When in doubt, victimize the victims
posted Monday January 12, 2009 under chem-bio, terrorism by geoffrey_forden
Spelled out in Anthrax spores
Disease is a funny thing. The general tendency of the public is to blame the ill person. Nothing illustrates this better than the way societies treat people who have acquired AIDS/HIV. However, the public health officials in the Philippines are doing a good job of expanding that “policy” of victimizing the victims with their quarantining 12 postal workers who handled a package filled with a suspicious powder. Let me say this so that people understand: you cannot catch anthrax from someone who is sick with anthrax, even respratory anthrax. Decontaminate them, give them antibiotics, but do not quarantine them. I hope emergency personnel will learn this lesson for the future otherwise our first responders are going to be in a real bind if a terrorist attack ever actually occurs again.
ps I have been traveling all weekend to get here to Italy so there was a delay in some of the moderation of posts recently.
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For a moment there I thought you were going to address the situation in Gaza. Never mind, Quarantined postal workers in the Philippines is clearly a more apposite example of the syndrome eh?
— Sabretache · Jan 12, 07:56 AM ·
I agree, provided the victims are decontaminated first to prevent spreading any spores.
— Andy · Jan 12, 08:37 AM ·
Sabretache, this is a technical blog with a very strict “No Politics” policy. We don’t take sides even if an army equipped with jets and tanks is crushing a resistance movement having only hand guns. It’s simply not our business.
We are strictly neutral on any political question, for example we don’t care if Iran or Italy gets nuclear weapons. The only thing that interests us are the technical and legal details.
This policy may seem a bit inhumane but it’s not. Being a good and reliable resource on arms control will be in the long run more beneficial to world peace and safety than expressing sentiments.
— Yossi · Jan 12, 09:28 AM ·
Concerning Anthrax: The CDC says about transmission::
“How Do You Get It?
Anthrax is not known to spread from one person to another.” That does not mean that it never happens!I would just like to remember us all to be very carefull with the word “never” in medicine.And I am not in favour of quarantining 12 postal workers!
Sincerley Yours
— Martin Dirksen · Jan 12, 10:20 AM ·
Hell if you are gonna spend money quarantining people, why not start in Congo, with an Ebola outbreak on the way and all. (track reports on reliefweb.int)
That said, there was no reason to suspect the suspicious powder was only Anthrax. It could have been as contagious as anything from washing powder to cement, flour, salt, sugar, sand… ebola.
— asdf · Jan 12, 11:26 AM ·
Well, it’s your blog so fair enough.
It’s just that, with with what is arguably one of the the biggest and deadliest historical examples of the syndrome ongoing (strictly technically and legally speaking you understand), the title of the post had me anticipating something a little more, how should I put this? er significant?? – that’s all.
Perhaps you’d like to post something about the use of white phosphorous and ‘Dime’ munitions in densely populated areas sometime.
And no offence intended – or taken I trust.
— Sabretache · Jan 12, 01:11 PM ·
Sabretache—I think Yossi was being sarcastic and its certainly not “his” blog. However, you do have a point. I write about what Im interested in. You are going off topic on this but perhaps its worth saying. Many things happen all at once in the wide world we live in and anyone can assign their own priorities to them; I might even agree with you. However, denying the freedom of twelve people is still an injustice and shouldn’t be overlooked because another, bigger injustice is happening someplace else. If you are still not satisfied with this, go to some other blog.
— Geoff Forden · Jan 12, 01:45 PM ·
Sabretache, believe me that personally I feel exactly like you do or even more, but Dr. Lewis, the blog owner, has his policy. Please note that he showed now in another blog that the CIA claims on North Korea are false, opening the door to send badly needed supplies to this poor nation.
— Yossi · Jan 12, 01:49 PM ·
Well, FWIW, I’ve found that trying to have a civilized blog debate on the Israeli-Palestinian issue harder than attempting a civilized debate on abortion. I would therefore caution the blog authors against stepping into that minefield.
— Andy · Jan 12, 02:24 PM ·
Mia Culpa – I stand corrected Geoff.
But since when was it necessary for a commentator to be satisfied – or dissatisfied for that matter? Me – I’m neither. I simply posted what flitted into my brain in response to a post. That’s all. I’m not looking for an argument. Neither do I need to be patronised. I’ve had 65 years in the wide world – and counting – with no axe to grind other than an honest and very uncomfortable endeavor to clear a path through the jungle of deception and lies at the heart of the ‘Washington Consensus’ world we all inhabit these days.
FWIW I am a regular reader and find the technical stuff useful.
Maybe you just need to lighten up a bit when it comes to the odd technical ignoramus like me; that’s all
— Sabretache · Jan 12, 02:41 PM ·
Dr. Forden,
Sorry, I was not being sarcastic, I meant every word in my reply to Sabretache. Many or most readers here feel like him but we know the status and credibility of this blog worth too much to waste them on venting emotions.
Just to make things clear I never claimed it’s my blog, that would have been ridiculous. I’m a frequent reader and commenter. My reply to Sabretache was in my role as a “teacher’s pet”, a role I assumed after being disciplined by Dr. Lewis.
Another point is that I think my second reply to Sabretache didn’t contain objectionable material and shouldn’t have been censured. I repeated the blog official policy and pointed to Dr. Lewis’s contribution for peace between North Korea and the rest of the world. As one who is sensitive to the misery of this population I wanted to pay my respects and cheer the one man who is helping the situation.
Again, this is no sarcasm. I may be naive but not sarcastic.
— Yossi · Jan 12, 02:53 PM ·