May 30, 2007
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I understand about the airline passengers...
....that were seated in close proximity to Tommy Tuberculosis, the jerk who apparently has to be forced to act in a prudent, responsible manner, but what about the people at his wedding in Greece? Presumably they've been contacted, though the news reports omit saying so.
Who wants to bet that marriage doesn't last very long? Assuming Tommy TB lives, that it?
Any guy who is told he has a form of tuberculosis that is resistant to first-line drugs and that it's preferable he not fly, but does so anyway, is not fabulous husband material, ISTM. Yes, I understand it would be hard to postpone his wedding, but sometimes that's the type of difficult, hard decision people are called upon to make. The fact Tommy TB rationalized that since he hadn't technically been legally forbidden to travel, and they don't know just how serious a strain of TB he has - only that it is a serious strain - that "everything's fine" (his words), he is likely too self-absorbed and egocentric to manage a happy marriage over the long-term.
Don't you know he's endeared himself to everyone at the wedding and reception? If I hadn't yet sent a gift, I wouldn't.
The man told the Journal-Constitution he was
in Rome during his honeymoon when the CDC notified him of the new tests
and told him to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be isolated
and be treated. The CDC told him he couldn’t fly aboard commercial
airliners. “I
thought to myself: You’re nuts. I wasn’t going to do that. They told me
I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged,” the man
said. He told the
newspaper he and his wife decided to sneak back into the U.S. through
Canada. He said he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was
flown by the CDC to Atlanta."[S]neak back into the U.S. through Canada"? His wife's got shredded wheat in lieu of brains, too.
Tommy TB is a howl; believe it or not, he's outraged at how he's been treated: "I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person," he told the
paper. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door
when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole
solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."Except for traveling when he'd been strongly advised not to, then, upon learning he has the strain of TB that has a survival rate of 30% and is resistant to both first and second-line drugs, evading the no-fly order by sneaking into the US via Canada, thus placing the unsuspecting people on his flight at risk. Other than that, why, his been behavior's been an inspiration to us all.
Comments (6)
What I want to know is how HE got it.
Sounds like guys who have aids and sleep around because "there's no reason every one shouldnt have aids" and it does and has always happened. Sad, I wish we were back to the days of quarantine with a lock on their door.
Would you trust the Italian health care and civil authority structure? There's one point where I entirely sympathize with the guy. He's in a foreign country, and some agency from the good old USA says "you've got a bad disease and we won't let you back in the country. You're on the same list that we put terrorists on. Go to whatever hospital you can find there, and they'll take care of you." I don't blame the guy for trying to find any way possible to get back to the US to get competent medical care and to get away from the possibility of being detained by the polizia.
Of course, he shouldn't have been out of the country in the first place, and his own doctor should have told him to stay put.
Even though he's aware he's got a ghastly form of tuberculosis? "Too bad, so sad" for those sitting around him?
I perfectly understand his being unhappy about the idea of going to an Italian hospital, but you know what? If one has traveled with an infectious disease after being told not to - and make no mistake, though at his meeting with the doctor prior to setting off on his trip he wasn't formally and officially and under pain of prosecution forbidden to travel, he WAS told not to travel - then those are the breaks, and he had only himself to blame.
What do you want to bet he's the sort who, upon realizing the freeway exchange exit he needs is over there, is perfectly willing to slow down and even come to a dead stop, thus causing a bottleneck on the freeway, until someone lets him move over two lanes? Perish the thought HE should have to go around and come back! Heavens no...let everyone ELSE be inconvenienced due to HIS mistake.
I really hate it when people do that.
Hey my friends, Italy isn't Mexico, you know! There actually is competent medical care here. I can understand a person being unwilling to be hospitalized where he doesn't know the language, but being afraid of incompetence isn't a valid fear. Especially from Rome upwards. ; ) As far as the rest of it goes, I won't bother to comment!
What's really strange...The TB guys new Father-in-law just happens to be some big name researcher (or something like that) for the exact same, very uncommon strain of TB that he has. Aparently, according to interviews trying to clear his name, the Father-in-law had no idea his new son-in-law had TB, and assured the public that he did not have any access what-so-ever to contract TB through his laboratory.
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