U.S. isolates traveler infected with super-TB

[whopis01]

Source: Reuters

The United States has isolated a man who may have exposed fellow passengers on two transatlantic flights to a strain of tuberculosis that is extremely hard to treat, officials said on Tuesday.

It was the first time the federal government has issued such an isolation order since 1963, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is an unusual TB organism, one that's very, very difficult to treat. And we want to make sure that we have done everything we possibly can to identify people who could be at risk," Gerberding told a news conference.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2934397420070529?feedType=RSS&rpc=22

---

Just plain scary!

[acmavm]

1. This is just the beginning.

[pinto]

2. Though the cable TV news sensationalized this somewhat, seems the CDC

took a fairly conservative approach. Contacted the passengers in the immediate area (Gerberding said two rows up and two rows back) for follow up.

from the article:

'She said the man had "compelling personal reasons" to travel despite being ill. "I want to emphasize that from our perspective, no laws were broken here," Gerberding said.

The man returned to the United States by car. He voluntarily entered a medical isolation facility in New York City on Friday before being flown on a CDC plane back to Atlanta on Monday. Authorities called him "relatively asymptomatic."

<snip>

The passengers most likely to be at risk were those seated within two rows of the patient, Gerberding said. She did not say how many passengers and crew were on the flights or how many countries had citizens aboard.'

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2934397420070529?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&pageNumber=1

[kurth]

3. "The treatment can often require surgery, and can cost $500,000 per patient"

A very expensive disease.

[lonestarnot]

6. Dude in Sheriff Joe's jail because he didn't wear a face mask while outside.

He's a prisoner.

[pitohui]

16. good and i hope he remains a prisoner until he is no longer infectious

he was asked to comply w. reasonable measures, he refused, end of story

i got no use for people who don't care about the other people they will infect

[barb162]

11. It was on network news too last evening and this morning

I wonder about the hotel people, the people sitting next to him at the airport, the people in restaurants, etc.

[medlakeguy]

4. Again?

sars, west nile, bird flu, TB, its all alarmist and im not scared.

[Hekate]

5. Tuberculosis aka consumption aka the white plague is historically a major killer....

On edit: I have no idea why the text has lines through it -- they didn't show up when I wrote this.
Hekate

http://www.gsk.com/infocus/whiteplague.htm
The white plague

Tuberculosis (TB) was once thought to be a disease of the past, but it has returned in a big way, killing someone every 15 seconds.

The return of the "white plague", so-called because of the loss of skin colour experienced by people with the disease....
******************
http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/blueridgesanatorium/death.htm

Tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death in the United States in the early twentieth century. Those infected with tuberculosis were isolated from society and placed in sanatoriums. These self-contained communities became known as "waiting room for death." As described by historian Sheila Rothman, death was synonymous with tuberculosis and was an ever-present characteristic of the sanatorium.....
************************
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/284/21/2789

The New White Plague
David Walton; Paul Farmer, MD, PhD
Harvard University, Boston, Mass
JAMA. 2000;284:2789.

Multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDRTB) came to attention in the 1980s, when a number of scattered outbreaks occurred in North America and Europe. In subsequent decades, these gave way to a more widespread problem. In 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease found resistance to first-line drugs in every country they assayed. Basing their calculation on data from several developing countries, the WHO estimated that, by 1996, some 50 million persons were already infected with MDRTB. This disease has arisen as a significant global health problem in the space of a single generation.....

[havocmom]

7. With more & more people getting less & less medical care...

How many are walking around not feeling good, but undiagnosed and dragging themselves to work to keep a roof over their heads?

The human race is in trouble.

[Hekate]

8. Yep.TB is one of the reasons I keep pointing out the need for health care for everyone...

...including undocumented immigrants and other poor people. It's chilling that the feds want ER docs and nurses to call the cops on sick people who they suspect are "illegals". Immigrants of whatever status work in middle class homes as cleaning ladies, in the fields and packing houses of our fresh produce, ride our busses, and send their children to our public schools. We breathe the same air.

I believe in universal health care for Americans because it's the right thing to do. I also believe that clinics should serve the ill poor who live among us without questioning their status, because not only is it morally right but it should appeal to the enlightened self-interest of anyone who has thought through the issue of contagious disease.

Hekate

[CountAllVotes]

10. I've lost many members of my family to TB

Like at least 10 of them over the last century. There doesn't seem much that can be done for it. Time to open up the old TB sanitariums again I guess huh? *eek*

:kick:

[Hekate]

13. TB ran through my ex-husband's family just one generation before...

When I was a Brownie Scout in the 1950s my troop sang Christmas carols outside the children's TB wing of the hospital....

The old sanitaria were a public health measure -- to protect the public from an essentially incurable and very communicable disease.

Modern drugs changed all that and the sanitaria all closed down. People forgot there ever was such a thing.

But now the disease has drug-resistant strains, and we have to rethink our methods.

Hekate

[RamboLiberal]

18. Lines you pasted in word room there's a bracket s

That's bringing up the HTML command to strikethrough text (Put line through text). I've had brackets in text come up and bite me before.

[DemoTex]

23. Don't forget MRSA (methicillin resistant staph. aureus): HA and CA.

HA (hospital acquired) and CA (community acquired). Over 60% of the staph. aureus abscesses treated in Austin, TX emergency rooms is CA MRSA (CDC). MRSA infections are rampant in Georgia, Texas, and California (CDC). I'm scared.

Having just gotten over a wicked staph abscess myself (which they initially assumed to be MRSA until cultures proved otherwise), and after watching my 85 year old mother spend 8 weeks in an Atlanta hospital for MRSA/CMV/esophogeal shingles, my 80 year old uncle just spend 8 weeks in hospital with MRSA from a knee surgery infection, and an 86 year old friend eight weeks on I/V vancomycin, I'm scared.

Add to that list a 30 year old woman here who developed an MRSA abscess on her back and who went into the hospital for I/V vancomycin, developed a MRSA infection at the site of the PIC tube (which led to MRSA pneumonia and a coma), and is not expected to live. I'm scared.

My electrician developed a bad series of non-MRSA staph abscesses from acupuncture. My brother and I developed carbuncular staph abscess shortly after visiting my mom in the hospital in Atlanta. Fortunately, his and my staph were non-MRSA and responded well to Bactrim. In fact, I start my 5th of 8 weeks on Bactrim tomorrow. I'm scared shit-less.

:scared:

[rainbow4321]

9. We had a patient at our facility who flew over from India

Full blown TB, horribly sick even before he hopped on the plane...he and his family knew the guy was sick. He was coming over to "see his new grandchild". Ended up in our facility for like a MONTH, on death's doorstep, medical care/ multiple doc consults out the wazzoo. He was finally discharged and ended up dying at his daughter's house, I think.
And of course, being only a visitor here he had no insurance to cover his hospital stay..but he also KNOWINGLY exposed other passengers on at least 2 different full planes on his trip over here!! I remember thinking at the time "so much for homeland security protecting us from a bioterror disease being brought over here" if this outwardly sick guy passed thru the airports and got to his daughter's house like he was symptom free/healthy!!

More and more we are seeing family members "just visiting from India" end up in our facility, no insurance, etc.. One family was brazen enough to bring the patient's medical records with him..just "happened" to pack all the medical info that was needed for our doctors. He had just gotten out of an Indian hospital 2 weeks before flying over here.

So our jobs head over there, and now their citizens are heading over HERE for free medical care (which our unemployed workers can't even get access to cuz with the job loss comes insurance loss)---cuz if you show up in a medical crisis in the ER, they can't turn you away...

[barb162]

12. I have heard many similar stories from two RN s in my family

who work at two hospitals in highly Hispanic areas. Both said Hispanics will have their very sick grandparents or other relatives come in for "a visit" from Mexico and they just happen to bring their medical records. They often have a visit to the hospital ER as soon as they get off the plane and spend a few weeks at the US hositals on the US hospitals or US taxpayers expense. One guy was so brazen he admitted to the ER admittance person (my relative) he sent for his parent to get the free medical care here. He was bragging to the other people in the E waiting room. "Just visiting" ....right.
I'd like to see a way for all this offshoring of jobs stop. People are going bankrupt here and at the same time financing care for people of other countries that US citizens can't get. Maybe send the hospital bills of foreign nationals back to their home countries?

[hedgehog]

14. This may or may not be an accurate accounting of what goes on.

However, I've heard too many anecdotes over the years from white RNs and Doctors disparaging the ignorance or cupidity of minority patients to give these accounts much credence. The illegals I know do anything possible to avoid interaction with any kind of authority, and a hospital ER certainly
qualifies.

[barb162]

26. Maybe the fact you're hearing that many anecdotes

means it's true?. My relatives, for example, just don't make things up. I have known them all my life and I know they are telling me the facts. BTW, my cousin's wife is Philipino by birth, an RN, and she tells the same kind of stories.

[RamboLiberal]

20. I believe you just find it ironic

that when Lou Dobbs mentions that illegal immigrants are bringing TB and other diseases to U.S. he gets trashed on DU. I think this is a valid argument to tighten up the borders and to have health checks ala Ellis island for immigrants coming to the U.S. People coming from third world countries or living in third world conditions do bring whatever diseases they are exposed to here.

[barb162]

25. Well after watching this story about the guy flying around with TB

I think everyone maybe should have some sort of health certificate before they go to another country. I was incensed! Can you imagine sitting next to that guy on a plane for 10 hours straight? duh. Yeah, I l know it's a violation of rights and all, but when it comes to people being highly endangered with deadly diseases, maybe people should show proof of lack of contagious diseases, just like showing a driver's license for renting a car.
Dobbs has excellent points about these contagious and other diseases that end up engangering US citizens. I think it is also a valid argument to tighten up the borders and to have health checks ala Ellis island, etc. All immigrants should be checked before they come here. I personally know of a case where an illegal entered the US and had Hansen's Disease (leprosy). Guess who's paying for his treatment. Not Mexico, the country where he's a citizen.

[kurth]

24. Same thing with pregnant Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley

All expenses paid, plus automatic citizenship for their babies.

[pitohui]

15. what a jerk, some people everything is all about them

because he is ill he wants to infect the world?

he needs to go far far away from having any future opportunities to infect anyone else

[RamboLiberal]

19. I agree he's a jerk

And I'm wondering how many people he came in contact with in other locations besides the plane he could've have infected. BTW, he flew to Greece for his wedding. Here's his side of the story.

The man, however, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that doctors didn't order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding in Greece. He knew he had a form of tuberculosis and that it was resistant to first-line drugs, but he didn't realize it could be so dangerous, he said.

"We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," said the man, who declined to be identified because of the stigma attached to his diagnosis.

He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385. While in Europe, health authorities reached him with the news that further tests had revealed his TB was a rare, "extensively drug-resistant" form, far more dangerous than he knew. They ordered him into isolation, saying he should turn himself over to Italian officials.

Instead, the man flew from Prague to Montreal on May 24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104, then drove into the United States at Champlain, N.Y. He told the newspaper he was afraid that if he didn't get back to the U.S., he wouldn't get the treatment he needed to survive.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070530/D8PER3502.html

[pitohui]

21. yeah sure what do you expect him to say?

what kind of self involved fuckwit has a wedding in greece anyway when he has a serious infectious disease that could kill other people? he knew damn good and well that he had treatment resistant TB, pretending he didn't understand this was serious sounds like a major crock to me

he just didn't want to lose the deposits he paid for his big fat greek wedding

no pity here for the guy, i hope he is "detained" for a long, long time

he thinks he's special because he's rich is the read i'm getting and fuck the rest of us who can't afford to have such a disease

he sneaked back into the usa by car because he KNEW what was coming, that they were going to be looking for him, he didn't try to conceal what he had done because he didn't know it was wrong

his own actions convict him

if he really didn't know, he would have flown in same as he flew out, unfortunately customs is pretty weak on people flying out of the country and he exploited that weakness to get his way

[hedgehog]

17. How ironic that history is repeating itself.

Streptomycin, the first antibiotic that cured TB, was discovered in 1943 but not approved for use until 1947. In the meantime, the US spent millions developing the atomic bomb. One of the people working on the Manhattan Project, Richard Feynman, lost his first wife to TB in 1945.

How much are we spending today on "national security" and how much on studying ways to fight disease?

[ecstatic]

22. What a jerk!

This ass traveled the world, knowing he had that sh!t.