Captain Trips and Homeland Security

I think your being silly and argumentative now.

but your topic title makes it clear that I probably shouldn't have been so circumspect.

Yes, it is possible to be prejudiced against the rich. You clearly are.

How can you stand being so omniscient?

Grim, you said "As for poor, illegal immigrants sneaking over the border being as great a biological threat as this guy was?".
I would like you to consider one word, cholera. In the 1990's, it became epidemic in South America and spread to other countries, including Mexico.
In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person. Now consider groups of people clustering together being transported illegally into the country as well as single people waiting in one place near the border waiting to sneak across. The sanitation in many of these cases is not the best and one infected person can easily infect those with whom they wait or with whom they travel.
Another thing to consider is if an infected person gets into food harvesting or preparation after they sneak into the country and infects others, how long will the doctors take to realize that they are not dealing with something like the flu or food poisoning but cholera, a disease that can rapidly become epidemic?

I haven't seen one of your "Consider this" questions in quite a while! Kinda miss them.

On another part of this thread I address exactly what you mention... without the elaborate scenario of everyone who travels together becomes a typhoid mary part.

Do you realize that most food importers are the only ones responsible for checking all food stuffs for disease and dangerous ingredients? That means that a case of lettuce picked by a Cholera ridden peasant in central america will not be caught unless the company importing it makes the effort to culture food samples for disease? I'm sorry, but I see the likelihood of food borne illness from workers outside of the country being much more likely than from illegal immigrants working inside the US. Include this outside source of disease with our government's actively reducing FDA inspection resources and I highly expect more problems such as the Chi-Chis restaurant outbreaks, the Spinach concerns, the Chinese antifreeze/toothpaste and monk fish/puffer fish problems to increase and increase.


However... in the scenario I envisioned, and the one that no one has addressed... is you take one man (or woman) with a highly contagious airborne disease - I have mentioned the Bird Flu or Hemorrhagic Fever as 2 examples. You take this person who knows they are sick and possible ignoring medical advice, and this person decides to travel. They pass through one international airport and board a plane, then disembark at a second international airport all in a day's time. Think of all the people this person could come into contact with, and then think about where all those people are headed as well (to other countries and continents).

Consider, in your example, Cholera is not airborne, it depends on the actual ingestion of fecal matter from an infected source. Most major cholera outbreaks if not all of them have been linked historically to polluted water sources.


Now I dare anyone to find where I have said the elaborate illegal alien scenario would not be a threat. I have never suggested it could not be... BUT... considering the immediacy of being exposed to a disease and the speed with which it could be carried to other countries? I would rather be stuck in a sealed room with a fellow who has Cholera for 24 hours than I would with a fool who knows they are sick with Ebola or Bird Flu or even... gasping for air... drug resistant TB.


Now tell me J, who would you rather be locked into a room with?


FYI... the CDC has rescinded the federal quarantine order for Mr. Speaker along with explaining that TB is not as easily transmittable as the press has portrayed. On the other hand the CDC has also recommended that EVERYONE who had been on the multiple airplane flights with Mr. Speaker should be tested... not just the three rows adjacent to Speaker's seat.

It's a matter of risk factor. Personally, I'd be more concerned about cholera, it spreads like wildfire. Another thing is that a person with cholera can leave behind the infection. To look at it with your room situation, which empty room would you like to inhabit, one that had previously held someone with tuberculosis or one that previously held someone with cholera?
In the scenario you envisioned, ask yourself how many things a person infected with cholera may have touched and how many of those things may be touched by someone else after the infected person has moved on.

Grim, have you ever seen a travel advisory from the government concerning travel to a place with a cholera outbreak? I have. Have you ever seen such a warning about tuberculosis? I don't remember seeing one when I traveled overseas and tended to check for such things. Why should that be?

political agenda? Condemn the yuppie? Absolutely! Condemn the guard for not doing his job? Absolutely! Throw the yuppie into prison. Fire the guard, but don't try to blame the President for this one.

That the yuppie wasn't told that he CAN'T board the plane?

That the yuppie GOT ON the plane?

That the yuppie made NUMEROUS flights?

I think there is something wrong with the system.

The one that claims

There hasn't been an attack since 9/11.

They want the credit, but not the blame?

........ but I don't see this story being any more helpful to the enemy than the ones about "flight lessons" being so easy to take, or the "shoe bomber" giving them ideas, or the one that led to the banning of liquids that could be used to build a bomb on board.

This guy, for his own reasons, exposed hundreds of people. Sure, I know that TB is not easy to contract, but he could have exposed some whose immune systems were compromised.

I think he did not believe he would be discovered from the get-go. I doubt he cared that he might infect even just one person. And it could take months for that one person to show signs of the disease. And without a clue as to where they were exposed.

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I recall media stories awhile back of a cat and once a man stowing away in the forward landing gear compartment on cross country flights from some where to some where.

usually from other countries. A lot of them freeze to death.

There's also the problem of pressurization.

that makes him a threat? Why is he singled out for being rich (and in a later post by Grim, white)?

Is it not possible that a poor or middle class person could also spread the next plague? I know plenty of people who fly to other countries who are not rich.

To make it a little simpler for you, it is irrelevant whether he is rich or not. It's totally gratuitous to mention that. I can't believe you don't understand this.

Consider this, what if he were black? Would it be okay to say, "All it takes is one black maroon (like this guy) who thinks THEY are above rules and regulations to spread the next plague" Hmmm. That would be factual too, wouldn't it?

Is the dawn breaking yet?

Would a poor hispanic guy have traveled to Greece to get married, then to avoid detainment in a European hospital, fly indirectly from Europe to Canada and after all this... spend less than 2 minutes to cross an international border into the US? While his name is on a stop and detain list?

Is this a likely scenario to happen to a poor hispanic guy? Knowing that this actually happened to a rich white lawyer?

My friend Jorge, who has dual mexican/US citizenship was detained crossing back from Canada from a fishing and rafting trip for 5 hours while all his gear was opened and his SUV poked around in.

Sorry Ed... wealth and race still count in this world no matter how much it obviously distresses you. To break it to you all at once, there is no Easter Bunny nor Santa Clause either. I know that hurts but it's better that someone told ya now buddy.


BTW... I added the lawyer part so you could fixate on another noun so as to claim I'm prejudiced.

but at this point it is obvious that you don't want to get it, or that you get it but are pretending not to.

It doesn't matter WHERE he went. The fact that he went somewhere where there are people is enough. There is no point in throwing in irrelevancies.

And there is no point in me wasting any more time on your nonsense.

Travel allows spreading disease... you as much as admitted it in your gambit of comparing illegal immigrants to this guys' escapades.

The extent (distance, location, number of stops along the way) of the fellow's travels is important. Otherwise public health authorities like the CDC would not spend so much time tracking diseases and disease carriers.

Anything that facilitates the mobility of a disease carrier is a contributing factor to the spread of an outbreak. Socioeconomic status certainly is a factor affecting travel in this case. Hopefully, due to the fact that TB is relatively hard to develop will limit any others from being infected.


The "nonsense" crack is more of your over-the-top theatrics and as such... does not surprise me.

a hypothetical question for you:

you have 2 "typhoid marys" , 1 on the southern border of the US waiting for the right moment to cross into the US, the other about to enter the JFK airport on his/her way to Heathrow in the UK...

you can stop one of them, so, try to tell us.....

which one, and why?


.,

or anything?

it's the difference between you with the flu walking to the corner store or taking a greyhound 2000 miles......


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