The failure of the U.S. health system to provide tests for those who need them goes back to the anthrax attacks in 2001 and the Swine Flu epidemic of 2009 in the “exceptional nation.”

By Joe Lauria

Special to Consortium News

The inability of the U.S. healthcare system to provide tests for its citizens at risk of an epidemic, or even a terrorist attack, is unfortunately not a recent phenomenon.

I was present at an Oct. 18, 2001 press conference with then New York Governor George Pataki at the governor’s Manhattan office. It occurred during the anthrax attacks that followed Sept. 11. Shortly after the press conference ended, word went out that anthrax was found at the office and that those present should be tested.

An 800 number was given to call. After 25 frustrating minutes on hold a doctor answered and told me, “Don’t worry about it. We can’t test you.” I was incensed. Why were those present told to be tested?

“Just forget it,” he said. And then he hung up.

It turned out that New York police, investigating anthrax at other sites in the city, had inadvertently brought anthrax spores into Pataki’s office. Only some of his staff there were tested. All were negative.

But it was a rude awakening. What the government and media report about a situation, creating a sense that government has things under control, may be very far from the truth when you are personally confronted by it.

Then in May 2009, I had traveled back to New York through Chicago’s O’Hare airport, which was said then to be a hot spot for the Swine Flu. Two days after arriving back in New York I developed a late-season, serious flu. It was on the very day President Barack Obama declared a public health emergency. So I tried to get tested for the Swine Flu. This is what happened, as I related in a piece for The Wall Street Journal.

Reporter Tries to Get Tested for Swine Flu

By Joe Lauria

It had been 10 years since I had the flu. But over the past week, I spent four days in isolation at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center after contracting a serious case. I came down with the virus after being stuck for hours at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, which sees more than two dozen flights a day from Mexico.