The continuing saga of the Tacoma woman with untreated TB running around in public

[thewayne]

For a YEAR, the woman has refused to self-isolate and treat the tuberculosis. The Washington health department ordered her to do so, and she doesn't. She was in a car accident as a passenger, proving she wasn't self-isolating. Then a couple of days after the accident, she goes to the emergency room for chest pain, they x-ray her and think she has cancer because of the massive amount of TB in her lungs. And she put the driver of the car, emergency responders to the accident, and EVERYONE in the emergency room - staff and patients - at risk of exposure. She's also tested positive for Covid, another marker that she was violating the self-isolation order.

Well, a judge has finally said 'Enough is too much' and ordered her arrest, isolation, and treatment. This only took SEVENTEEN court hearings.

From the second link, her attorney suggested "...that the woman’s lack of acknowledging and understanding what was happening was a significant factor in her refusal to voluntarily seek treatment. Tofflemire’s filing stated, “She has not acknowledged the existence of her own medical condition. Because counsel is bound to represent the respondent’s stated interest, a guardian ad litem would be able to provide representation of her best interests, which are not currently clear.”

The second article goes on "The filing added that when “the respondent has joined proceedings, she has spoken out of turn with rapid, disorganized speech.” It noted, “She has primarily focused on how she dislikes papers coming to her home, and not the import of the process in which she finds herself. She has repeatedly threatened suicide in relationship to papers being served upon her home.”

The article also notes that apparently English is not her native language. The Court provided a real-time translator during proceedings and bi-lingual paperwork whenever it was sent to her.

I wonder if the Tacoma area is going to experience an uptick in TB because of this.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/us-woman-headed-to-jail-for-refusing-tb-treatment-for-over-a-year/

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article272657405.html

Comments

[thewayne]

Hopefully the TB woman can be cured!  At the time, at least, there was no cure for Mary.

[conuly]

It'd be nice if she could be cured, but TB turned out to be a total monster to deal with, even if you catch it relatively early.

That's one of the reasons we've made so little progress in eradicating it. Even with people who understand what they're being asked to do and why, and have the ability to follow the treatment plan, mostly... don't. As far as I know, the only intervention anybody has ever found that works is paying somebody to go over to a patient's house every day and watch them take their pills.

(And that's just taking the pills. I don't know what intervention can be used to make them keep quarantine for the very long period of time when they'd have to do that if they're badly contagious, short of what they're trying here.)

[devilc]

Even with people who understand what they're being asked to do and why, and have the ability to follow the treatment plan, mostly... don't.

Because, with multi drug resistant TB, the medications prescribed have some deeply unpleasant side effects, and you can be taking them for months before you start turning the tide ... or not.

[conuly]

Oh yeah, no, it definitely sucks all around.

[thewayne]

That's why they used to have TB sanitariums.  Lock 'em up, cure 'em, let 'em go.

[conuly]

I'm not sure I've ever heard that sanitoriums were mandatory for TB patients. Are you perhaps thinking of leper colonies?

At any rate, they didn't cure the patients because, without antibiotics, it is very hard to treat TB. And all of those facilities closed after antibiotics came into use.

Even with antibiotics, I believe studies have generally shown that it's more expensive and less effective to require patients to reside in a facility for treatment. They may not like taking the pill every day, but they really don't want to leave their homes to do that. People will avoid going to the doctor entirely if they think they can't be treated without leaving home, same way they avoid opening the mail if they think they'll get a bill.

And, as noted elsewhere on this thread, TB isn't really a highly contagious illness. It's a pain and a half to treat, but there's a reason it's very concentrated among the poor - they're about the only ones who have the living conditions required for the disease to spread. You can't catch it from sitting next to a sick person on the train, or passing them in the supermarket. You pretty much have to live with them, and even then most people don't get sick because most immune systems, if not overstressed, can cope. Congregate living situations, like nursing homes and prisons, are where this disease spreads.

TB is a very serious illness, but it's not covid. It's not measles. It just doesn't spread like that.