TB guy.

I've been wanting to post about this, but I've been busy dancing at the Renaissance Fest this weekend (six performances in two days, and we ROCKED it). I'm coming down with a cold (yesterday was cold and rainy), I've got a sunburn (today was sunny), and I'm exhausted, but all of it is in a good and happy way.

Anyway - so I'm late to comment on this, but as I was reading around tonight and trying to catch up a little on the blogs I follow, I found this entry that pretty much says a lot of what I've been thinking.

Now, I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt a little. I mean, I frankly would not be surprised if it turned out that the public health officials are covering up for having told him exactly what he's saying they told him and not what they're saying they told him. How hard is it to believe that a governmental agency really could have made a huge mistake like that - hmmm?

I can also appreciate that he was really in fear for his life, that he really believed that he might not get the treatment he needed. After all, not that long ago, an American died because he was stuck overseas without health insurance that was accepted in the country he was visiting, and his medical situation was too serious for him to be allowed to fly home. So I can understand the fear.

But we know that when he flew back home, he knew that he was putting others at risk in order to do so. What he decided was that it was ok for him to fly back in order to save his own life, and it was also ok if he risked the lives of others to do it. That is the crux of this issue, isn't it? That he put others at risk in order to save himself.

I don't think his apology is enough, nor do I think that media appearances are the correct venue for rectifying this situation. Let the matter be decided by the courts. Is it ok for someone to decide to possibly infect and kill others in order to save one's own life, particularly when one's own life is not at immediate risk? And would such a case have to wait until others were known to have been infected by this man? Until they died?

I'd love to know what the legal precedents are for that.