Just a little reminder of something in light of the punitive HCW incarceration/solitary confinement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White
".....Doctors said he posed no risk to other students, but AIDS was poorly understood at the time, and when White tried to return to school, many parents and teachers in Kokomo rallied against his attendance....."
snip
"Western Middle School in Russiaville faced enormous pressure from many parents and faculty to ban White from the campus after his diagnosis became widely known. 117 parents (from a school of 360 total students) and 50 teachers signed a petition encouraging school leaders to ban White from school. Due to the widespread fear and ignorance of AIDS, the principal and later the school board succumbed to this pressure and banned White. The White family filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban. The Whites initially filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. The court, however, declined to hear the case until administrative appeals had been resolved.[20] On November 25, an Indiana Department of Education officer ruled that the school must follow the Indiana Board of Health guidelines and that White must be allowed to attend school.[21]
"The ways in which HIV spread were not fully understood in the 1980s. Scientists knew it spread via blood and was not transmittable by any sort of casual contact, but as recently as 1983, the American Medical Association had thought that "Evidence Suggests Household Contact May Transmit AIDS", and the belief that the disease could easily spread persisted.[22] Children with AIDS were still rare: at the time of White's rejection from school, the Centers for Disease Control knew of only 148 cases of pediatric AIDS in the United States.[7] Many families in Kokomo believed his presence posed an unacceptable risk.[23] When White was permitted to return to school for one day in February 1986, 151 of 360 students stayed home. He also worked as a paperboy, and many of the people on his route canceled their subscriptions, believing that HIV could be transmitted through newsprint.[6]
"The Indiana state health commissioner, Dr. Woodrow Myers, who had extensive experience treating AIDS patients in San Francisco, and the Centers for Disease Control both notified the board that White posed no risk to other students, but the school board and many parents ignored their statements.[6] In February 1986, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study of 101 people who had spent three months living in close but non-sexual contact with people with AIDS. The study concluded that the risk of infection was "minimal to nonexistent," even when contact included sharing toothbrushes, razors, clothing, combs and drinking glasses; sleeping in the same bed; and hugging and kissing.[24]
"When White was finally readmitted in April, a group of families withdrew their children and started an alternative school.[25] Threats of violence and lawsuits persisted. According to White's mother, people on the street would often yell, "we know you're queer" at Ryan.[23] The editors and publishers of the Kokomo Tribune, which supported White both editorially and financially, were also ridiculed by members of the community and threatened with death for their actions.[23] Others felt such actions were both hypocritical and contradictory: those hostile implied that Ryan was likely a homosexual to have contracted HIV, but also maintained that HIV could be transmitted by casual contact.
"White attended Western Middle School for eighth grade for the entire 1986–87 school year, but was deeply unhappy and had few friends. The school required him to eat with disposable utensils, use separate bathrooms, and waived his requirement to enroll in a gym class.[26] Threats continued. When a bullet was fired through the Whites' living room window (no one was home at the time), the family decided to leave Kokomo.[4] After finishing the school year, his family moved to Cicero, Indiana, where White enrolled at Hamilton Heights High School. On August 31, 1987, a "very nervous" White was greeted by school principal Tony Cook, school system superintendent Bob G. Carnal, and a handful of students who had been educated about AIDS and were unafraid to shake White's hand.[27]....."
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And for the record, we understand Ebola a LOT better than we did HIV at the time. So we don't have an excuse.
This mandatory solitary confinement of asymptomatic medical personnel returning from West Africa for 21 days is criminal. It has no medical rationale at all, and is clearly designed to punish those who dare to defy RW doctrine which says "every man for himself" and "let him die" and "pull yourself up by your own fucking bootstraps".
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