HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

The quarantine placed on a patient with extensively drug-resistant TB who had eluded health officials could be challenged in court, say legal scholars who think the federal government's quarantine regulations are unconstitutional.

US health officials say they told Andrew Speaker not to fly from Europe back to the United States because he had been diagnosed with drug-resistant TB. US officials told Speaker to report to authorities in Rome, where he was on a honeymoon with his wife.

Speaker said he disregarded the US health instructions because he feared solitary confinement in Italy and being unable to access life-saving health care available only in the US.

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he federal quarantine order is the first invocation of the law since a 1963 order to isolate a smallpox patient, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC has requested changes in the law to make it easier to gain airline and ship passenger lists, and to provide an appeal process for a quarantined patient.

Speaker was quarantined under guard in New York City after entering the country, and at a hospital in Atlanta, where he lives. CDC issued the quarantine order using its administrative powers. A CDC official said Speaker retained the right to appeal the order but had not exercised it.

Georgetown University public health law expert Lawrence Gostin said the rights of a federally-quarantined person-- even the right to request a hearing-- are unclear, so the law could be open to potential litigation on constitutional grounds.

from the Associated Press