STORM2K

Do you believe that Andrew, the man who suffers from XDR-TB (Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis), a very rare variant of tuberculosis, should be punished?

I do. Even if he didn't infect anyone, he put hundreds of individuals at risk of possible (life-threatening) contamination. Besides, he was fully aware that he had the condition to begin with. I would consider him an idiot. He should have held off that wedding to seek treatment. I also believe that he should have been stopped earlier by the government. There are too many variables in this story, but I do believe that he should be totally liable for any deaths or entities of that nature. And regardless of any deaths, he should be sued anyway. This man clearly is selfish and put the society at risk of a major health crisis. It ultimately came down to him to stop himself, which is something that he did not do.

XDR-TB is also known as "super-tuberculosis" because it is resistant to the penicillin "family" of drugs that has been used to treat bacterial infections for decades now. Evolution being what it is, it was inevitable that TB would become resistant....a similar situation exists for pneumonia as well. Ironically enough, XDR-TB and Pneumonia are most often found in hospitals and they are extremely difficult to treat. Hospital-borne infections are very bad news.

I remember watching a documentary about AIDS, and the CDC managed to track HIV back to "Patient Zero", he was a steward for a Canadian airline which made intercontinental flights. This man knew he had a deadly disease (he referred to it as "gay cancer"), but did not care. In fact, he knowingly spread the infection to nearly all of his multiple partners.

In the present case, I think Patient Andrew should be held accountable for his actions. What is the difference between this idiotic stunt (with the macho "I know what I'm doing, dammit!" sort of idiocy) and someone going 75 in a school zone with children present? Well, you see where I'm going with this. I understand he had a wedding and a honeymoon planned...but was it worth the lives of potentially thousands of people? I think not. He took a foolish chance, a criminally negligent chance. Let us hope no one was infected.

The whole thing is very strange ... he claims that officials didn't tell him that he was a threat to anyone and didn't tell him not to travel. Kinda hard to believe, but who knows...

Whatever the truth in this case, it seems CDC needs to clarify its procedures. This doesn't bode well for how they would perform in an outbreak.

This case is just bizarre.

1. Wife's father works at the CDC as a TB specialist!
2. Mayor of Greek town where they got "married" said they didn't have right papers.
3. Was allowed to cross the Canadian border pretty much undetected, next time it just might be a terrorist.
4. CDC can't seem to get their story straight, but I do believe they warned him not to fly.