at 11:39 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 720 words, total size 4 kb.