Florida Accused of Concealing Worst Tuberculosis Outbreak In 20 Years 409
NotSanguine writes "The state of Florida has been struggling for months with what the Centers for Disease Control describe as the worst tuberculosis outbreak in the United States in twenty years. Although a CDC report went out to state health officials in April encouraging them to take concerted action, the warning went largely unnoticed and nothing has been done. The public did not even learn of the outbreak until June, after a man with an active case of TB was spotted in a Jacksonville soup kitchen. The Palm Beach Post has managed to obtain records on the outbreak and the CDC report, though only after weeks of repeated requests. These documents should have been freely available under Florida's Sunshine Law."
Re:I'm going to overlook a large portion of your b (Score:5, Interesting)
The case could be made that a 'massive power grab' is a hell of a lot better than no health care at all.
Mind you I'm from Australia. Needed 2 stitches recently, went in, showed my Medicare card, got the stitches and walked out end of story.
Too easy.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, this article [palmbeachpost.com] indicates 11 people were quarantined in Florida under court order last year to treat TB. If the people involved are willing to self quarantine at home and take the meds its preferred to not quarantine because its very expensive and punishing to people who are victims, not perpetrators of anything. In this case the outbreak was a worst case scenario because it was among homeless people, the first case being a schizophrenic, who can't self quarantine, can't get good health care, and about whom most people could care less.
A problem seems to be the Republicans who control Florida closed the hospital where TB cases were quarantined. They've apparently been putting the infected homeless in motels as an alternative which isn't the greatest idea since they will come in contact with a lot of people, but it is less bad than homeless shelters and wandering the streets. They are trying to send nurses around to make them take the antibiotics, so it helps they are in a fixed location, but still.
Duval County is historically Republican, though its pretty evenly divided now. Florida has been under Republican governors since 1999, The legislature has been Republican dominated since the mid 90's.
Its incredibly pointless sit here and play our stupid partisan game on this issue, but if any party is to blame it would probably be the Republicans.
To be honest /. discourse in particular, and in America in general, is getting so sickening its getting hard to read, and the posts tonight just reaffirms. A very sad and disturbing crisis turns in to another round of shrill partisan trolling and you, jmorris, always seem to be the right wing ring leader kicking it off. There are some left wing ring leader that don't particularly help but they pale in comparison to you.
It would probably be better if we all stopped being Democrats and Republicans, and started being Americans, and start working on ways to fix our inceasingly screwed up country. In particular our government is going broke at all levels, large numbers of our fellow citizens are going broke, we can't seem to provide even basic services that most would take for granted in the world's supposedly richest and most powerful country, a very small number people are getting fabulously wealthy and most of them apparently could care less if their country is unraveling around them as long as life in the gated communities is still good.
Not the only outbreak. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tuberculosis isn't the only disease making a comeback this year. Pertussis is also coming back.
Across the United States, 8,159 provisional pertussis cases have been reported to the CDC as of May 5, 2012, representing an 87 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2011. Pertussis cases reached epidemic levels in Washington state this year, and cases are trending high in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
From MarketWatch [marketwatch.com].
So fear not. If you've been coughing for weeks, it may only be whooping cough, which does little or no damage to your lungs, instead of tuberculosis, which can do major damage to your lungs.
Also, if you're coughing, do your best to get into a meeting with your CEO/CTO/CFO/VP/etc. Really, any major corporate officer will do. Biological warfare is a fine answer to class warfare.
Re:I'm going to overlook a large portion of your b (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the easiest way to fix the problem would be to drop the employer health insurance tax credit, strike down the interstate barriers to health insurance(Oddly enough, a power the commerce clause was actually meant to have), give a 3 year amnesty to move to a private health insurance plan with the health care providers unable to say no, force hospitals to itemize their bills and have price lists available for non-emergency care, and have the feds take care of the less than 10% of people who health insurance won't insure at all.
Republicans: now in Rich flavor (Score:4, Interesting)
That is the poor Republican response. The rich Republican response is: Fuck em, they are the poor and probably brown people to boot.
Re:Not the only outbreak. (Score:3, Interesting)
when the rich change the laws so they stay rich, you have class warfare
you then see violence because the poor and middle class have no legal means to get the fair share that was stolen from them by the rich
now watch republican initiatives on tax cuts and corporate welfare and their support for rent seeking parasites (health insurers) that add nothing to society, and, in the case of health insurers, actually make money while the middle class dies. that it isn't a guy with a gun or a club doesn't mean there isn't a war, and it wasn't started by the poor and middle class
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Interesting)