5/30/2007
CDC Seeks Those Who Smoked Crack With TB Patient
(Atlanta) Health officials in North America and Europe scoured passenger lists of two trans-Atlantic airline flights in their effort to find about 80 people who smoked crack with a man infected with a dangerous drug-resistant form of tuberculosis.
"The investigation is just beginning. It's very challenging - this case is harder than third grade was for Britney Spears," said Dr. Marlon Crizzack, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division of global migration and quarantine. "Not only do we have here the stigma of being a possible TB carrier, but alo the stigma of being known as a crack-smoking street whore. Not too many people fessing up either way."
The unnamed man, who is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine patient since 1963, reportedly shared his crack pipe with dozens of airline passengers and employees.
"Is the patient himself paticularly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he's probably not," said CDC Director Dr. Roxanne Caine. "But the other piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria, and it was all over that crack pipe, not to mention that the man was trading oral sex for crack pipe hits."
CDC officials said they are working closely with both airlines and area crack dealers.
"Pretty basically, what we are dealing with here is a population that is reluctant to come forward," said Caine. "Besides, these fuckers totally bogart the rock, and they are stingier than a bunch of Mormons at a strip club."
"The investigation is just beginning. It's very challenging - this case is harder than third grade was for Britney Spears," said Dr. Marlon Crizzack, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division of global migration and quarantine. "Not only do we have here the stigma of being a possible TB carrier, but alo the stigma of being known as a crack-smoking street whore. Not too many people fessing up either way."
The unnamed man, who is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine patient since 1963, reportedly shared his crack pipe with dozens of airline passengers and employees.
"Is the patient himself paticularly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he's probably not," said CDC Director Dr. Roxanne Caine. "But the other piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria, and it was all over that crack pipe, not to mention that the man was trading oral sex for crack pipe hits."
CDC officials said they are working closely with both airlines and area crack dealers.
"Pretty basically, what we are dealing with here is a population that is reluctant to come forward," said Caine. "Besides, these fuckers totally bogart the rock, and they are stingier than a bunch of Mormons at a strip club."
Labels: crack, crack cocaine, smoking crack, TB