Recent X-rays of her lungs were so bad, doctors thought she had cancer:
A woman in Washington state is facing electronic home monitoring and possible jail time after spending the past year willfully violating multiple court orders to have her active, contagious case of tuberculosis treated and to stay in isolation while doing so.
Last week, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department announced that it was "monitoring" a case of active tuberculosis in a county woman who had refused treatment.
"Most people we contact are happy to get the treatment they need," Nigel Turner, division director of Communicable Disease Control, said in a press announcement last week. "Occasionally people refuse treatment and isolation. When that happens, we take steps to help keep the community safe."
But reporting by The News Tribune discovered that the woman's refusal to heed public health guidance is a long-standing challenge for local officials. Documents filed in the Pierce County Superior Court and reviewed by the Tribune found that the woman's first court order for involuntary isolation dates back more than a year ago, to January 19, 2022.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which mostly causes disease in the lungs, though it can invade other areas of the body. It can easily turn deadly without proper treatment. M. tuberculosis is transmitted through the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, spits, or launches bacterial cells around them. Although transmission mostly occurs from close, prolonged contact, inhaling only a few of these microscopic germs is enough to spark an infection. According to the World Health Organization, tuberculosis is one of the top infectious disease killers in the world, causing 1.6 million deaths in 2021.
Treatment for tuberculosis is not easy—in uncomplicated cases, it takes a four-month or six-month course of four types of antibiotics to effectively rid the infection. But M. tuberculosis is becoming increasingly drug-resistant, even extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB), both of which are considered a global public health crisis and health security threat. These drug-resistant cases can take up to 20 months of antibiotic courses to shake using alternative treatments that can be expensive and toxic. But drug resistance develops or increases if patients fail to complete or properly take their prescribed antibiotic courses—as is the case for the Washington woman.
As the January 2022 court documents noted, "The Local Health Officer ordered [the woman] to self-isolate and treat; which she declined to do. [The woman] has not complied with such efforts, has discontinued treatment and is unwilling to resume treatment or voluntarily self-isolate." As such, the health department was seeking an order "requiring [the woman] to isolate in her residence [and] cooperate with testing and treatment as recommended by medical providers."
The court issued an order for involuntary isolation, but it did little good. The woman continued to refuse treatment and isolation, according to an order issued on January 26, 2022. The order was renewed on February 14, 2022—and then again on February 24, and again on March 24, April 19, May 17, June 28, July 27, August 25, September 27, October 21, November 18, and December 16.
[...] The court renewed its order on January 20, 2023, adding that failure to comply this time "may result in a finding of contempt whereby the court orders further measures, up to and including electronic home monitoring and detention in Pierce County Jail or other lawful orders the court may issue, in accord with the applicable code."
In a statement to the Tribune, the health department's Turner said: "We assess that balance between restricting somebody's liberty and protecting the health of the community. We also want to make sure that we have time for the person to comply and try lots of different options that are short of requiring somebody to be detained," he added. "Incarceration detention is the very, very last option that we want to take and we don't do that lightly. But occasionally that becomes necessary if there is a risk to the public."
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Washington judge issued an arrest warrant and ordered her to involuntary detention:
A judge in Washington issued an arrest warrant Thursday for a Tacoma woman who has refused to have her active, contagious case of tuberculosis treated for over a year, violating numerous court orders. The judge also upheld an earlier order to have her jailed, where she can be tested and treated in isolation.
On Thursday, the woman attended the 17th court hearing on the matter and once again refused a court order to isolate or comply with testing and treatment—an order that originally dates back to January 19, 2022. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen rejected her objections to being treated and upheld a finding of contempt. Though it remains unclear what her objections are, the woman's lawyer suggested it may be a problem with understanding, according to The News Tribune. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, however, argued that she "knowingly, willfully, and contemptuously violated this court's orders," noting the lengthy process and numerous proceedings and discussions in which interpreters, translated documents, and speakers of her native language were made available.
[...] As Ars previously reported, the court had renewed orders for her isolation and treatment on a monthly basis since January of 2022. The health department had always said it was approaching the problem cautiously, working to keep a "balance between restricting somebody's liberty and protecting the health of the community." It sees detention as the "very, very last option."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Thursday February 09, @09:32PM (5 children)
and throw her ass in prison for assaulting who knows how many thousands of people.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, @10:28PM (2 children)
Her freedoms! I'm calling Sean Hannity!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Thursday February 09, @10:49PM
You can call whoever you want with that one phone call you get.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Friday February 10, @01:29AM
Feel free to use that phone over there. Yes, the one she coughed on...
(Score: 5, Touché) by Mykl on Thursday February 09, @11:20PM (1 child)
I happen to agree, but I am interested to hear from anyone who would treat this "Turburculosis Mary" any differently to a "COVID Mary"?
My guess is that many people felt that COVID-positive people should have moar freedumb. Possibly because the TB treatment doesn't come with 5G chips.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @04:13PM
Covid vaccines do not come with 5G chips. Not any more than any other vaccine in history.
Yes, really.
I know some people here won't believe it.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tizan on Thursday February 09, @10:22PM (7 children)
You can walk around with a loaded assault rifle but not with deadly TB bacteria.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday February 09, @10:39PM (2 children)
At least the assault rifle isn't a concealed carry threat, unlike this case. Can't we get the woman's name?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday February 10, @02:56PM (1 child)
At least in Texas, you're allowed to carry without a permit/license. Where you'd put that concealed "assault" rifle is another thing entirely. Kind of like those anime movies, where they had no weapon, and then they whip out this bazooka and you go . . . where were you carrying that?
https://faq.sll.texas.gov/questions/45479 [texas.gov]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @04:15PM
I think a real concern in a state like Texas would be nudists who practice concealed carry.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sigterm on Thursday February 09, @10:51PM (1 child)
Because as we all know, guns shoot themselves and spread bullets around like, well, a contagious disease.
(Score: 3, Touché) by tizan on Thursday February 09, @11:46PM
The woman could be Wearing a mask and a safety catch !
(Score: 3, Informative) by Opportunist on Thursday February 09, @10:51PM
As long as you don't have tourette which causes you to spasm out and randomly shoot around you without being able to control it, I'd rather have you with a loaded rifle next to me than with TB.
Because TB will do exactly that. You'll have to cough and infect me.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday February 09, @11:56PM
You can't walk around with an assault rifle and a random number generator that tells you when to maim or kill somebody. I don't know what the parameters would be for input, but they're not zero and I feel like that's a better analogy.
What kind of psycho would you have to be to walk around with such a number generator and a gun? Something more than her, and something less than this guy. [youtube.com]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, @10:36PM
Yeah, by waiting for a year before locking her up... real safe
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 09, @10:48PM (13 children)
Is this woman mental? Even if she isn't technically insane, she almost certainly cherishes a bunch of profoundly wrong and nutty ideas. I'd guess she thinks the COVID pandemic was fake or a "plandemic" or that horse paste or a malaria drug cures it. Or maybe believes all of that at once. The End Is Nigh.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Opportunist on Thursday February 09, @10:54PM (8 children)
Well, her end at least is. Unfortunately, she'll have plenty of time to take people with her.
That's the main problem I have with TB. It just doesn't kill fast enough for these loonies to be less of a problem. If it did, the whole problem would take care of itself pretty quickly and we'd have less of a problem, partly because the disease does not spread, partly because it removes the loonies from the gene pool.
(Score: 4, Informative) by krishnoid on Thursday February 09, @10:58PM (6 children)
s/TB/TB and\/or COVID-19/;
It sounds cruel to say that it would be better if it killed faster, but that's one of the things that kept Ebola from insinuating itself more widely, I believe.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday February 09, @11:17PM (5 children)
I'd already be happy if it killed more likely. A death rate closer to, say, the plague would have weeded out the dimwits pretty well.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 10, @02:04AM (4 children)
Culling the herd, eh? The invention of nuclear weapons has forced wars to be cold, or at least less than total, lest we kill all ourselves off. And what I wonder about that is, was war a way to bleed off the troublemakers and idiots? And now that we can't do war with such reckless abandon any more, have they been building up in the population? I'd have thought vaccines would have the same effect of preventing disease from taking out, on balance, more stupid people than smart people, but, wouldn't you know? Lot of people are anti-vaccination!
Can't there be other ways to deal with foolishness? Like, I dunno, help people not be so stupid and violent? I have read that the sunsetting of leaded gasoline has had a noticeable positive effect, since lead poisoning does exactly that, makes people less intelligent and more violent. Makes you wonder what else we could do.
(Score: 3, Informative) by rpnx on Friday February 10, @04:11AM (2 children)
One thing we could do is recommend people take low dose lithium. It seems to counteract lead poisoning to some extent. And let's face it, the world is contaminated with lead at this point.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday February 10, @12:03PM (1 child)
Heh. Maybe that's how Lithium works in bipolar patients. It doesn't really cure them in any way, it just detoxes.
I'd investigate here, a Nobel Prize in Medicine could be at the end of that.
(Score: 2) by rpnx on Saturday February 11, @12:50AM
No, you need much higher doses to treat bipolar disorder.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday February 10, @12:00PM
Well, war was certainly a very useful way to get rid of these "elements" that the ones in power consider "undesirable". At least since burning people at the stake for being witches went out of fashion (but then again, war wasn't exactly that uncommon back then either, so there was plenty of ways to get rid of the malcontents).
What I think is weird is that this still kinda worked with Covid. Ok, granted, the death rates were insignificant, but again, it hit mostly the malcontents and those that are unhappy with the ruling class. One has to start to wonder who it really was that told them to forgo vaccinations...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 09, @11:50PM
Typhoid Mary did it better...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 10, @12:21AM (3 children)
If you read those bits of click-bait trivia, you'll learn that about 1 in 5 Americans are mental. I don't know how the nation has survived so long.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10, @12:48AM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday February 10, @01:34AM (1 child)
Are you referring to the decline in funding for mental health services?
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 10, @02:33AM
I am referring to preposterous clickbait headlines, strewn here and there around the intartubez. If you place any credibility in them at all, they are an indication that head doctors think almost everyone is crazy, and in need of their services. I don't give the headlines even that much credibility. It's just clickbait.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday February 10, @03:01AM (2 children)
It's pretty obvious this woman is in the care of the state, otherwise they would have never found out. So she probably is a homeless crazy. Which would make sense considering the type of people who get TB or anthrax infections are those who live in filth.
The whole thing dancing around why she doesn't take antibiotics. Which would be the interesting part.
Now, I can see the case where someone wouldn't want to take an untested experimental gene therapy, considering all we know now, yeah that was a bad idea, but tried and proven antibiotics? Why would you have a problem with that? Unless she thinks they're lying to her, and trying to poison her to get her.. secrets...
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday February 10, @04:13AM
There's a number of religions/cults that eschew any form of modern medical treatment, including antibiotics.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 10, @05:41AM
Which makes you wonder, how do you "isolate" when you're homeless?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday February 10, @04:17AM (1 child)
So she has untreated tuberculosis and they are throwing her in jail. Where there are a lot of people that can't get away from her? So it will spread like wildfire in there there and inmates and staff will get TB to.
I hope that isn't what is happening. I hope they'll strap her down in the medical ward and cure here. Still it's a bit weird that she has been able to run free for so long, at least several years by now.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 10, @05:49AM
There's this classic scene [youtu.be] from The Thing that reminds one of what it's like to be locked in with unknown dangers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10, @07:34AM (2 children)
A person turned up at work during covid coughing, sneezing, sore throat over several months. In one year they have not been at work for over two months. They still turn up to work coughing and sneezing. Several times I have been feeling perfectly fine, spent the day near them, and then developed a sore throat or headache. Masks don't work. You breathe the air near someone sneezing all day and you get what they have. No one will do anything about it. They were sent home repeatedly. Human resources won't do anything. Other than turn up to work and be infected repeatedly or find a new job there does not seem to be anything that can be done.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday February 10, @04:19PM (1 child)
The mask isn't primarily for you to wear to protect yourself, it is for the (potentially) infected person from spreading infected micro droplets that you inhale.
THAT is why it was a big deal to keep unmasked people out of public places -- to protect OTHERS.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by weirsbaski on Friday February 10, @07:22PM
And that's the biggest reason we couldn't get universal mask usage.
"A slight inconvenience to protect myself? I'd do that. A slight inconvenience that protects others but not me? Get the fuck outta here."