Hear is your Selfish TB patient.................

[Cut-Throat]

Who was only thinking of himself.

31 year old lawyer from Atlanta

 

[Bimmerbill]

This scares me. My wife wants to take our young daughter overseas to visit relatives.

 

[megacorp-firee]

This scares me. My wife wants to take our young daughter overseas to visit relatives.

Just don't get on if you see the idiot in the picture above.

 

[tangomonster]

A personal injury lawyer, no less. Daddy is also a lawyer, new wife is a law student.

Nice that his honeymoon comes before hundreds of other people's health!

 

[SamHouston]

I hope he gets to meet a couple of hundred other lawyers who sue him on behalf of everyone he exposed. Idiot...

 

[tangomonster]

And let's not forget that his new father-in-law is a microbiologist with the CDC. This federally employed scientist was quoted as saying that he wouldn't ahve let his daughter go on the trip if he thought there was any danger to her. Hello---isn't this guy supposed to be concerned about
everyone's health and not just DD's?

 

[SamHouston]

It's pretty obvious that no one in this particular family has exactly covered themselves with glory. Shameful stuff.

 

[Tiger]

And the FIL's specialty is, you guessed it, TB. Can we have a group DUH?

 

[Brat]

It is my understanding that the FIL has stated, in effect, that he did not advise the patient about the travel.

What I would like to know is what did he tell his daughter? He surely knew their wedding plans, date and location. He was in a position to advise local health officials in Greece, at least.

Are our medical privacy laws such that the FIL did not know?

There is something really pecular about this event.

 

[Bimmerbill]

Wouldn't the guys wife get infected, assuming they kissed at the wedding and took care of business after?

 

[Cut-Throat]

Wouldn't the guys wife get infected, assuming they kissed at the wedding and took care of business after?

She had protection. And no, you can't make this stuff up!

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Hard as it seems to believe, TB is not that easy to catch. Many family members of patients never develop the disease. Oddly, casual contacts sometimes do. It has to do with particular droplet size, wrong place at the wrong time, subtle immune susceptibilities, and no doubt many other unknowns.

And by the by, usually it is most effective for the patient to wear a mask, not the bystander.

This case gets stranger by the day.

 

[kramer]

Rich,

Are we going to see more and more untreatable (or extremely difficult to treat) infections like this? I have heard for over a decade that it is going to get worse. Now, with MRSA staph a big problem in hospitals, etc., maybe it is finally happening. I have read that you should really evaluate your risk before going to the hospital for anything optional, especially if they are going to shove something inside of you like a catheter or whatever. You have a non-trivial chance of infection.

Kramer

 

[Brat]

That's my point!

Traditionally the bride's family pays for the wedding (although today some just give the couple a lump sum for the event), surely her parents could have cut off the cash. Maybe they didn't know or didn't want to know.

 

[Alex]

Here is an opposing view about this case

Andrew Speaker seems to be one of those rare Americans who trusts his own judgement. He realizes that "infection specialists," doctors, and other "experts" belch, hiccup, and start off in diapers like the rest of us. Heavens, they even make mistakes now and again. Andy refuses to kowtow, especially when said experts put their interests ahead of his. Which is precisely what the assorted busybodies in this sad tale are doing.

Which is precisely what the assorted busybodies in this sad tale are doing. We begin with the health department of Fulton County, Georgia. They claim they urged Andy not to travel, given his TB. Andy disputes that.
He contends that when he mentioned his plans to marry in Greece, no one suggested he cancel his trip. Instead, all agreed he would undergo treatment later at a hospital in Denver, the only one with expertise in treating his particular strain of TB. Who’s telling the truth? My money’s on Andy rather than a bunch of butt-covering bureaucrats.
The newlyweds were already abroad when doctors learned that Andy’s TB was more virulent than suspected. This diagnosis would have earned its victim sympathy in more civilized times; our barbaric age vilifies him as a public enemy. Turns out Andy’s new father-in-law works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – researching TB, in fact. He is adamant that neither he nor the CDC’s labs, "‘which operate under the highest levels of biosecurity,’" could have infected Andy. Let’s hope his bureaucracy guards its germs better than it does the funds it "misappropriates." Nor will the older man "comment" on whether he ratted out Andy to "federal health authorities." Regardless, the long arm of the CDC found the honeymooners in Rome. The agency ordered them not to fly home for the treatment that would save Andy’s life lest he endanger everyone else aboard the plane. Instead, he was to turn himself in to "Italian health authorities." Andy, bless his heart, saw through that one. "I thought to myself: ‘You're nuts.’"
It got worse. "They told me I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged." Both statements were lies. Though the CDC would eventually try to bar this American citizen from returning home, it hadn’t yet. But here’s still another totalitarian use for the totalitarian No-Fly List

My money is on Andy - he is not the villain that he is being portrayed as.