What do you guys think of this? I'm split on the issue, I don't like the idea of this guy going around giving people TB, and I do believe that the side effects of the drugs may be unpleasant. I don't think he should have the right to wander around coughing his germs on people, but does the prison population not also have the right not to have him coughing his germs on them? The prison population doesn't even have the luxury of being able to choose to get away from this guy, they are incarcerated, in general they are also at higher risk of catching it and suffering more for having it than the general population.
I read about a system they are using in Botswana called DOT (directly observed therapy) for people who are at a high risk of not taking their TB anti-biotics. You have to go and live in a centralized location, at a clinic with everyone else in your region who has TB for 6 months and they watch you take your drugs at the same time everyday, when you complete your program you can go home. I know it's not an ideal solution to be away from your family and friends for 6 months, but it's better for them if you don't give them TB. Considering that TB is on the rise, would it not be possible to set up a clinic/sanitarium somewhere and house high risk TB sufferers for the course of their medication and then let them go? I'm not suggesting this for everyone, just for people who are resistent to treatment or have some other difficulty that prevents them from taking their meds regularly.
Alternately since TB lately has been more of an urban issue, they could have a DOT clinic in the city and people could come in every day to take the drugs in front of an employee and if they didn't show up they'd be subject to some punishment like losing a bond or being arrested. Instead of a residential program.
Last Updated Thu, 23 Jun 20 2005 12:42:54 EDT
CBC News
A court in Ottawa has ordered a man with a highly infectious form of tuberculosis to be held in custody while doctors treat him.
INDEPTH: Tuberculosis
Abdullahi Fourreh, who is from Ethiopia, has consistently resisted treatment, claiming the drugs used to treat the disease are killing him.
But public health officials say he's already infected one person and they intend to cure him whether he likes it or not.
Doctors tried three different drug therapies on Fourreh in an attempt to reduce the side-effects. Each time Fourreh quit, finally deciding that his doctors were "assassins" and "men without souls."
He also convinced himself that his tuberculosis wasn't that much of a threat, says his lawyer Kevin Murphy.
"TB, as he put it, grows like weeds in Eastern Africa, and I think he was suggesting there was some innate alternative way of fighting off the disease, like overcoming a case of the flu," said Murphy.
Public health officials didn't see it that way. Pulmonary tuberculosis, which can be spread by coughing, is the most contagious strain of the disease. Ottawa assistant medical officer of health David Salisbury won the court order detaining Fourreh in Toronto.
"We will need to know that he is no longer infectious and is compliant with a treatment regimen that ensures that eventually he will be cured of this disease," said Salisbury.
Murphy says his client now has few options but to take the drugs his doctors prescribe him, or sit in jail indefinitely.
CBC News
A court in Ottawa has ordered a man with a highly infectious form of tuberculosis to be held in custody while doctors treat him.
INDEPTH: Tuberculosis
Abdullahi Fourreh, who is from Ethiopia, has consistently resisted treatment, claiming the drugs used to treat the disease are killing him.
But public health officials say he's already infected one person and they intend to cure him whether he likes it or not.
Doctors tried three different drug therapies on Fourreh in an attempt to reduce the side-effects. Each time Fourreh quit, finally deciding that his doctors were "assassins" and "men without souls."
He also convinced himself that his tuberculosis wasn't that much of a threat, says his lawyer Kevin Murphy.
"TB, as he put it, grows like weeds in Eastern Africa, and I think he was suggesting there was some innate alternative way of fighting off the disease, like overcoming a case of the flu," said Murphy.
Public health officials didn't see it that way. Pulmonary tuberculosis, which can be spread by coughing, is the most contagious strain of the disease. Ottawa assistant medical officer of health David Salisbury won the court order detaining Fourreh in Toronto.
"We will need to know that he is no longer infectious and is compliant with a treatment regimen that ensures that eventually he will be cured of this disease," said Salisbury.
Murphy says his client now has few options but to take the drugs his doctors prescribe him, or sit in jail indefinitely.
4 comments:
take the treatment or sit in jail. i'll be the heavy, and say yes, they had no choice but to lock him up. you can't let people with highly infectious diseases wandering around. remember SARS? the sad part is that this man is clearly mentally ill, and thinks the medication will hurt him and not help him.
But if indeed he's a loon, then maybe he'll just sit in jail and infect the whole prison population and not take the medicine. It seems to me that the carrot and the stick thing doesn't work so well with the insane. I'm not saying he should go about his merry infectious business, it's obvious to me that something has to be done, I'm more afraid of catching TB than anyone!
well i'm going to assume that this dude isn't hanging with the rest of the prison population....
but the point is, what else can you do? i don't get the impression that he's in jail as a punishment for refusing to take the medication, so much it's a method to restrain his mobility and presumably the spread of infection.
If I was in the prison population anywhere near that guy I'd be on the phone to my lawyer and the media and the human rights commission and anyone else who would listen.
I guess I just wish that there was some other way of dealing with these issues other than the criminal system.
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