Learning lessons

It's September 11, so time to do a "security" post. Sigh. The current dopiness concerns the lessons we can learned for making das Vaterland safe after the recent Atlanta lawyer TB incident. Since learning the wrong lesson seems to be standard operating procedure for both Republicans and Democrats, not to mention "professional" public health types like the CDC, I'm not surprised to read crap like this:

A congressional investigation into officials' inability to stop a tuberculosis patient from leaving the country found significant security gaps, heightening concern about vulnerability to potential cases of pandemic flu or smallpox.

A report on the May incident involving an Atlanta lawyer who caused an international health scare found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacks a sound way to prevent someone infected with a biological agent from entering or leaving the United States.

The review by the House Homeland Security Committee's Democratic staff is to be released today, one day before the sixth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attack against the U.S.

Since Sept. 11, the government has focused on all types of possible threats and sought to find ways to best detect and counter biological agents.

"How we address these gaps now will serve as a direct predictor of how well we will handle future events, especially those involving emerging, re-emerging and pandemic infectious diseases," according to the report obtained by the Associated Press.

The committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., added: "If we can't counter TB, how can we counter terrorism?" (AP)

"If we can't counter TB, how can we counter terrorism?" Dumb. How about, "if we can't prevent dope smuggling, how can we prevent terrorism?" Or, "If we can't get passports for American citizens in under 6 months, how can we prevent terrorism?"

An infected and contagious person (the Atlanta lawyer was infected, but probably not contagious, but I'll ignore that little detail) is only like a terrorist in that you can't tell their status by looking at them. If you know the identity of a criminal, failure to detain them is just the usual incompetence typical of this administration. The same is true for someone who is very sick and contagious (e.g., as in Ebola or SARS). But for most emerging infectious diseases that are contagious (if they aren't then you don't have to worry that much about them traveling) there is little you can do. To suggest otherwise is to show the usual simplistic understanding of both public health and terrorism. The effect of stupid statements like those of chairman Thompson will likely be to have spineless bureaucrats at CDC put in place new measures just meant to satisfy CDC's critics. CDC's problems are gross mismanagement and poor morale, problems that will cause any lessons learned to be misconstrued and misapplied.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency continues to learn lessons from the incident and is completing its own review.

"Preparedness is a process and not an event, and people need to realize that we are light-years ahead of where we were six years ago," Skinner said. Each instance, such as the one in May, is a way to test and exercise the government's systems, he said.

The process is screwed up because the processors are screwed up, political lapdogs only too willing to distort public health and its priorities to satisfy the Bush administration imperatives of tightening up on individual liberties in the name of security and safety. As for being light years ahead of where we were six years ago, I partially agree, although I'd say it somewhat differently. We are light-years away from where we were six years ago.

Maybe even in a parallel universe.