CDC Confirms Patient In Dallas Has Ebola Virus

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/07/21/visitor-from-africa-sent-to-bellevue-in-ebola-scare/

Visitor from Africa sent to Bellevue in Ebola scare
By Joe Tacopino
July 21, 2015 | 1:04am

Fire department hazmat crews decontaminate an EMS worker after transporting a fever response patient to Bellevue Hospital Monday.
Photo: Chad Rachman


A visitor from Africa was transported with a fever to Bellevue Hospital Monday to be evaluated for Ebola, officials said.

The person, who recently returned from Guinea, was taken by ambulance to Bellevue at about 6 p.m., according to the city’s Department of Health.

Although Guinea is one of the three main countries affected by the virus outbreak, the patient had no known exposure, the DOH said.

Last year, the city saw its first- ever confirmed case of the often fatal disease when Dr. Craig Spencer came down with it after returning from treating victims overseas. He, too, was treated at Bellevue.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...Airport-Detain-Federal-Lawsuit-335937771.html

Ebola Nurse Quarantined in NJ Sues Gov. Christie
Published 3 hours ago

The health care worker quarantined at a New Jersey hospital for several days last year because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa has filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Chris Christie and several New Jersey Department of Health officials, including the former commissioner, alleging the forced confinement violated her civil rights.

Kaci Hickox, a nurse who had been working with Idiot Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, which at one point was a hotspot of the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak, was detained at Newark Liberty International Airport upon arriving there Oct. 24, 2014 and then later held at University Hospital.

She spent the weekend in a quarantine tent in an "unheated parking garage" despite having no symptoms other than a slightly elevated temperature she blamed on being "flushed and upset" by her treatment at the airport and had threatened to sue at the time if she wasn't released.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Newark federal court alleges Christie, former New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Mary O'Dowd and other health officials violated Hickox's rights by depriving her of due process and unlawfully seizing, detaining and quarantining her while relying on fear rather than science to justify her confinement.

It seeks compensatory and punitive damages in the amount of at least $250,000 in addition to covering court costs and attorney fees.

“I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison,” Hickox, 34, said in a statement. “My liberty, my interests and consequently my civil rights were ignored because some ambitious governors saw an opportunity to use an age-old political tactic: fear.”

Hickox was the first person quarantined in the Garden State under a mandate Christie had issued the week before. The governor defended the quarantine, saying the move was to protect people in New Jersey. Gov. Cuomo in New York, where one doctor was successfully treated for the Ebola virus at Bellevue Hospital, had issued a similar quarantine order, which mandated a 21-day isolation and observation period for health care workers who treated patients in West Africa.

Both governors were sharply criticized for ordering the quarantines, which stepped beyond Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines calling for asymptomatic people returning from Ebola-stricken countries only to avoid public transportation and large gatherings.

Christie's office said it would not comment on the lawsuit because it is a pending legal matter, but pointed to comments the governor made in the past defending the quarantine. In one previous interview, he said his heart went out to Hickox but his "first and foremost obligation is to protect the public health and safety of the people of New Jersey."

The New Jersey Department of Health said it does not comment on pending litigation.

"The decision to quarantine anyone must be made based on science, not fear and politics," Udi Ofer, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, which joins Hickox in filing the lawsuit, said in a statement. "In holding Kaci Hickox, the governor and the former head of the Department of Health not only violated her basic constitutional rights, but they did so without any scientific foundation. Now, a year later, we are proud to help Kaci vindicate those rights."

Hickox slammed officials over the treatment she received, writing in a first-person account in the Dallas Morning News upon her release from the hospital that she encountered fear and disorganization when she arrived at the airport. She wrote that she was stopped and questioned over several hours and was left without food for an extended period.

No one would explain what was going on or what would happen to her, she said in the piece, which was written with the help of a Dallas Morning News staff writer.

At the time of her confinement, Doctors Without Borders had said in a statement that it was "very concerned about the conditions and uncertainty (Hickox) is facing."

"While measures to protect public health are of paramount importance, they must be balanced against the rights of health workers returning from fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to fair and reasonable treatment and the full disclosure of information to them, along with information about intended courses of action from local and state health authorities," the organization said.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/11/22/freaked-out-pharmacist-falsely-reported-woman-had-ebola-suit/

Freaked out pharmacist falsely reported woman had Ebola: suit
By Kathianne Boniello
November 22, 2015 | 3:01am

Rhonda Hutson was falsely accused of having Ebola after getting sick in a Brooklyn CVS.


A Brooklyn pharmacist terrified of Ebola called 911 to falsely report that a sick woman in her store had the deadly virus, according to a lawsuit.

Rhonda Hutson was feeling nauseous when she stopped into the CVS on Kings Highway to pick up medications last year. While inside the Marine Park store, Hutson vomited inside a bag — and was smacked with a paranoid response.

“For no reason, and without Hutson having requested it, the pharmacist . . . called EMS,” Hutson claims in a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit.

The druggist then “falsely” reported that Hutson told “her that she had recently traveled from Africa.”

Hutson, who hails from Barbados, “has lived in the United States for many years and has never set foot in Africa,” she says in court papers filed against CVS.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people. Four US health-care workers who’d traveled to and from the region got sick, sparking widespread fears the virus would soon spread to America.

But Hutson didn’t have Ebola. The 60-year-old au pair was simply reacting to new blood-pressure medication, she says.

“I had eaten not enough and the tablet was making my stomach crazy,” she told The Post. “The pharmacist asked if I wanted an ambulance, and I said no, because I knew what it was. Seven or eight minutes later, there were paramedics there, asking how long it had been since I was back from Africa. I was like, ‘Africa? I’m from Barbados, the Caribbean.’

“I wasn’t treated fairly . . . No one wanted to come near me, not even to give me a tissue,” she said.

The lies threw the store into a panic. The cashier refused to touch Hutson’s money, so she “gave Hutson her medications for free,” court papers said.

Hutson was eventually allowed to leave, said her lawyer, Robert Tolchin.

“But then she’s getting follow-up phone calls from the state, asking to monitor her condition,” he added.

The pharmacist also lied to the state Health Department, reporting Hutson as a potential Ebola case and repeating the claim that the woman had just traveled from Africa, Hutson charges.

“If a person in the street had this kind of reaction, you assume they’re an uneducated person and you can maybe understand it. But a pharmacist? They’re supposed to be trained,” Tolchin said.

Hutson is seeking unspecified damages for the incident.”

CVS did not comment. The pharmacist, who is not identified in the court papers, could not be reached.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/politics/Nurse-Quarantined-New-Jersey-Ebola-Scare-372201582.html

Ebola-Quarantined Nurse Wants to Keep Legal Fight Against Chris Christie, New Jersey Alive
Published 5 hours ago

A nurse who sued New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and state health officials after she was quarantined at a hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa is asking a judge not to throw out the lawsuit.

Attorneys for Kaci Hickox responded Tuesday to the government's attempt in January to have the federal civil rights lawsuit tossed.

Hickox's reply says her constitutional rights against unlawful seizure, unnecessary restraints and due process were violated.

State lawyers say health workers acted with public safety in mind when they had her quarantined.

Hickox was working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone during the deadly Ebola outbreak in 2014. She was stopped when she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport and questioned before being quarantined. She tested negative for Ebola and was later allowed to return home to Maine. She has since moved to Oregon.