US Features
US health officials chased TB carrier around the world
By Pat Reber May 31, 2007, 13:26 GMT
Washington - In a case that unfolded like a Michael Crichton suspense novel, US health officials trying to corral a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis chased an infected man around the world during his wedding and honeymoon.
Officials at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Wednesday described how the Atlanta, Georgia, man had been told he was not to travel overseas or make long plane flights while they tried to determine in early May what kind of TB he suffered.
But the patient had 'compelling' reasons to travel to Greece and Rome for his marriage and honeymoon, Dr Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine, told reporters in broadcast remarks.
Racing for the diagnosis, scientists at the CDC determined that the man had an 'extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis' that was immune not only to first-line medical treatment, but also to backup treatments, said Dr Ken Castro, CDC's director of tuberculosis elimination.
But the diagnosis apparently wasn't finished before the patient left the country on May 12 on Air France Flight 385 from Atlanta to Paris.
The man, reportedly an attorney whose name has not been released, was finally nabbed after he returned to North America and was driving from Montreal to Atlanta in an attempt to circumvent a 'no-fly' order. He was put on a CDC plane in New York City and flown to Atlanta, where he is being isolated under armed guard at Grady Memorial Hospital.
The TB case is the first time in more than 40 years that the US government has carried out such a forced isolation under federal law - and an indication of official worry about the spread of such a highly drug-resistant infection.
'We don't take this authority lightly,' Cetron said.
Public health officials are focussed on the 'difficult and challenging process' of tracking down 50 to 80 people who sat within two rows of him on the two long, transatlantic flights from Atlanta to Paris and on Czech Air Flight 0104 on May 24 from Prague to Montreal.
Cabin crew are also being tested.
The duration of passengers' confinement with the patient - more than eight hours - exceeded an international time standard for spread of infectious disease.
CDC officials invited passengers on shorter flights within Greece and Europe during the 12-day period to be tested, though authorities said there was not a 'significant risk' of infection. The shorter flights included trips from Paris to Athens, Athens to Tira Island, Mykenos to Athens, Athens to Rome and Rome to Prague.
Even those on the more than eight-hour flights were likely not infected, because the 'degree of his infectiousness is quite low,' Cetron said. The man was not coughing up sputum or blood and appeared to be quite healthy, officials said.
But tests and follow up tests are needed to make sure.
Cetron disputed reports from the man that he had not been forbidden to travel, referring to a family conference held within the Georgia county where the lesion on his lungs was first noted.
Frantic efforts were made to track down the man after the drug- resistant TB diagnosis was made, and officials located him through his cell phone during his honeymoon in Rome.
'When we reached him in Rome, one of my quarantine officers made clear that under no uncertain terms should he take a commercial aircraft, and that we were looking at options ... to transport him back to the states,' Cetron said.
Efforts with the Italian Health Ministry and airport authorities failed to keep him from leaving Rome.
The patient flew from Rome to Prague to Montreal, where he rented a car to begin the drive back to Atlanta. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wanted to get home, where he felt he would get better health care.
Cetron said he realized the failure to corral the patient indicated shortcomings in the electronic sharing of international flight information and communications with airlines.
After the SARS epidemic in Asia and fears of worldwide bird flu in recent years, international health authorities were working on systems to contain the spread of such infectious diseases.
Officials said the patient had not violated any laws and was not subject to prosecution for his actions. He will be transferred to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver for further isolation and treatment.
The facility has been treating drug-resistant cases for decades, said Dr Charles Daley, an official at the hospital.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
This kind of blatant disregard for others is a crime.
I hope the fellow passengers on his flights that need testing sue him for all he's worth for endangering their lives and the lives of thousands should the infection spread.
I hope no one gets this disease from him, but if they do, I hope he does get jail time. This is how the next pandemic will be started, by some guy who wants to travel to his wedding. So incredibly irresponsible.
Another snobass lawyer thinking his shit didn't stink and that he was above the law.
If even 1 person becomes ill with this he should get 20 to life for attemped murder.
If you knowingly give someone aids you can be charged--he should be also
Hey, all we have here is just one side of the story, edited by one person, with some comments lifted out from another CDC person.
What about getting the man's side of the story before he is lynched in the court of public opinion.
This as some will remember was how aids originally spread --a attendant on a international flight spread it from country to country
This lawyer Atlanta is a danger to evry one.He gives lawyers the bad names like scum. He was told dont get on a plane-so whats the idiot do he flies to Rome.They catch him there and he boards planes for small trips, AFTER he was told hes highly infected.He should spend some time in jail. Like 50 years, this lawyer is SCUM.
If there is no law against this then we need a new law. How do we not have a law against knowingly endangering other people's lives? Isn't it illegal if you have Aids to try to infect another person? That's what this guy was doing. You can't convince me he didn't know he was doing anything wrong otherwise why did he plan to drive home from Montreal (so the U.S> couldn't catch him on a flight).
I hope that the people who have to be tested sue him.
Also, if our tax dollars were spent chasing this guy around the world then why can't we taxpayers sue him as well for all the money that has been spent trying to catch him. Imagine if he'd had something that was more contagious. He'd have killed thousands of people. How could anyone (except a lawyer) live with themselves knowing they started a worldwide epidemic? It's lucky we don't know his name (yet). What a sorry excuse for a human being that guy is.
this guy is a moron...keep your illnesses to yourself you goof!
Although he may not have broken an US Laws directly. He may have broken laws in several different countries. I seem to recall a law about knowingly endangering people and I believe its in Italy. So, I guess he'll be extridited back to Italy. If he was in Rome and was told not to fly, why didn't he just go to the US Embassy there. They could have put him on a C-9 (military medical jet) out of Aviano AB back to the States and keep him isolated the whole trip. I thought TB affected the lungs not the brain. I'm thinking there's more to this story than we're being told...or the dudes a complete idiot.
Let's just for a minute try to put ourselves in the lawyer's shoes. He's in Italy, receives a call to turn himself in to authorities who don't speak his language, where there's no right to bail and where health care, although adequate, is often in sordid conditions. He panics and wants to get home for care.
Let's consider an alternative. The phone call says something like: Stay where you are. An American team already in place in Europe will arrive to pick you up and send you back to the US on a private plane for healthcare.
Come on, guys! Would you really want to be stuck in Italy for 18 months for doubtful care. Sure, this was a problem, but a foreseeable problem. No individual wants to get isolated thousands of miles from home for an indeterminate period. So, think ahead and get systems in place to get people back home without endangering others.
That he is a lawyer is icing on the cake, but regardless, he is yet another example of how criminally selfish many people are today. Habitual DUI drivers, owners of super-sized SUVs that usually drive alone and NEVER leave the pavement, and all the empty-nester couples building 5,000+ sf homes for two are similar to him in their selfishness, and so much more prevalent.
Unfortuately, we've been lulled to sleep b/c there are so many of them, and it takes a story like his to get people's attention.
This man need to be charged with Attempted Murder!
He knew exactly what he was doing and what the risks were.
Now dozens of innocents could be infected, spread the disease, or die because of him.
Add to that all the money that will be wasted in the investigation and clean up efforts.
This is Legally no different than someone who knows they are infected with AIDS, but they purposefully sleep around or bite someone in a direct effort to infect them.
He needs Jail Time and to be made an example of to show others they will be held accountable for their actions.
Why is this individual being treated with kid gloves.
I do not care who he is, he has put others at risk
knowing full well he had TB. This person knew he had TB,
it doesn't matter that he didn't realize it was a deadly
strain of TB when he left; however, he did know upon his
return. This selfish coward ignored instructions not to fly,
evaded health officals, caring only for himself. He should
be charged plain and simple.
Okay, first off, if he knew he had TB, he would have known how contagious it is, and that being cooped up in an aircraft for God knows how many hours could contaminate other people - especially when he knew they didn't know what type it was. Secondly, he was told not to travel. This to me is arrogance, ignorance,and irresponsible to the point of stupidity AND maliciousness. There needs to be laws in place for people with diseases like this. It's unfortunate, but come on, people! THINK!
He is an attorney? Then he should be banned in practicing law forever by the bar by his own selfish conduct.
TB has been around for thousands and thousands of years...yet the world still exists! The current drugs are just a more recent invention. TB is not going to start a world epidemics today just because of this guy. I don't undersand why this situation even makes the top news!
Sickness is part of life and part of the world we live in. Sick people are sensitive human beings with feelings. Just like us, they have loved ones, family and friends. They have their lives and dreams and plans. It is not their fault if they got sick in the middle of all that. This hysteria is probably created to alienate us even more, to make us become even more scared of each other, and thus easier to manupulate! There is no other reason why this should be in the news!
Yes, this mother-sucker jerk is named andrew speaker, is an attorney. He should be put in jail, and he also shpuld be fined, because the tax payers have paid hugh money on this jerk! We, as tax payers, use our money to cure his sickness, and in return, he was trying to murder others by his selfishness! Where is our justice!!!
Why is a person with a deadly version of TB treated different than one with a deadly version of HIV?
Isn't he going to be charged for violating no-fly list regulations? If not, what's the point of having it? And he knew he was on it--he planned deliberately to circumvent it.
He should have just gone to Mexico and come back into the US under the fence along with the thousands of other people who's health status we don't seem to worry about.
It's like worrying about a small leak in the dam when the rest of the dam is washing away around you.
The comments here have convinced me that it is better not to seek health care under any circumstances, because it is better not to know what you might have. Which is precisely why nobody should throw the book at this guy, think about it... an apparently healthy person has a low level tb infection and a mild cough, could go on for the rest of his life without infecting anyone with just a mildly annoying chronic health problem which is untreatable but might eventually clear up on its own. But now he is a prisoner, ostracized by society because he sought medical care and was subsequently deemed a threat to society.
Why would anyone want to go to a doctor ever again? Very rarely does someone put their own life beneath others. And the corollary to that is that society is always willing to take less of a risk than you might be willing to. He knew very well that the CDC is perfectly willing to sacrifice the well being of any individual or minority for the good of the majority and he simply acted in his best interest.
Rich, after you've arrested Al Gore, we'll talk.
Take a look at the evolving language used in the feedback. Rabid attacks against the sick guy at first: First degree murder! Punish! Selfish!
Then people start to get a bit more thoughtful: How would I react under these circumstances? Do we have all the info?
What is it about these talkback forums that seems initially to attract zealots who are willing to smite down the miscreants? Lock up and throw away the key! Disbar! Sue!
TB is a diease that can spread off a lampshade that was coughed on many years before.Not something that dies in a quick manner.
The old and young can catch it years after it contacts a surface.
Some strains just can't be cured at this time, and people must stay in isolation.
I can only guess the previous poster didn't know these facts.If they did they are a weiner.
TB is a deadly illness, particulary the strain this chump has. That he not only violated a no fly order but then tried deliberately to evade the CDC - is criminal.
As for Italian medical care - it's better and cheaper than ours - so that is total rubbish about being afraid he would die outside the US; Italy is hardly the backwater of Europe culturally or medically.
He just decided his plans were more important than other people's lives - and that sort of attitude is pretty much why the rest of the world hates us.
GOOD JOB!
Hey, Mort. I lived in Europe for 14 years and have been hospitalized there. How much experience do you really have with Italian healthcare? I know that I wouldn't want to have to explain what's happening to me to non-English speakers who, as you have most kindly pointed out, hate us.
Also, according to the reports that I have read, the person is not being charged with any crime. Are you suggesting that a law be retroactively passed against this individual? Great, welcome to Gitmo!
It is clear that this person is a self centered and dangerous to himself and humanity. If he violated no laws in the U.S.A. then he was in many other jurisdictions. He should face the consequences of his actions wherever the law would mandate in each country. His choice of linguistic alibi may apply in legal systems based on English Law, such as U.S.A., but I am not aware that Italy or Greece have Laws based on English Law. First this sorry S.O.B needs to be treated. Next the mess he created needs the same treatment. Then if and when he recovers extradite the sorry S.O.B. to where ever he violated the law or can face litigation. Furthermore his insistence upon returning to the U.S.A. is example narssisstic American stupidity. The U.S.A. has the worse and the most expensive health care in the developed world. The care he would have recieved in Europe quite frankly may have been superior and less costly. The sollution is to Sociallize medicine in the U.S.A. and for congress to vest the Surgeon General and Public health department the same power the I.R.S. and the U.S. Treasury have.
His dad works for the CDC in infectious disease control with a particular focus on TB. Not only did this a-hole put all his fellow travelers -- and his wife -- at risk of a near-certainly fatal disease just so he didn't have to change your plans, but just imagine the good times at Thanksgiving, religious holidays etc... with the in-laws. I bet his wife really appreciates being stuck between this prick and her father.
Her dad, not his dad.
This is for the comment from 'PatMay 31st, 2007 - 17:56:43' above.
PatMay, I'm sure anyone would agree that the decision to do the right thing in this situation wouldn't be easy. No one wants to change/cancel a wedding or honeymoon, and facing the prospect of enforced medical care isn't so cool either.
But you can't be freaking serious when you posit that his interests should trump the scientific facts about this particular drug-resistant strain of TB.
I'm sure you're not really one, but your comment above seems like one hell of an impression of a moron.
...of the USA doing the hard work of international protection. What were these other nations thinking?
...isn't this just a stellar example of Tonny from Belgium's vaunted European Health Care system? here is a disease that can be controlled, that threatens thousands of folks and they can't so much as contain him, in...how many nations he went to????
Socialists shouldn't run medicine: they kill too many folks.
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Diane CroweMay 31st, 2007 - 14:31:12
'Officials said the patient had not violated any laws and was not subject to prosecution for his actions. '
What? This man has put countless people at risk of infection. After being told he should not travel he got on several planes and traveled to several countries putting innocent people including his own family (including his new wife) and friends at risk. Now how much money and time have has to be spent tracking down these people and having them tested? How much inconvenience and fright do these people have to go thru while they wait to see if they've picked up this very serious form of TB? All because one peron couldn't be responsible and change his plans. While it may be unlikely, how will he feel if someone gets sick and dies because of what he did? I think he should be held responsible for his actions.
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