Family of Swine Flu Victim Suing NYC
The family of the assistant principal who was New York City's first swine flu victim has filed court papers with the intention of suing the city and its health and education departments.
Mitchell Wiener's widow and three sons said in a notice of claim last week that they intend to file a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit. The notice claims the city was negligent in failing to quickly report the outbreak and failing to warn Weiner that he'd been exposed to the virus. It also claims the city didn't do its best to control the outbreak.
His wife, Bonnie Wiener, lashed out at city officials for not closing the school, when students were first diagnosed with swine flu.
"They can close because of snow, but not because of an illness that can be potentially deadly?" Mrs. Wiener said then.
Rest of the article here.
This sort of thing really annoys me. They say all NYC schools should have been closed the moment there's an outbreak, even if it's an outbreak of a common winter illness with a low deathrate. People die of flu all year round, but I don't think our society would be better off if there were no schools for parents to leave their children while they work. Sometimes people get sick and some of them die. It's sad, and it's a fact that we are increasingly able to ignore with our awesome medical technology, but it still happens.
Also, when people hear about something like SARS or swine flu, they do the math. They decide what risks they are personally willing to take, and then live with them (just as cities do in a more methodical way). If I had a trip to China planned during the SARS outbreak, I probably would have cancelled it. Ditto if I had been planning to go to Mexico back in April. But I wouldn't have been willing to live in a plastic bubble and wait for the end times, because that would have been a disproportionate loss for the risk present. This man and his family probably had the same thoughts, since it was known that swine flu was present at his school. They did the math and they lost out. Tragic, but there is no human being responsible for the fact that this man died. Even skilled disease management by a city or country does not guarantee that there will be no fatalities. It's not possible.
Also, $40 million? WTF.
Mitchell Wiener's widow and three sons said in a notice of claim last week that they intend to file a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit. The notice claims the city was negligent in failing to quickly report the outbreak and failing to warn Weiner that he'd been exposed to the virus. It also claims the city didn't do its best to control the outbreak.
His wife, Bonnie Wiener, lashed out at city officials for not closing the school, when students were first diagnosed with swine flu.
"They can close because of snow, but not because of an illness that can be potentially deadly?" Mrs. Wiener said then.
Rest of the article here.
This sort of thing really annoys me. They say all NYC schools should have been closed the moment there's an outbreak, even if it's an outbreak of a common winter illness with a low deathrate. People die of flu all year round, but I don't think our society would be better off if there were no schools for parents to leave their children while they work. Sometimes people get sick and some of them die. It's sad, and it's a fact that we are increasingly able to ignore with our awesome medical technology, but it still happens.
Also, when people hear about something like SARS or swine flu, they do the math. They decide what risks they are personally willing to take, and then live with them (just as cities do in a more methodical way). If I had a trip to China planned during the SARS outbreak, I probably would have cancelled it. Ditto if I had been planning to go to Mexico back in April. But I wouldn't have been willing to live in a plastic bubble and wait for the end times, because that would have been a disproportionate loss for the risk present. This man and his family probably had the same thoughts, since it was known that swine flu was present at his school. They did the math and they lost out. Tragic, but there is no human being responsible for the fact that this man died. Even skilled disease management by a city or country does not guarantee that there will be no fatalities. It's not possible.
Also, $40 million? WTF.