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.