A June 8, 2007 item by Jacob Sullum on the blog of Reason magazine cites the (early and correct) reaction of ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan to the CDC's confusion over tuberculosis and patient Andrew Speaker:
If the likelihood of transmitting the disease was significant, the news that he had XDR TB should have affected his decision about whether to travel. But if the likelihood was essentially zero (as his father-in-law, a CDC tuberculosis expert, apparently thought), the updated diagnosis really needn't have figured in his decision, except to the extent that it made him anxious to fly home for treatment.
So far it looks like Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, was right in arguing that public health officials either underreacted at the beginning or overreacted later. Possibly they did both.
