Seat 12C

Watching the news and reading the paper can be addictive. There is always so much going on from shootings to political platforms, but lately the one story that really caught my attention was the imbecile who traveled with tuberculosis.

Health authorities around the world have been scrambling to track passengers from two transatlantic flights after the unidentified 32-year-old man from Georgia supposedly ignored strict advice not to travel and flew to Europe for his wedding and subsequent honeymoon. The man was infected with a rare but dangerous case of "extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis" or XDR-TB. This form of tuberculosis is estimated to be fatal in more than half of the cases.

After flying from Atlanta to Paris, the newlyweds had already passed through Athens and the Greek islands before the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tracked him down on his cell phone in Rome. They told him his infection had progressed to XDR-TB and asked him to turn himself in to Italian health authorities. He was also placed on a U.S. no-fly list. Told he would be placed in isolation at a hospital in Rome until the CDC figured out how to proceed, the man and his wife decided to circumvent the no-fly order by returning home via Canada. They flew from Rome to Prague and then boarded the flight to Montreal the same day. Unfortunately, Canadian authorities were unaware that an American infected with a potentially deadly form of tuberculosis was on a plane to Montreal until the day after he landed.

The man proceeded to contact the CDC after arriving back in the United States, where he agreed to go into isolation in a New York hospital before he was transferred to Atlanta on a CDC plane.

This is unpalatable behaviour!

Granted, I think it is bad that something so serious was missed or not communicated amongst the airlines, but to me this is not the real issue. The real issue is - when did people stop taking responsibility for their own actions? It is not the airlines responsibility to keep this man from flying. He is a grown man. This man was told to not fly and did. This was a selfish act in what is becoming an "it's all about me" society, and it makes me sad. Instead of thinking of himself he should have been thinking about the children he may have infected or a senior citizen sitting near him whose immune system could have been low. He may survive this disease but others that encountered him may not. This man's actions and disregard for others may cost people their lives. It is a form of murder, similar to people who knowingly have HIV and do not tell the people they have intercourse with.

This incident makes me so angry that I would be speechless if I ever saw this man.

I have heard a rebuttal on the news that the man did not know it was "that bad". My response to this is simply bull. He blatantly avoided flying into the U.S because he knew he would have been stopped. He also contacted the CDC as soon as he returned, which means he knew he was carrying a serious disease and needed care. This is an open and shut case - guilty!!

I hope that the people who were on his flights have not been infected. As for everyone else, I hope the lesson reinstates in all our minds that you and you alone are responsible for your actions, as well as the consequences.