Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 6 months ago
    The real ebola fever is fear. We have seen that people who are nominally healthy by American standards and who get prompt medical care do survive the infection. I understand and appreciate the need to isolate carriers and potential carriers. That applies also to influenza. I believe that it should be legally actionable to come to work sick. You have no right to endanger other people. Millions died in the influenza epidemics of 1918. Over 100,000 died in the USA. (If 100,000 died from ebola here, keyboard rage would be worse than the disease.) But not everyone died. And people still die of influenza today: babies, old people, weak people...

    It is a complicated problem. Typhoid Mary was forced into isolation twice, the second and final time for the rest of her life. Did she not have rights? Or were they subject to the rights of others to be protected from the danger of her being a carrier?

    And carrier of what? ... A common cold? Why not? How is carrying cold germs in public not like going around and punching people in the nose?

    I don't have answers here, but no one else seems to be asking any questions.
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    • Posted by khalling 9 years, 6 months ago
      the isolation period is 21 days. a couple dozen dead doctors now. In the US we have some medication possibilities, although that makes no sense since it's a virus, so I'm not sure whether it doesn't just help with symptoms. I think most people have a rational reaction to wanting to know if they've been in a bus or on a plane or shared a restroom with someone who may be positive. Here are some questions. Why would Dallas Morning News publish this piece and not make clear she worked for CDC? Why was the piece set up sell POLICY perspective with emotional appeal when this is one area we need to be brutally rational in-public safety and disease? She is a government official, who does not disclose that fact when writing an article in which she is pushing a public agenda. How is that not fraud on her part? and is Dallas MOrning News complicit?
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      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 6 months ago
        I agree with many of your specifics, but the problem deserves a _conceptual_ analysis. khalling wrote: "I think most people have a rational reaction to wanting to know if they've been in a bus or on a plane or shared a restroom with someone who may be positive." This applies to _anyone_ who has a communicable disease, including influenza and "the common cold." How do we address that in broad social terms? I see that problem as of the same magnitude as bringing reason and reality to art or politics.

        Your questions - Why would Dallas Morning News ... not make clear...?Why was the piece set up sell POLICY .... ... How is that not fraud on her part? and is Dallas MOrning News complicit? - are all rhetorical. Anyone here could answer them in the same terms as you would. As such, they do not serve to differentiate and integrate the key concepts.

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        • Posted by khalling 9 years, 6 months ago
          The key concepts presented in the posting are these. Should an employee with the CDC be writing an article about forced quarantine making the argument it is not only cruel but unnecessary protocol? Since her position is in direct conflict with CDC protocol should she be promoting policy changes to said protocol? And is withholding her position with the CDC appropriate in writing the article? Does she speak for the CDC? She was aided in writing the article by a doctor who also works for the CDC. Did the Dallas Morning News know she worked for the CDC and did they withhold that info from their readers? So who was purposefully trying to deceive the reader? Just its author or the CDC? We have a right to know when our govt agency for public health is trying to manipulate public opinion.
          As to catching a cold by being in a public place, we have a reasonable expectation we might contract a virus during flu season. We do not have a reasonable expectation that we 're sharing a plane with someone who is positive for a deadly virus. Both this nurse and the doctor knew better. They knew it was prudent to put themselves in a quarantine situation before leaving the country. What they did was immoral. At least one can take reasonable precautions to avoid an STD -but in this case the doctor was bowling within 24 hours of testing positive.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 6 months ago
        I remembering that movie from 20 years ago (wow) And the Band Played On. A CDC manager asks a researcher why he works for the CDC if he doesn't like gov't. The researcher replies that's where you can study epidemiology. It's possible this doctor has tacit approval from someone at the CDC with a political agenda. It's also possible she's just into epidemiology and has her own views on how quarantines should be handled. She's may think if we treat people who we even suspect having been around a diseases like criminals, it will discourage people from seeking treatment and spread the disease worse.

        When I consider the scenario that she's doing this for political reasons, I have to ask qui bono. It's not immediately apparent. Right now this just smells like a doctor with strong personal beliefs on how epidemics should be handled.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 6 months ago
    I just don't get the controversy and I really don't get why medical professionals would argue against doing everything possible to stop a disease, any disease. It just makes no sense unless they think that more cases would put more pressure on someone to come up with a vaccine--but that's insane, isn't it?
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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
    How does she not understand that she voluntarily exposed herself to a virus that may be deadly? How does she not understand that she voluntarily not only obligated herself to help the people in Africa who are sick with Ebola but also voluntarily obligated herself to do what is required to prevent the spread of Ebola (as a consequence of her contact with Ebola patients) when she returns to America?
    Someone should be screening these volunteers for the ability to THINK rationally.
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 6 months ago
      Healthcare workers constantly face this problem and it is why hospitals are dangerous. They are festering sores seething with staph (Staphylococcus aureus) and other bacteria and viruses - as well as virons and who knows what else? Again, this is an element of a wider conceptual problem. It is not just healthcare workers, though they are easiest to discuss at the moment. If your spouse has a cold, do you stay home from work? It is well-known that people with children, especially kids in school, bring all kinds of germs into the workplace. How do we treat them or react to them? What do we expect from them? Speaking to the point: should it be legally actionable for _anyone_ to carry any communicable disease in public?
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  • Posted by gerstj 9 years, 6 months ago
    She seems unable to step outside of her own victimization view skin. Many medical personnel treating ebola patients have contracted the disease and too many have died. We've just had a case with a doctor who returned to the US without symptoms upon arrival and then presented with symptoms and the disease 6 days later. A mandatory quarantine period is entirely prudent and protects the public health.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 9 years, 6 months ago
    But she's a better a human than us. Working with doctors without borders in scary places. She deserves special treatment... how dare we take precautions?
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  • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 6 months ago
    If she develops Ebola and violated quarantine and then infects other certain consequences should happen.

    She should be charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon, and/or attempted murder and/or negligent homicide for every person she infects. Whether the subsequently recover or not.

    She should also be charged with and tried for Pre-Meditated murder (1st Degree Murder) for any person she infects who subsequently dies.

    If she want to defy sensible quarantine precautions she can damn well pay the price for doing so if she spreads a high mortality disease.

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