HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:
Guest Access | Sign In via User Name/Password

This Article Full Text Free Full Text (PDF) Free Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My Personal Article Archive Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (7) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Lerner, B. H. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Lerner, B. H.

Catching Patients: Tuberculosis and Detention in the 1990s^*

^* From the Center for the Study of Society & Medicine, Department of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY.

The resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) in the early 1990s, including multidrug-resistant strains, led health officials to recommend the use of involuntary detention for persistently nonadherent patients. Using a series of recently published articles on the subject, this paper offers some opinions on how detention programs have balanced protection of the public's health with patients' civil liberties. Detained persons are more likely than other TB patients to come from socially disadvantaged groups. Health departments have generally used coercion appropriately, detaining patients as a last resort and providing them with due process. Yet health officials still retain great authority to bypass "least restrictive alternatives" in certain cases and to detain noninfectious patients for months or years. Misbehavior within institutions may inappropriately be used as a marker of future nonadherence with medications. As rates of TB and attention to the disease again decline, forcible confinement of sick patients should be reserved for those persons who truly threaten the public's health.

Key Words: communicable disease control/legislation and jurisprudence • homelessness • medical ethics • patient compliance • public health administration • quarantine • socioeconomic factors • tuberculosis/prevention and control

This article has been cited by other articles:

				H. S. Chung and J. H. Lee Bronchoscopic Assessment of the Evolution of Endobronchial Tuberculosis Chest, February 1, 2000; 117(2): 385 - 392. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. H. Lerner, D. J. Rothman, M. J. Tracy, M. R. Gasner, T. R. Frieden, and P. I. Fujiwara Legal Action to Ensure Treatment of Tuberculosis N. Engl. J. Med., July 8, 1999; 341(2): 130 - 131. [Full Text]