Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:02:14.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Detention and the Evolving Threat of Tuberculosis: Evidence, Ethics, and Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Richard Coker ,
Marianna Thomas ,
Karen Lock  and
Robyn Martin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The issue of detention as a tuberculosis control measure has resurfaced following the prolonged detention of a patient with an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis in a prison cell in Arizona, and the attempted detention in Italy and subsequent detention in Atlanta, Georgia of an American sufferer thought to have XDR-TB in May 2007. These cases have reignited the debate over the evidence that supports detention policy in the control of tuberculosis, and its associated legal and ethical ramifications. This paper considers whether involuntary detention is justified where voluntary measures have failed or where a patient poses a danger, albeit uncertain, to the public, and discusses the need for strengthening evidencebased assessments of public health risk.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Winter 2007 , pp. 609 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Kahn, C., “Man with Drug-Resistant TB Locked Up,” USA Today, April 12, 2007.Google Scholar
Altman, L., “TB Patient Is Isolated After Taking Two Flights,” New York Times, May 30, 2007.Google Scholar
World Health Organization, Tuberculosis Facts, 2007.Google Scholar
XDR-TB is defined as resistance to rifampicin and isoniazid, in addition to any fluoroquinolone, and to at least one of the three following injectable drugs used in anti-TB treatment: Capreomycin, kanamycin, and amikacin. World Health Organization, “Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB): Recommendations for Prevention and Control,” The Weekly Epidemiological Record 81, no. 45 (2006): 430–32.Google Scholar
MDR-TB is defined as resistance to rifampicin and isoniazid with or without drug resistance to other anti-tuberculosis drugs.Google Scholar
Coker, R. J., “Review: Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis: Public Health Challenges,” Tropical Medicine and International Health 9, no. 1 (2004): 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Centers for Disease Control, “Emergence of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis with Extensive Resistance to Second-Line Drugs - Worldwide, 2000–2004,” MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 55, no. 11 (2006): 301–5; Gandhi, N. R. Moll, A. Sturm, A. W. Pawinski, R. Govender, T. Lalloo, U. Zeller, K. Andrews, J. Friedland, G., “Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis as a Cause of Death in Patients Co-Infected with Tuberculosis and HIV in a Rural Area of South Africa,” The Lancet 368, no. 9547 (2006): 1575–80.Google Scholar
Id. (Ghandi, et al. )Google Scholar
Singh, J. A. Upshur, R. Padayatchi, N., “XDR-TB in South Africa: No Time for Denial or Complacency,” PLoS Medicine 41, no. 1 (2007): e50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization, Report of the Meeting of the WHO Global Task Force on XDR-TB, Geneva, 2006.Google Scholar
Position statement by the South African Medical Research Council, Detention of Patients with Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB), South African Medical Research Council, January 30, 2007.Google Scholar
Coker, R. J. Mounier-Jack, S. Martin, R., “Public Health Law and Tuberculosis Control in Europe,” Public Health 121, no. 4 (2007): 266–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Coker, R. J., “The Law, Human Rights, and the Detention of Individuals with Tuberculosis in England and Wales,” Journal of Public Health Medicine 22, no. 3 (2000): 263–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coker, R., “Communicable Disease Control and Contemporary Themes in Public Health Law,” Public Health 120, Supplement (2006): 23–8, at discussion 28–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, R., “The Exercise of Public Health Powers in Cases of Infectious Disease: Human Rights Implications,” Medical Law Review 14, no. 1 (2006): 132–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coker, R., “Civil Liberties and Public Good: Detention of Tuberculous Patients and the Public Health Act 1984,” Medical History 45, no. 3 (2001): 341–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Singh, et al. , supra note 9.Google Scholar
Coker, R. J., From Chaos to Coercion: Detention and the Control of Tuberculosis (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000); Gostin, L. O., “Controlling the Resurgent Tuberculosis Epidemic: A 50-State Survey of TB Statutes and Proposals for Reform,” JAMA 269, no. 2 (1993): 255–61; and Gostin, L. O., Public Health Powers: The Imminence of Radical Change, paper presented at the conference proceedings, New York City, December 4–5, 1992, at 268–90.Google Scholar
See Singh, et al. , supra note 9.Google Scholar
United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1985; Gostin, L., Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Coker, R. J., “Public Health Impact of Detention of Individuals with Tuberculosis: Systematic Literature Review,” Public Health 117, no. 4 (2003): 281–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coker, R. J., “The Law, Human Rights, and the Detention of Individuals with Tuberculosis in England and Wales,” Journal of Public Health Medicine 22, no. 3 (2000): 263–67; see Gostin, , supra note 22; Pinet, G., Good Practice in Legislation and Regulations for TB control: An Indicator of Political Will, World Health Organization, Geneva, May 2001.Google Scholar
Coker, R., “Just Coercion? Detention of Nonadherent Tuberculosis Patients,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 953 (2001): 216–23; Coker, R., “Tuberculosis, Non-Compliance and Detention for the Public Health,” Journal of Medical Ethics 26, no. 3 (2000): 157–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkowitz, K. A., “How Contagious Is Tuberculosis?” Clinical Infectious Diseases 23, no. 5 (1996): 954–62; Behr, M. A. Warren, S. A. Salamon, H. Hopewell, P. C. de Leon, A. P. Daley, C. L. Small, P. M., “Transmission of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis from Patients Smear-Negative for Acid-Fast Bacilli,” The Lancet 353, no. 9151 (1999): 444–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Coker, , supra note 20; Coker, , supra note 23.Google Scholar
Heald, C., “What Future for Expert Witnesses?” BBC News Web site, July 13, 2005, available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4637687.stm> (last visited September 11, 2007).+(last+visited+September+11,+2007).>Google Scholar
See Coker, , supra note 16; Coker, , supra note 23.Google Scholar
Asch, S. Leake, B. Anderson, R. Gelberg, L. “Why Do Symptomatic Patients Delay Obtaining Care for Tuberculosis?” American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 157 (1998): 1244–8; Asch, S. Leake, B. Gelberg, L., “Does Fear of Immigration Authorities Deter Tuberculosis Patients from Seeking Care,” Western Journal of Medicine 161, no. 4 (1994): 373–76; Heymann, S. J. Sell, R. Brewer, T. F., “The Influence of Program Acceptability on the Effectiveness of Public Health Policy: A Study of Directly Observed Therapy for Tuberculosis,” American Journal of Public Health 88, no. 33 (1998): 442–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verma, G. Upshur, R. E. Rea, E. Benatar, S. R., “Critical Reflections on Evidence, Ethics and Effectiveness in the Management of Tuberculosis: Public Health and Global Perspectives,” BMC Medical Ethics 5, no. 2 (2004): E2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sontag, S., Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors (New York: Anchor Books, 1990).Google Scholar
See Coker, , supra note 16; Coker, , supra note 20; Coker, , supra note 23.Google Scholar
Coker, R., “Tuberculosis, Non-Compliance and Detention for the Public Health,” Journal of Medical Ethics 26, no. 3 (2000): 157–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gasner, M. R. Maw, K. L. Feldman, G. E. Fujiwara, P. I. Frieden, T. R., “The Use of Legal Action in New York City to Ensure Treatment of Tuberculosis,” New England Journal of Medicine 340, no. 5 (1999): 359–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, M. J. Reich, M. R., “Ethical Analysis in Public Health,” The Lancet 55, no. 359 (2002): 1055–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar