Man with tuberculosis jailed for not wearing mask [Russian immigrant now in Arizona]

CN N.com ^ | April 3, 2007 | Unsigned

[aculeus]

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Behind the county hospital's tall cinderblock walls, a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient who spent years living in Russia sits in a jail cell equipped with a ventilation system that keeps germs from escaping.

Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable.

County health authorities obtained a court order to lock him up as a danger to the public because he failed to take precautions to avoid infecting others. Specifically, he said he did not heed doctors' instructions to wear a mask in public.

"I'm being treated worse than an inmate," Daniels said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press last month. "I'm all alone. Four walls. Even the door to my room has been locked. I haven't seen my reflection in months."

Though Daniels' confinement is extremely rare, health experts say it is a situation that U.S. public health officials may have to confront more and more because of the spread of drug-resistant TB and the emergence of diseases such as SARS and avian flu in this increasingly interconnected world.

"Even though the rate of TB in the U.S. is at the lowest ever this last year, we live in a globalized world where, if anything emerges anywhere, it could come to our country right away," said Mark Harrington, executive director of the Treatment Action Group, an American advocacy group.

[Cindy]

Good.

[Cindy]

Expanding comment...Good, spreading TB is NOT cool.

[cripplecreek]

Isn’t Robert Daniels originally an American citizen? It appears that he wasn’t happy with the care he was getting in Russia.

[struwwelpeter]

And yet HIV positives can still work as waiters.

I know, I know, you cannot pass the virus in this fashion. OTOH, HIV is a retrovirus closely related to BLV (Bovine Leukemia), FeLV (Feline Leukemia), and EIA (Equine Infectious Anemia). EIA can be transmitted through biting insects, and Feleuk through saliva (and fomites like food dishes).

Given how often the medical establishment changes their mind ("Don't eat eggs!" - "Go ahead and eat eggs." - "Don't eat eggs!"), I wonder how long it will be before someone finds that it wasn't a good idea to be working with the public IF YOU ARE INFECTED WITH A LIFELONG FATAL INCURABLE TRANSMISSIBLE DISEASE.

Thank you, rant mode to 'stand by'.

[CheyennePress]

TB is at the lowest ever in the US? I find that statement wreaking of total balogna. Mexicans have been dragging it across the border in large numbers. And a drug resistant strain at that.

[GATOR NAVY]

HIV is in its own little PC disease category. On the one hand they wail “everyone is at risk” when they want money and on the other, they stress how difficult transmission is-”you can’t catch it from shaking hands” when they don’t want to be shunned.

[calex59]

Drug resistant TB, brought to you by illegal aliens.

[HungarianGypsy]

To read the headline I thought he was running around in Arizona.

[AuntB]

[Texas:]TB is making comeback
San Antonio Express-News ^ | 03/17/2007 | Don Finley

Posted on 03/18/2007 7:41:34 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch

Success against tuberculosis — a storied disease that afflicted ancient Egyptians and Romantic poets and killed gambler Doc Holliday and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt — has stalled in San Antonio and across the state.

The region’s proximity to Mexico is one reason, experts say. But it comes as government support to local TB programs has been cut, bond money to rebuild the state’s only TB hospital — the Texas Center for Infectious Disease in San Antonio — has languished in red tape for a decade, and particularly deadly drug-resistant strains have spread through Africa, Russia and China.

After falling steadily for many years, TB cases in Bexar County began heading the other direction three years ago. The latest numbers released by the Metropolitan Health District last week show that 91 Bexar County residents were infected with TB in 2006 — up from an all-time low of 55 cases in 2003. [snip]

[machogirl]

i believe american parent+russian parent= raised in russia

[Lizavetta]

Meanwhile in America, AIDS-infected men NOT jailed for sticking their infected dingalings into uninformed bed partners.

[brytlea]

Brian Killmede was all up in arms about this story on Fox and Friends this morning. Sometimes I wonder what he’s got in his head...
susie

[jacquej]

dunno, but maybe it is called/spelled “ratings?

You know, the typical “fair n’ balanced” version of an old vaudeville routine, all dressed up for the “modern age”....

The trouble is... We just suck it all down with our morning coffee, while our ship of state hits reality, and sinks, but never mind, for the band plays on for “American Idol”, and resident fools vote!

Sorry for being so cynical, friends. While the band might be very brave, we truly are lost!

[texastoo]

TB is at the lowest ever in the US? I find that statement wreaking of total balogna. Mexicans have been dragging it across the border in large numbers. And a drug resistant strain at that.

I agree with you 100%. A few years ago in Edinburg, Texas there was an outbreak. People were worried and the school officials decided there was too much public concern. After that you didn't hear very much about the TB outbreak. They are keeping this quiet. Alabama also had an outbreak last month.

[machogirl]

wonder how many are running around that we don’t know about?

[TDBURN]

From the information provided in the article I agree that it is wise to quarantine this fellow. On the other hand they should probably make his living conditions a little more entertaining perhaps.

[CarrotAndStick]

Saying HIV is not transmissible through food is wrong, IMO. It just takes the necessary factors to all line up... a sore throat, a small lesion in the mouth, lips, etc, contaminated particle of food, and the such.

[CarrotAndStick]

Oh yea, and one more thing. Those cheap steel spoons with sharp edges, well they can be just as good in transmitting HIV as surgical instruments if things like cutting ones’ corners of the lips occur in a particular sequence, with the involvement of an HIV carrier.

[struwwelpeter]

I'm convinced that there is a lot more to HIV than we as yet know.

It is similar in ways to Bovine Leukemia/Leukosis, in that it occasionally forms tumors (Kaposi's sarcoma), but mostly it effects certain white blood cells (t-lymphocytes) a bit similar to Feline Leukemia, which spreads easily in saliva (between cats, at least).

In horses this retrovirus mostly effects red blood cells, and is transmitted by certain biting insects (but apparently not sucking insects such as mosquitoes).

Because of the simularities to animal diseases I kept digging for statistics on fomite (utensil) transmission and insects. Lots and lots of data out there on accidental needle sticks and dirty instruments, but nothing on utensils (your thoughts on forks and spoons going from customer to customer is very good food for thought, pardon the pun).

As far as bugs, Africa would seem to be a good bet for statistics, having lots of insects and a large endemic HIV population. If children (generally not sexually active or users of IV drugs) were to have HIV rates close to the adult population, then that could hint at a possible insect vector. This wasn't the case though, but still, I'm not very impressed with WHO statistics (they only test the sick, and not random populations).

In the US we have the same problem, but it's reversed. We have great statistics from the military, where HIV testing is required at four-year intervals (or more when records get screwed up). This population, however, is a fairly sexually active, young adult one, so it not useful in determining insect vectors, either.

Now that everyone's more worried about Global Warming (what happened to the Ozone hole that was going to kill me ten years ago, or the population bomb that was going off thirty years ago?) HIV is passe.

I understand that Russia and Eastern Europe may be facing their own HIV catastrophies similar to the TB problems they're having at present.