You could go to jail for being sick

I read about them both.  I can empathize with them, but it comes down to they can take precautions.  If they do not (which is the case here), they are basically committing assualt with a deadly weapon.  Just as someone that is wrecklessly firing a gun in a crowded city.  It may not be as fast as a bullet - but the outcome is the same.

When I was in the military I was part of a commission for my unit on AIDS. We studied patient zero and the effects of what he and others like him did. When he was told he had AIDS and that he was contagious his reply was that if he was going to die he would take as many people with him as he could. Being a flight attendant for Air Canada he flew between the East and West coasts of America. If you trace his activities he was having unprotected sex with men on both coasts infecting hundreds of people directly before he died. The medical profession refused to make his name public for privacy reasons, arresting him, or banning him from our country because of a desire not to stigmatize him. How many thousands of people died because of patient zero? How many people were infected on the second and third levels before they knew they were infected? Almost 10 thousand infected before patient zero died that were traced back to him. Can you say mass murder? This is why it was so hard to get a handle on Aids in the beginning because the first person with the illness refused to be responsible. Because he was gay people did not want to stigmatize gays so no one called CDC until it was way too late. The thought of locking up the infected people was thought of as cruel and homophobic. How many gay people had to die to keep gay people from looking like the bad guys?

Others took the same view as patient zero and they were bisexual so it spread into the heterosexual community but not as fast because most people infected were responsible to some extent. But for public safety we needed to lock them up if for no other reason than to protect the rest of the population.

Just for the record, the first person to die of aids was a British sailor in 1956, the first American to die from aids was a 15 year old boy who lived in Kansas in 1975. Patient zero traveled the world catching and then spreading his illness, had he been stopped you can honestly say that millions could have been saved.

Oh, I almost forgot. It has been legal to arrest and lock up anyone with a contagious illness except AIDS since the 1800's this is not new!

Just because it isn't new, does that make it right?

Also, not everyone with AIDS is angrily going around attempting to take as many people with them as they can but because a small handful do, the privacy of all should be risked? Tracking them by numbers assured patients some confidentiality. Some people fear that people will no long get tested for HIV or AIDS because they do not want people finding out.

And I agree, Doc, that they could harm others, but I think there is a difference between having an illness and firing a gun. Do they really deserve to be locked in prison? No tv, no phones, no visitors? He doesn't even get to shower.

Also, and this is the biggest problem I have with it, he has NOT been charged with a crime. The fifth amendment states: "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" where is his due process?

I am not sure he has been deprived in that manner. He was given an opportunity to comply. He chose not to. In that respect, it is like a gun. He is threatening other people - and that is a crime.

what your friend has is dangerous and deadly, the reason it is resistant is because he got it from someone who did not follow the prescribed regiment and passed it on to your friend who is not willing to follow the prescribed regiment. How many people need to die before it is ok to follow the constitution?



Sorry but that small number as you call it is not that small. The one person patient zero got as many as a million people infected because of his desire to take as many people with him as he could. If you have an illness that is contagious by sex which is not easy to transmit got a bunch of people killed. TB is easily transmitted all you need to do is be in the same room with the person to get infected. You don't need to have sex with the person, you don't need to shake hands, kiss, hug, or even talk to the person to become infected with TB. It grows slowly and if untreated will kill you in a very painful way lasting years. It makes you wish you had Aids or cancer. You think that it is ok to have this person walking the streets? I understand how this works because my girlfriend is a nurse who is feeding me the information as I type. How many people will potentially become infected just by walking behind him as he coughs and hacks his way down the street?



There was due process just not a criminal process. The civil process is just like the Baker act. One medical professional tells a judge the person is a danger to himself and others and the judge agrees the person is locked up. Due process is served. Until the man is cured or dies he stays locked up.

are you sure of that? Cause the attacks on us on 9/11 seems not to be murder to some people. We should reach out to this guy and find out what we did that makes him hate us so much to endanger his own life while endangering others and after we find out what it is we should pledge not to do it any more and pay a lot of money and maybe he will stop then.

There has been no trail. He has not been given due process of the law. He is in prison, but has had no charges filed. Tell me again how this doesn't violate his constitutional rights? Just because you commit a crime doesn't mean you automatically go to jail. You get a trial with a jury of your peers. He hasn't even been charged. He should not be in a jail cell with his personal liberty taken from him without due process of the law.

Also, the title is not misleading. This one person is not the only person to be confined because he is sick:

And, LW, the passage you quoted he states "No one told me how TB works and stuff" so that does imply that he was not given ample opportunity to follow protocol. Also, the article also states that people will be locked up if

Now, this individual chose not to follow doctors orders. However, you could also be put in jail for lacking the ability to follow a doctor's orders. There is also no indication that he was given ample opportunity to comply with anything. I'm not saying he didn't, but you can't say that he did unless you have further information. I saw no information about warnings given to the man, no citations, nothing that implied that he went to the doctor, didn't do what the doctor said, went in public and was arrested. Hell, I ignored my doctor when he said I shouldn't go to class with the flu, but I went anyway. My actions could have killed an individual that I infected. Does that mean I should go to jail? I knowingly endangered the health and lives of others.


And while I would not like to sit next to him on a bus, that is true, I also do not want to be locked up because I innocently contracted a disease that there is no cure for. Especially not, (as you may realize I'm stressing here) due process of the law.

He should, as I said before, be given due process. And a radio for that matter. I really don't understand why he is deprived of so much especially when, in legal terms, he is NOT a criminal.

Also, attempted murder implies that the person has specific intention to kill. It doesn't sound as if the man with TB was attempting to kill anyone. The AIDS patient mentioned earlier, yes. The TB patient, nope. It is difficult to fully argue the point since we obviously don't have all the facts, but nothing about his interview implied that he was fully aware of the transmission, affects of, or potential harm of TB. He says, at the end of the article, that he understands now that he put the public at risk. Now he is getting treatment for something that could kill him. Doesn't it follow that he may not have been fully aware of the dangers if he refused treatment for something that could be cured but left untreated would be fatal? Perhaps I'm inserting too much of my own mentality in there, but it does make sense.

Also, quick question: If wearing a mask and taking medication was sufficient to allow him to continue daily life in public before he was arrested, and if he were now willing to take his medication and wear a mask, and as he is facing no criminal charges, shouldn't that be sufficient to allow him to leave the jail cell and go back to his daily life? I hope that question makes sense. Maybe that's what he's planning to say at the hearing for his release.

It is a good question but not the way it works. This is civil law. Let me explain how this works and I agree it sounds unfair but it is the law. Civil law requires different rules than criminal law. If a person is a threat to himself and or the general population and or another human being because of a contagious medical illness. That person is represented by a lawyer in front of a judge. The judge agrees and signs the order locking him up. It is a health issue not a criminal issue. As long as he is a danger to society and himself he must be held. It is like contempt of court order. The Judge can have you arrested and jailed for not following his order until he sees fit or 18 months whichever comes first. For medical issues the hospital can restrain you if you prove to be a danger to yourself or others and all they need is documentation of the facts that lead up to the restraints. If the person is conscious they can not force him to take his medication but they are responsible to the public so they can’t let him go until cured but they can’t take away his freedom without a court order. Once he has refused to take his medication they can throw it to a judge and the person can be locked up. Due process is served. Just because he did not know all about that TB stuff is meaningless. He was given informed consent and refused to obey. You don’t get a second chance to kill people.

I refuse to form an opinion on this specific case until we can find out more about it, like: Was he informed that he was a danger to others? Was he informed how to minimize that danger? How many times was he informed? By who? Does he have sufficient mental capacity to understand instructions? Doed he have sufficient motivation to follow those instructions?

I agree. I would really like to know these things, but they guy doesn't have much ways of communicating, and I'm not a reporter, so I have no idea how to find out. I really wish I knew, if only because I'm over curious.

Ignorance isn't an excuse, but it isn't a crime either. This guy is in a jail, not a hospital, or even a TB ranch, he's in jail. Something just seems wrong with that.

But, he should be released if he complies with the rules. I see no reason not to.

But, he should be released if he complies with the rules. I see no reason not to.

I agree.  IF

We can hope he has learned now.  And that he can be freed. IF

Pssst!  Difference aside, congrats on the feature!

While more information would be nice, every article I've read states:



That, to me, means he was told EXPLICITLY to wear the mask and decided not to--I'd imagine endangering the public health is a crime.

Also--the article I read said he was from Russia and he got TB there--he came to the US for treatment. I would imagine that he had to lie on his visa because communicable diseases are a reason for not getting the visa granted. Lying on your visa is most certainly a crime.

Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't just been deported.

amended--upon further review, it looks like he is American but lived in Russia for 15 years. maybe? I'm not really sure.

Anyway, I guess the question is at what point does public health outweigh individual rights?

I suppose I should specify that I don't think he should walk around willy nilly and infect hundreds or thousands of people. My problem with this situation is that he is being held in jail, denied things that I think every human should be allowed -- mostly the shower, but the other stuff is only fair as well, and he isn't a criminal!

Also, I worry about setting precedents. If it is so easy to jail a person without a criminal trial, I worry what could be next. I'm not going to use slippery slope style of rhetoric here and give far fetched scenarios that would rival 1984, but I think we should all be aware of setting precedents that limit individual rights.

And, one last thing: IF (and I agree that it is contingent on IF) he has learned the effects of TB, and if he isn't lying in the article, he seemed unaware of the danger he previously posed and has learned better since, then I see no reason to keep him locked up. True, I don't see a reason he should be locked up and not simply confined, but he should be granted his liberty if 1. he's taking his meds and 2. he wears the mask as long as necessary.

I agree that we must take measures to protect against epidemics or pandemics, especially that we have created super viruses that are becoming increasingly hard to kill. My problem is the manner in which this has happened, and the treatment of the individual.

Look, you're really generalizing here without sharing specifics that would seriously damage your point of view.

I've worked in an Infectious Disease clinic for about 4-5 years now. I've worked closely with the state, and with the local Health Department. You do NOT get an immediate pass that says "You're going to jail if you have Tuberculosis". You ONLY go to jail if you've refused treatment, refused to acknowledge you are a danger to others. Usually, you wind up getting confined in a medical facility AFTER a judge mandates that you do so because you are a risk to others.

Do some research on how TB works. Nasty disease. You have to take serious antibiotic and specialized treatment for six months. The problem is, people come in because they feel bad. They are told they have TB, start treatment. About a month into treatment, sometimes two.. they feel better. So they discontinue treatments, stop going to the doctor, begin living as though they are well. The TB hasn't gone away though. Now, it's had a taste of the antibiotic and mutated into a resistant strand to that particular antibiotic. In 6 months, John Doe starts feeling bad again, only this time when he goes to the doctor, he can't take that antibiotic anymore and must take another kind. The entire time he's felt better, he's been contagious and exposed god know how many people to the disease.

And this isn't like HIV. Tuberculosis is an AIRBORNE illness. You don't have to have contact with someone to catch it. You can just be in the same room someone has been in. Granted, the disease dies quickly once in the air.. around 72 hours. But oh.. the havoc it can wreak. You didn't mention the fact that the WHO declared it a world epidemic in 1993 and this past year just reported that the disease is levelling off.. thanks, in partial, to more extreme measures of treatment. Nor did you mention that tuberculosis kills around 2 million people each year . And lets not forget that TB and XDR-TB (Extreme Drug Resistent Tuberculosis) kills more people than any other infection .

So let me reiterate. You don't just go to jail for having TB. You don't just go to jail for having syphilis (yes, you can also be detained and quarantined for having syphilis if you do NOT comply with treatment. I've seen first hand how quickly syphilis can spread into an epidemic and just how quickly it can kill.. and it's nasty). You don't just have your rights denied and tossed into a cell. I've seen first hand people laugh in their doctors face and say they're giving it to as many people as possible. I've seen people just flat out tell me that they don't have it and they're not going to get treatment. In ALL the time I've worked in ID, only 2 (two) people have ever been quarantined and detained in a medical facility.. and it was for TB and syphilis.. and both people refused to comply with treatment multiple times. It's great and dandy if you want to refuse treatment.. but only when dealing with yourself. When you deal with a disease that affects society, then society must take a hand in it.

Unfortunately, there aren't enough specifics to fully argue the point. However, I feel fairly sure that it's ok to say someone should not be in jail without being a criminal.

I'm very aware how TB works, though thank you for listing telling us all. The man in question, however, *seems* to have been ignorant of just how much damage he could have been doing. Since we don't know how much he knew, or how often he was warned, I can't say if he refused treatment, or just couldn't afford it. It is possible, since he lost his job, that he could not afford the treatment, and that is why he was refusing it. I assume that these treatments are pricey. As for not wearing a mask... well, if he was truly ignorant, then there are many possibilities for not wanting to wear a mask.

Again, my problem is that he is in prison and being denied privileges as though he were a criminal when no criminal charges have been filed. He should be in a treatment facility, but he's not. He's in jail.

Also, even if you're going to lock someone up under civil law, don't you still have to have a trial or at least a hearing with a judge? (This is a general question.)

My reason for posting these things: what rights do these people have? They have dangerous illnesses, yes. They pose a danger to society, yes. But should they be tracked and imprisoned? Should they face criminal charges? And where does it end? Do people with MRSA deserve or need to be locked up? It's extremely contagious and potentially fatal, so why not quarantine these people?

If you have a fatal disease (not potentially fatal, but fatal disease) and it's highly communicable, you know this, and you do not seek treatment, that CAN be considered criminally negligent. At that time, you become a criminal.
MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), while potentially fatal and communicable, is highly treatable and once you've been treated, the incidence of recurrence (wihtout another source of infection) is unlikely. Your risk of transferring MRSA to the community at large is also very minimal. Let me repeat what I said earlier. TB is AIRBORNE . HIV and Syphilis are RISK BEHAVIOR affected.

Let's say you have a kid in school. One of their teachers gets sick with tuberculosis. They know they have it, took treatment for a month but because they felt better and thought they were over it, he/she stops taking the medication, forgets to go to the doctor and continues to be in the classroom. Of the 25 children there, let's say.. 15 start showing positive TB results and of the 15, ten actually get TB. How are YOU going to explain to the parents of the 15 children how that teacher's rights were infringed upon because they were negligent and stopped treatment?

And I have yet to see someone imprisoned for having HIV or AIDS.. and are you making a distinction between the two? Just because someone has HIV doesn't necessarily mean they have AIDS.. As far as I know, most places can't even prosecute someone who is knowingly participates in risk behaviors to spread the disease.
As far as tracking goes.. do you have a Social Security Number? A driver's license? It's just one more database in one more big federal agenda.

I'm very aware how TB works, though thank you for listing telling us all. The man in question, however, *seems* to have been ignorant of just how much damage he could have been doing. Since we don't know how much he knew, or how often he was warned, I can't say if he refused treatment, or just couldn't afford it. It is possible, since he lost his job, that he could not afford the treatment, and that is why he was refusing it. I assume that these treatments are pricey. As for not wearing a mask... well, if he was truly ignorant, then there are many possibilities for not wanting to wear a mask.

I'm not sure about other states, but I know that in my state.. the health department must ensure that you receive treatment. It's not just a cost issue. If you can't afford it, they make sure you get it. He could be placed in jail pending a hearing.. kids get removed from their homes all the time without a judges hearing.. because the environment may be a risk to the child. Perhaps this falls under the same heading. I'll talk to my friend (who actually has to track down syphilis people.. not an easy job) and find out what their policies are on it and get back to you.

At that time, you become a criminal.

True, you can have charges pressed and be convicted. However, neither has happened to this fellow. By definition of law, he is not a criminal. He will not have a criminal record because of this, unless charges are filed in the future. The lack of charges makes me believe that he was not maliciously refusing treatment. It seems as though they would have charged him in that case.

I'm not sure about other states, but I know that in my state.. the health department must ensure that you receive treatment. It's not just a cost issue. If you can't afford it, they make sure you get it. He could be placed in jail pending a hearing.. kids get removed from their homes all the time without a judges hearing.. because the environment may be a risk to the child. Perhaps this falls under the same heading. I'll talk to my friend (who actually has to track down syphilis people.. not an easy job) and find out what their policies are on it and get back to you.

Ok, that's really good to know. And comforting, actually. Thanks!

He has a lawyer, yes. He has a hearing to decide if he should be released, yes. But did he have a trial that put him in jail in the first place? Unfortunately, the article doesn't say, it only says he has not been charged with any criminal acts. I really have a problem with him being treated like a criminal, without charges being pressed. If he had a civil law trial in which his rights were taken away, then fine. It sucks, but at least he had a day in court. However, a hearing months later to see if he should be released does not take the place of a trial at the beginning of his incarceration.

I've asked a professor of mine to see if he can get any more info about this guy, and see if he had a trial at the beginning of all this. Or a hearing, or something that would mean he was not denied due process. (He's a lawyer, and I'm hoping he can get info easier than I)

Actually, those removals without a judge's order are unConstitutional a large percentage of the time (read: not ALL the time, but a good chunk of it), but the parents don't have the legal muscle to fight it.

No, I realize that people wait in jail for trials, but he's been there since last July. If he hasn't had a trial or hearing yet, then something is wrong. But then, the people who stay in jail waiting for trials have been charged with crimes, and he has not. So, I figure that, in order for him to still be in prison, some kind of hearing must have taken place by now. I just wish I knew if it had or not. I mean, to lock someone away for being mentally ill, isn't there a hearing? Shouldn't this be the same kind of thing? The reasons are the same: needs treatment, danger to self, danger to public... and I thought there was a hearing to determine that kind of situation, so I would assume the same here.

Also, and this is off subject, but I would say that not being able to shower is cruel and unusual. Now, I know some people wouldn't care, but it would seriously bother me. Eeeewww. (This statement is only half serious)

Correct! He will have a Civil record. As I stated before civil law is much different than criminal law. Like when your house if forclosed upon you have a judgement against you that lasts for a decade or more, but no criminal charges filed.



You mean lack of criminal charges? If a medical authority states he is a danger to himself or others the judge has the authority to lock his silly butt up until the judge feels like letting him go or 18 months which ever comes first.



This is considdered a medical emergency when a person with a contagious illness does not follow proper medical protocol. To stop an epidemic the health department has the authority to confine any and all infected people. This person could start an epidemic all by himself. don't you think that it is wise to lock him up? In Florida it is called the Baker Act. Each state has a similar law and there is a federal law as well.

Not in jail. Hospital or treatment facility maybe. Not jail.

Ok, clear something up for me: I understand that in criminal law, a person can be taken into custody before the trial. This would be the same as this man being taken into quarantine. Then, a hearing should come next in either case, correct? Please tell me that I can't be locked up without a hearing or trial or something just because I have bird flu or something. Please tell me I have some protection of this.

And, allow me to clarify one more point. Some people have implied that he was willfully and maliciously trying to spread TB. I was trying to point out that the lack of criminal charges would make this unlikely. A man with AIDS who willfully and maliciously infects people can be charged with Assault with a deadly weapon at least and (I think) attempted murder. (I don't know if anyone's been charged with murder or not, though I think not) I was just thinking that this guy was guilty of ignorance more than malice.

In Florida the patient has to agree to treatment to stay in the hospital or treatment center. If the patient refuses treatment then he has to stay somewhere, jail is the only other place to go.



You get a hearing, you don't have to be there for the hearing. The judge can appoint your lawyer give him five minutes to review the case file and then have a hearing. You get told what happened later. this is true in criminal and civil law. even if you go to trial you can be tried in criminal court and you don't even have to be in the country. but you had a hearing and a trial according to the law it was fair.



I was not one of those people. He could have religious reasons not to wear the mask or take medicine, it would not matter. The man could not be allowed to walk the streets spreading illness with each breath.