This story caught my eye. Apparently a man in Phoenix is being detained and quarantined in a prison hospital ward because he has admitted to not taking precautions to keep himself from spreading a untreatable strain of tuberculosis called XDR-TB. It seems strange because the article states he has not been charged with a crime. From the article:





it seems to me that this issue of detaining "infected" individuals is a very tricky one indeed with the likelihood of abuse/misuse very high.


http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20070402/46107fc0_3ca6_15526200704021514260534

Tricky, yes, but not unprecedented. Typhoid Mary of the early 1900s was virtually the same situation. What will most likely end up happening is he'll be under house arrest.

When his individual liberties are putting thousands at risk, I'm sure the courts will side with the vast unexposed public.

It's got to suck for him.

I've got a crime to charge him with- reckless endangerment. A super-resistant strain of TB can and will kill you eventually, and if you are a carrier and don't care if you spread it (which it sounds like this person does not), you are basically opening up with an automatice weapon in a crowd.

Then again, I also think rapists who are HIV-positive should be charged with attempted murder. Unless thier victim tests possitive afterwards, in which case we make it murder.

Actually, public health authorities do have fairly extensive powers. These includes isolating and quarantining persons. In a declared emergency, they can do a lot more, based on the police power available to the locality.

From the article:

If they obtained a court order that means he was afforded due process, and that is really all society owes him. Whatever sympathy I have for him would vanish the first time he coughed in someone's face.

There is a such a thing as "in the public interest and for the public good".

state of minnesota
county of hennepin
in the matter of--john doe--
you have the right to leave this medical center in 72 hours
not counting weekends and holidays
you have the right to a hearing before a judge
you have the right to a medical exam
you have the rights expressed in the "notice of patent rights"
you have the right to have the head of this medical center
assist you in these matters.

i read 72 hours holds to patents for so many years that
even after retirement i can still remember with no problem.
a Dr finds you a danger to self or others..fills out a short
form..a hospital administrator reads it to you and your in..

When aids first came to be, the question went around law enforcement circles: if a person states that he/she has aids, and threatens to bit/spit/drool/bleed on you, can you shoot them? The answer: never got one. The legal eagles could not come up with an answer. It always sounded like ADW to me, and that made the bad guy shootable. Thankfully such a situation never came to pass...

I think that you will find that in the case of someone carrying an infectious illness, the Bill of Rights does not even come into the arguement. In fact, you will find that any country has laws that permit them to take any measures nesessary with regards to containment of that infection vector. That includes deadly force and insitu cremation of the remains. And yes, that means exactly what you think it means.
No reasonable person want's to infect others but this gentleman has to be contained.

Also, don't confuse this with early 20th Cent misuse of mental health powers.

Damn, people, have some compassion.


"He said sheriff's deputies will not let him take a shower - he cleans himself with wet wipes - and have taken away his television, radio, personal phone and computer. His only visitors are masked medical staff members who come in to give him his medication."

"He said that he lost 50 pounds and was constantly coughing and that authorities locked him up after they discovered he had walked into a convenience store without a mask"

"Where I come from, the doctors don't wear masks," he said. "Plus, I was 26 years old, you know. Nobody told me how TB works and stuff."

I understand the threat for public safety, but this is outragous. If someone must be confined, then at the very least they should be made as comfortable as possible. Depriving this man of communication with the outside world, and entertainment seems cruel to me.
And while not wearing a mask was careless and negligent, maybe he really didn't know better. How would you feel if you were told you could never go out in public without wearing a mask that makes you look like a freak. I can understand that mistake.
I really think its wrong to be treating someone worse than some prisoners simply because he has a disease. They could be treating him a lot better. The house arrest someone suggested isn't a bad idea if he agrees to it, although there is no perfect solution to this kind of ethical dillemma.