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."
Florida TB hospital closed too (Score:5, Informative)
Florida just closed down it's only state hospital specializing in tuberculosis cases on July 2nd. Bad timing.
Report: Fla closed TB hospital as cases spiked [miamiherald.com]
Re:Florida TB hospital closed too (Score:4, Insightful)
Suddenly, the coverup makes sense.
Someone decided that they could save the budget by slashing a necessary public service.
The need for said public service arose, which would be massively embarrassing.
Solution: Ignore the problem and hope it goes away on its own.
Re:Florida TB hospital closed too (Score:5, Insightful)
Florida just closed down it's only state hospital specializing in tuberculosis cases on July 2nd. Bad timing.
Timing had nothing to do with it. It was politics. That's the problem with cutting back on social programs: They stabilize the quality of life for the general population. Take them away, and they're now subject to the random, chaotic, and violent twists of unbridled capitalism. And combine poor economic conditions with an outbreak of plague... and if you don't have any social support programs, well... grab a mirror so you can properly bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
It's the same thing with unemployment insurance and food stamps, and other forms of economic assistance; During times of economic prosperity, these services go largely unused, so they can stockpile funding for periods of economic downturn, and in so doing, moderate the highs and lows inherent in a capitalist system. What's even stupider about this: All the social programs, health care, welfare, unemployment insurance... all of it, would be amply funded without costing a single taxpayer dollar if during those aforementioned periods of economic prosperity, the unused funding for those programs was diverted into investments. Spain has a robust social security program; Every person in the country is guaranteed social security. You know how much they pay into the system for that? Nothing. Nodda.
Short term thinking, people. It'll fuck you every time.
Re:Florida TB hospital closed too (Score:4, Insightful)
In the mean time some of these chronic dependents and their lists of ailments will enjoy less state funded coddling â" we can't afford to indulge every fool that can't function without having his hand held by an army of social workers.
This whole story is just the CDC and the state funded medical industry resisting the necessary cuts. They've managed to trump up a 'health crisis' story using a single lunger and some FUD about the closing of one of a plethora of state funded facilities.
You know, I spent ten years of my life, first as a military medic and then as a civilian EMT, taking care of people like you. Well, no, not actually people like you; most of them were decent human beings. But I took care of the ones who weren't, too. Hell, I took care of the ones who had just been trying to kill me. And I never once let my personal feelings get in the way of the care I delivered. No one ever died on my watch without me doing my damndest to prevent it from happening, even if the person doing the dying was the worst asshole to ever walk the Earth.
And I have to say, in your case I'd be tempted to make an exception. Oh, I probably wouldn't, you understand, because just like most of my patients, I'm a decent human being. But I'd seriously consider it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And I have to say, in your case I'd be tempted to make an exception.
Why? Because you disagree with him? The original story BTW was a slam. I don't agree on motives, but it's pretty clear that the author of the piece was using it both as a hit piece on the Republican party while simultaneously putting a word in for a little socialized medicine, the state-funded hospital which specialized in treating TB cases. In other words, a caricature of human thought.
Digging around in the original story [palmbeachpost.com], I came across this interesting tidbit:
It was early February when Duval County Health Department officials felt so overwhelmed by the sudden spike in tuberculosis that they asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become involved. Believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision not to not tell the public, repeating a decision they had made in 2008, when the same strain had appeared in an assisted living home for people with schizophrenia.
âoeWhat you donâ(TM)t want is for anyone to have another reason why people should turn their backs on the homeless,â said Charles Griggs, the public information officer for the Duval County Health Department.
In other words, the outbreak allegedly was
Re: (Score:3)
Spain has a robust social security program
Spain is also a fucked up mess. They've spent decades feathering their public services nest and now they're busted. They will spend generations wallowing in servitude to their creditors while public services get cut and cut again.
Spain is a fucked up mess, because of the same reasons the USA is a fucked up mess: A house building bubble. Spanish people got obscene credits (longer than 50 years sometimes) for financing their homes. Most people looked for work in construction as it was booming like hell. The bubble burst and the economy went belly-up.
It has nothing (or close to nothing) to do with public services.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Before greece fucked everything up and started making everybody panic about the euro, spain actually had a very responsible attitude to debt. They were one of very few countries obeying the eurozone rules on quantities of debt, keeping total debt below the set percentage of GDP. They were living within their means, paying only what they could afford to spend.
What got them was the economy of the entire continent flipping out, and having an economy built heavily on tourism, which relies on the rest of the eur
Re:Florida TB hospital closed too (Score:4, Funny)
Spain also has 24% unemployment and is desperately trying to stave off financial collapse. This is the model you want us to follow?
My house is painted muave, and the war on Iraq cost us trillions. Therefore, we should ban the color purple.
Editorial Review: An Introductory Guide (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Editors and NotSanguine,
When you copy and paste an entire paragraph from a linked source without actually citing that source as the author of said material, you're committing plagiarism. NotSanguine did not write this blurb; Muriel Kane of Raw Story did.
Respect authorship.
Re:Editorial Review: An Introductory Guide (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, if you quote an article you should put quotation marks around the text and link to the original source. Wait...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear Editors and NotSanguine,
When you copy and paste an entire paragraph from a linked source without actually citing that source as the author of said material, you're committing plagiarism. NotSanguine did not write this blurb; Muriel Kane of Raw Story did.
Respect authorship.
Funny how slashdot is up in arms over plagiarism and yet thinks (generally speaking) that pirating copyrighted material is for the common good.
Re: (Score:3)
Funny how slashdot is up in arms over plagiarism and yet thinks (generally speaking) that pirating copyrighted material is for the common good.
Generally speaking, sweeping generalizations are always wrong. Every time a story shows up here touching on the issue, a very lively debate takes place between the Imaginary Property Maximalists and the Freetards. Those precious few such as myself who preach boycotts instead struggle to make ourselves heard.
You're painting with way too wide a brush.
Re:Editorial Review: An Introductory Guide (Score:5, Informative)
It's somewhat pedantic, I know, but I work in education and this is something that far, far too many people a) don't get, b) don't care about, and c) don't appreciate its importance. When making a direct quote, you need to do more than simply drop a hyperlink to an original source to avoid plagiarizing your sources; you need to also name the original author.
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph. Make a habit of giving proper credit where it's due, especially if you do a lot of writing. It's easy to do and gives proper credit and respect to the person who took the time to write the words you're using.
Yes, I have better things to do. No, I have no plans to try to sic Ms. Kane's lawyers on you. To be frank, there's a reason the editors were listed first there: it's their job to know this kind of thing inside out as a matter of professional competence, whereas you're just Random Person On The Internet. Still, it's important, and something worth knowing. That's worth at least a mention, yeah?
Re: (Score:3)
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph.
Slashdot's style is to credit the submitter, not the actual writer. This is is wrong, but they won't change.
Much worse than this is the increasing tendency to cite and link not the original source, but some plagiarising asshole who copied the story from a real publication, and put it on their spammy blog, and submitted that to Slashdot for the ad hits. Not only is it stealing the story, they often misrepresent or sensationalise it to make it more dramatic.
For example, yesterday: Paul Vixie On DNS Change [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
That said, this is not a term paper, a newspaper piece or a scholarly article. It's a post on a news aggregation and discussion site.
Even if you're just writing a comment on a discussion site, if you copy and paste some text, you should quote it. It only takes a second, aids to clear communication, and is respectful.
Of course, Florida! (Score:2)
worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate relative terms when there is no indication as to what the term is relative to. For example, if the second worst outbreak in the last 20 years involved 80 people then this one could be the worst and involve 99 people.
What I would rather see is how important is this outbreak. The fact that it is the worst in 20 years does not mean that it is something to be concerned with. The questions to ask are as follows;
1. How much of the population is at risk?
2. Would spreading the information cause more harm than good. Will the populous be more frightened that necessary.
The 13 death tole can be misleading too. Are most of the deaths in people who live on the streets, avoid contact with health facilities and have compromised immune systems. I am not saying to ignore them but health warnings would not help as they would be ignored.
Re:worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years (Score:5, Informative)
As far as population goes, tuberculosis is VERY transmissible. It doesn't usually get very far in most people, due to decent nutrition and health care, but it could. It's never good to have a very communicable disease like that hanging around waiting for something to allow it to catch on to the big leagues. Most people fend it off, but some people in poor health can succumb to it pretty easily. Anyone with a compromised immune system, poor nutrition, or just plain fighting off other diseases at the same time. It generally affects the lungs and the main problem is that when the disease is cleared from an area by the immune system, that area is replaced by scar tissue. This reduces lung capacity quite a bit. Also, it can spread to other parts of the body, and do the same thing. About 1 in 10 people who are exposed and infected progress to an active and obvious infection. The rest spread it silently. See the problem? It isn't immediately obvious or even noticeable..so the real elephant in the room is, how many more people have it than just the people that died?
Re:worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years (Score:5, Informative)
20 years ago we had drugs to treat TB. Now it's becoming resistant to all those drugs. When people are affected by multiple-drug resistant TB, they can't be treated, and they usually die. That's why it's a big deal.
99 illnesses is a lot. 13 deaths is a lot.
The main targets for TB are the homeless, people with AIDS, and people in prison. It can also affect newborns, and people being treated for cancer or autoimmune diseases (who can get infected in hospitals). The US is a tinderbox. We have people flying around the country on airplanes. We have illegal immigrants who aren't eligible for health care (and are afraid of the authorities besides). It could spread across the country, killing off large numbers of people in those groups.
Re:worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years (Score:4, Informative)
The numbers are not important. What's important is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) strains. MDR strains are difficult to treat. Some doctors say that XDR strains can be treated with great difficulty and expense, but I've read of cases of XDR that doctors couldn't treat at all.
Here's where I get my information from:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0908076 [nejm.org]
Review Article
Current Concepts
MDR Tuberculosis — Critical Steps for Prevention and Control
Eva Nathanson, M.Sc., Paul Nunn, F.R.C.P., Mukund Uplekar, M.D., Katherine Floyd, Ph.D., Ernesto Jaramillo, M.D., Ph.D., Knut Lönnroth, M.D., Ph.D., Diana Weil, M.Sc., and Mario Raviglione, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2010; 363:1050-1058
September 9, 2010
Actually, we've had people flying in aircraft for years, and that caused major outbreaks of many infectious diseases. AIDS Patient Zero, don't forget, was an airline steward. SARS was spread by airline passengers. Like a lot of infectious diseases, SARS went from zero to 900 deaths very quickly. (The movie Contagion was pretty accurate, according to the reviews in the science magazines.) People are flying into the US every day from third world countries, and a lot of them have MDR and XDR TB. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1005750 [nejm.org]
As the NEJM says, the only way to deal with MDR and XDR strains is prevention. It's difficult (sometimes impossible) and expensive to treat MDR and XDR. Patients don't like to take the drugs for good reason -- isoniazid and rifamycin have serious and sometimes dangerous side effects, particularly liver damage, which is dangerous for patients with HCV or alcoholism. Many of them have latent disease, which means they feel OK but are transmitting TB. They don't want to take a drug for 6 months that makes them sick.
Science magazine had even more pessimistic articles about XDR. They sent a reporter to the former USSR, where they have no functioning health system and herd TB patients, AIDS patients, and drug addicts into the world's largest prison system (the largest after ours). They had XDR patients they couldn't treat even when they had the drugs.
The problem with Florida is that the Republican governor and legislature just closed down the very hospital they need to treat TB at a time when XDR is emerging as a real threat. They're privatizing health care, like the Russians and Chinese did (with disastrous results, and their antibiotic-resistant infections are threatening us). According to TFA, they're putting up TB patients in motels!
And you can't just treat people for their TB, you have to provide comprehensive health care. Which the Republicans are also cutting back.
This country is spending more money to fight Hollywood-fantasy bioweapons attacks than we're spending to fight real, documented, extremely dangerous diseases. There was a new bioweapons "sniffer" that cost I think $100 million, and turned out to be useless because of its false alarms. Who needs Al Qaeda when you've got the Republicans?
Re: (Score:3)
"Well, American educational system in action. Someone on one side of country farted, half country in another are affraid to sleep."
Great example! (no articles; missing preposition; "affraid").
Vaccination? (Score:2)
Re:Vaccination? (Score:4, Informative)
The vaccine doesn't give 100% protection and it also causes a positive reaction to the skin test for TB, so it makes it harder to detect cases of latent TB.
FUCK MY LIFE (Score:2)
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:Not the only outbreak. (Score:5, Insightful)
One cannot mention pertussis without also mentioning the Jenny McCarthy Body Count [jennymccar...ycount.com]. (Also valid for diphtheria, measles, etc, etc.)
Re: (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 i
Srsly (Score:3, Funny)
Fuck Florida.
Let them all die off as a result of their stupidity.
Only in USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like something out of the 3rd world (Score:5, Insightful)
A TB outbreak is an emergency. No making immediately sure all affected are treated is just stupid. In the modern wold, nobody messes with this stuff. People that refuse treatment or do not take their medication go to closed hospital wards within a few days, and that does not require a court order initially.
Mess with TB, and what you get is resistant strains that often cannot be cured anymore and people will start dying. This is one area where saving money initially is very, very expensive.
Natural disease cycle (Score:3)
Hey republicans claim global warming is part of a natural cycle. So why can't this TB outbreak be part of a natural cycle too? I mean we just had the hottest year on record ever, while this TB thing is just a 20 year max? Just asking.
One Word (Score:3)
Republicans.
I'm going to overlook a large portion of your bias (Score:5, Informative)
And, I'll also throw this in there: homeless people and the poor often are not as likely to be diagnosed, and, due to this and other reasons, aren't as likely to receive treatment. Oh, and take your ObamaCare issues somewhere where people give a shit about offtopic things like that.
Re:I'm going to overlook a large portion of your b (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently just about every one of our southern states is racing toward third world status just as fast as they can and you think giving them more power is a good idea? You don't have states like Mississipi and South Carolina in Canada.
Re:I'm going to overlook a large portion of your b (Score:5, Insightful)
Quebec contributes significantly to the country.
Quebec would have to declare bankruptcy though, but that's not an indication of the productive output of the province, but of rampant government corruption and mismanagement, across both the Quebec LIberals and PQ.
How is it that the most taxed jurisdiction in North America has to deal with massive social unrest due to hiking a heavily subsidized tuition?
I'm a quebecker, it makes no sense...
Re: (Score:3)
Currently just about every one of our southern states is racing toward third world status just as fast as they can
Is that why all the jobs are moving here? Is that why we're getting all the business investment in new factories?Is that why Texas is the number one state in business growth? Is that why Apple just expanded in Texas? Is that why Airbus is building a factory to produce A319 airliners in Alabama? Is that why Austal is building Littoral Combat Ships there for the Navy? Or why Thyssenkrupp is building a steel plant there? Have you noticed all of the auto plant construction in the South in the past two decades? Ever been to the huge shipyards in Mississippi? The aircraft plants in Georgia? The South is racing towards "Third World Status"? Try California. You know, the progressive model for America that's 3 billion in the hole, but is racing ahead to build a bullet train to nowhere at a commitment of $100 billion. The same California where jobs and people are leaving at a steady clip. You keep your progressive paradise. We'll keep taking the jobs, thanks.
Yes, yes it is. Getting FoxConn to move in because you've dropped your regulations below China's is pretty much the definition of regressive. I know it's hard to remember, but Nixon, a staunch conservative, enacted the EPA. Stripping it of power and allowing wanton destruction of the environment in the name of getting "more jobs", along with removing any concept of worker or consumer protections, will get you business, it's true... until the area is stripped bare, everyone is in severe poverty while work
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:I'm going to overlook a large portion of your b (Score:5, Informative)
You're completely delusional. My relatives in Ireland, England, and Australia have much better healthcare than we have here in the US. They don't have to waste ages filling out forms; they just get care because they are citizens. And you know what? They pay less for their healthcare than we do.
Yes, you heard that right: we pay as much in taxes for Medicare & Medicaid as they do for universal healthcare. Plus, on top of medicare/medicaid, we also pay private insurance. Here's a breakdown of how we pay through the nose for our stupid healthcare system.
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/oecd042111.cfm [kff.org]
We should stop paying private companies and make Medicare universal. There's no reason healthcare in the US should be so miserable. If you still want a private plan, great, but stop making me pay twice what my cousins pay.
Oh, and by the way, Australia is not a depressed economy. And no, doctors don't consider quitting over "Obamacare". Creating a phony survey isn't the same as actually doing real work:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/10/comically-awful-survey-says-83-percent-of-docto/187029 [mediamatters.org]
Bullshit alert: 83% of doctors (Score:5, Informative)
83% of doctors have considered quitting over obamacare.
That story about 83% of doctors threatening to quit under Obamacare is bullshit.
Slate had a nice story about it. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/07/09/about_that_83_percent_of_doctors_hate_obamacare_so_much_they_might_quit_poll.html [slate.com]
About That "83 Percent of Doctors Hate Obamacare So Much, They Might Quit" Poll
By David Weigel
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012, at 5:12 PM ET
"Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association."
What is the "Doctor Patient Medical Association"? Short answer: A bunch of right-wing Republican wackos, like Kathryn Serkes and Mark Schiller, who previously claimed Obamacare would kill off elderly sick people.
"The survey was conducted by fax and online from April 18 to May 22, 2012. DPMAF obtained the office fax numbers of 36,000 doctors in active clinical practice, and 16, 227 faxes were successfully delivered... The response rate was 4.3% for a total of 699 completed surveys."
Translation: 83% of 4.3% said they considered leaving under Obamacare. That's 3.6% of those polled.
But most people who have taken a college statistics course would throw a survey with a 4.3% response rate in the shredder.
They "considered" leaving medicine. What were they leaving medicine for? Real estate sales? Financial planning? Opening a restaurant? There aren't too many other occupations that can bring in a doctor's salary in the US. Doctors are always threatening to leave, but few do.
Re: (Score:3)
If you mean this Canada Health Act [justice.gc.ca] then no it does not fit on a 8"x11" sheet of paper. Also the Canada Health Act grew out of provincial plans for universal health care. There are no equivalent plans in the US. There are no state health care acts that require every citizen to pay premiums for health care as there were in some provinces in Canada. The Canada Health Act defines what must be done by the provinces and the provinces implement it. It is this way because the British North America Act 1867 stipulat
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.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure this would work in the U.S. After all, this whole article is about my state closing down a TB hospital and suppressing evidence of the reasonably expected consequences having occurred. There's really no reason to expect our wonderful governor would have done anything different if he'd been given a federal mandate.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
But don't worry, this is all the evil Republican's fault. ObamaCare^WTax will fix all these problems.
if only. Medical care can only provide you care if you get it. If you refuse to go to the doctor, or if you refuse to get vaccines or refuse antibiotics TB is going to do bad things to you.
This is compounded by the nature of TB in the west in in general. It's sufficiently rare that most people only get vaccinated for it when they're young, and don't get boosted, the vaccine does make it hard to test for exposure to the actual disease.
I think there's probably some legitimate blame on the US health system,
But of course (Score:5, Informative)
Of course it's all Obama's fault. Even though Rick Scott(R) closed the last TB hospital 3 months after a report from the freaking CDC came out detailing the outbreak. [huffingtonpost.com]
But hey! Don't let the facts get in the way of your Fox news deluded rant.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Governor of Florida, where the TB outbreak was kept secret in violation of the law is a Republican , you fucking moron...
Like most Republican politicians, Florida's governor is a secretive, ignorant, corrupt waste of humanity.
Your pathetic attempt at blaming this failure of Florida's state government on President Obama is both funny and stupid, which we all know is a hallmark of the Republican party.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Informative)
But don't worry, this is all the evil Republican's fault.
One of the reasons I abandoned the Republican party was because they could never face up to their own failures or take responsibilities for their mistakes.
Think about that when you're standing next to the coughing homeless person at the train station or one of your kids gets diagnosed with antibiotic resistant TB. It would serve you right for sticking up for governor Penis Head.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the reasons I abandoned the Republican party was because they could never face up to their own failures or take responsibilities for their mistakes
I don't think those are failures and mistakes. The Republican political philosophy is that "the proper role of government is to help the rich get richer". They rarely fail or make mistakes on that particular topic. Poor people starving or dying because they can't afford medical treatment isn't a problem for them.
They just can't come out and say what they really stand for, or they'd never win an election.
And they certainly aren't going to admit that their party's actual name is Government Of the People(, By the Rich, For the Rich).
Re: (Score:3)
"Think about that when you're standing next to the coughing homeless person at the train station or one of your kids gets diagnosed with antibiotic resistant TB."
Conveniently, Republicans hate trains.
Political Correctness???? (Score:5, Informative)
Whos the governor of florida? Republican Rick Scott
Which party controls both the florida house and florida senate...Republicans
Who voted to defund the TB hospital in Florida...Republican state legislators
Which governor said he would not accept federal "Obamacare" funding to expend medicaid which provides TB medication ....Republican Rick Scott.
Re:Political Correctness???? (Score:5, Funny)
Whos the governor of florida? Republican Rick Scott
Which party controls both the florida house and florida senate...Republicans
Who voted to defund the TB hospital in Florida...Republican state legislators
Which governor said he would not accept federal "Obamacare" funding to expend medicaid which provides TB medication ....Republican Rick Scott.
See, just like he said: it's all the Democrats' fault!
Re: (Score:3)
Whos the governor of florida? Republican Rick Scott
Which party controls both the florida house and florida senate...Republicans
Who voted to defund the TB hospital in Florida...Republican state legislators
Which governor said he would not accept federal "Obamacare" funding to expend medicaid which provides TB medication ....Republican Rick Scott.
And anyone would subsequently be surprised at a cover up of a TB outbreak in Florida?
Re:Political Correctness???? (Score:5, Informative)
Since you turned this political, which state's unemployment rate is dropping, Florida's, and so is every other state that elected a republican governor in 2010.
Ah, this nice quote. Literally true, perhaps, but absolutely misleading. It's funny, but this meme seems to be making its away around the noise machine of late, almost as if it was a deliberate effort.
And then you check it out:
In fact, we also found that the unemployment rate has fallen in every state but one (New York) in the last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So, in other words, despite the implication in Robitaille’s shorthand claim, there’s no apparent link between the party affiliation of the governor and a decline in the unemployment rate.
http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2012/jul/11/john-robitaille/former-ri-gubernatorial-candidate-john-robitaille-/
Ouch, thanks for giving us something that's true, but misleading. It shows what you care about.
Re:Political Correctness???? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Its not like you can'tget the TB treatement at any hospital, you can."
The chances a privately owned hospital is going to house dozens of homeless black men, many with mental issues, for six months for a TB regimen are vanishingly small, unless the government makes them and the government picks up the staggering tab they will generate.
You pretty much need a charity hospital or a state run hospital, which is why closing down the state run hospital that was housing the probably homeless people quarantined by court order probably caused a problem. The fact is the state run hospital probably did run up some huge bills for this kind of treatment which is why the Republican legislature and the Republican governor decided closing it was a convenient way to balance their budget. Hopefully there are other state run or charity hospitals that would pick up the slack, but since they started putting the homeless in to motels to try to force them to take the antibiotics with regular nurse visits, there is an implication that maybe the hospital facilities might not be there any more in Florida.
Having a TB epidemic spiraling out of control is REALLY expensive, especially if you are a state that is heavily dependent on tourism.
Just a guess but if anyone was trying to intentionally cover up this outbreak it was probably because they were worried what damage it would do their tourism industry if word got out, which it apparently just did.
Seems kind of like a classic case of being penny wise and pound foolish. You probably should spend whatever it takes to control a TB outbreak, and catch it early, because the consequences of it spreading, and the damage it can do to your economy once it spreads, and the news of it spreads, is enormous.
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.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Its incredibly pointless sit here and play our stupid partisan game on this issue,
Well said.
but if any party is to blame it would probably be the Republicans.
Oh well. Drink to pointlessness!
Re: (Score:3)
Democrat delenda est.
About your quote and its relationship to the original, "Carthagio delenda est." You do know that later Romans consider their wanton destruction of Carthagio in the 3rd Punic War to be a pivotal event in the decline of their republic, don't you?
Re: (Score:3)
TB was pretty much a solved problem in the 1st world. Then we decided we couldn't force people into quarantine to ensure they got proper treatment and to prevent the spread of such a readily transmissible disease.
Because we have a vaccine.
Today we generally don't forcibly quarantine people even though we aren't vaccinating because it's only contagious for a few weeks after treatment has started, and it's easy enough for people with TB to isolate themselves and or wear a mask. Also the disease is not life threatening and it's treatable.
There are exceptions, and quarantine does happen in those cases [msn.com]
Best I can tell from what passes as thought in the politically correct set, diseases got rights or something. Or people got the right to not get treated and to pass on the crap they catch. I really can't decipher it.
Maybe then you should avoid jumping to the dumbest possible conclusion before doing the slightest bit of research
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Informative)
You have your facts wrong, but in an interesting way. We never decided that we couldn't force people into quarantine. One of the first pieces I ever read on drug resistant tuberculosis included an interview with a guy shackled to a bed in a New York hospital because he repeatedly skipped his meds. I didn't dig up that story which my quick search, but I did find this NOVA timeline [pbs.org]. Check it out:
And a direct quote (from the as of 2004 part):
The Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, part of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, controls quarantine issues in the United States today. The Division oversees eight national quarantine stationsâ"in New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. At present, federal, state, and some city health officials have the right to isolate or quarantine individuals who are ill or may become ill with a potentially lethal infectious disease.
So we never stopped quarantining people. Anyway, political correctness has nothing to do with TB treatment, or with drug resistant strains of TB. From my readings, drug resistant TB incubates in Russian Prisons [lmgtfy.com] and Mexican day laborers, and in India [lmgtfy.com]. Given your self professed aversion to political correctness, I'm surprised you skipped over those populations and leapt to "immune compromised patients with no self control." You may have meant inmates in the aforementioned Russian prisoners, who literally have no control over their surroundings or their treatments, but it sounded like an unsubtle swipe at gay people. That part of your comment sounded an awful lot like 90s-era hate speech, which had moved from "AIDS is God actively killing homosexuals to", "HIV isn't a problem because it only kills people who lack self-control [and have un-Christian sex before marriage]". I have never heard, anywhere, that people with AIDS are contributing to drug resistant TB. If they stop taking their meds, they die.
Lastly, you seem to be upset about "ObamaTax". That's okay. But to clarify, did you really think a government that can force people people to buy insurance couldn't already force them into quarantine? Or is the costs aspect that upsets you? Maybe you have some nuanced views, but you sure seem like a troll, so I don't mind feeding you LMGTFY links. But even if you are, I didn't want you worrying about our government not being able to quarantine people ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
how about commenting on the facts and instead of your political opinion?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes! And maybe freedom of sapples and freedom of soranges too!
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
The 's' stands for simpletons who can't spell speech, yet insist on lecturing other people about how important it is.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
You can be inarticulate and still be right.
But would anyone know?
Re: (Score:3)
to be fair, freedom of speech necessarily implies that anonymity be protected.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
NO. Freedom of speech implies you can say whatever you want without having to put on a Guy Fawkes mask. It means you can speak freely as yourself. The right to remain anonymous is another issue.
Right facts, wrong interpretaton. (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of speech was meant to protect you from the government taking any action based on knowing you were saying things the government may not like.
It affords you protection from the government, but not protection from your fellow citizens thinking you're a moron.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you misunderstood me: With freedom of anonymity comes freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not guarantee anonymity. You shouldn't have to be anonymous to be able to speak freely, and it is to America merit that you have freedom of speach both anonymously and otherwise.
And I am certainly not trying to banish it. My point above about not posting as AC is that with freedom of speech you should not be ashamed or fearful of making your opinions and views known as yourself.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
How about fuck you, anonymous. Too many people equate liberal with liberty when, in fact, the opposite is quite the case - they're a mutually exclusive arrangement.
Only if you're using the FOX notions of what liberal and liberty mean.
The more that people see this, the better off this country will be. Not that Repubs are much better, but they are. Libertarian is the way.
Libertarians are just Republicans who aren't pretending to be on a Mission from God.
Don't like my opinions or what I post, use your mod points or stfu.
Or maybe reply? But no, your notion of "liberty" is "my way or the highway".
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Gaah I am so sick of you libertards
It's "libertardians". Otherwise people will think you're talking about standard "libtards".
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point, I should go vote for the party that says I don't own my own body and censorship is a good idea! Ron Paul 2012!
Maybe I need to work on my reading comprehension, but are you saying Ron Paul believes you don't own your body and censorship is a good thing? If so, I beg to differ.
Ron Paul is the only hope we have to cast off our corporate overlords. Unfortunately, this is exactly why he doesn't have a chance in hell for the presidency.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Please do tell me how you plan to "switch the company" you're dealing with when said company is, for example, poisoning your well water through fracking, or polluting a river or the air around your house. A strict libertarian philosophy has no solution for externalities, other than hand-waving, i.e. everyone can form class-action lawsuits! Or the invisible hand will magically deal with it!
The solution is simple: You should be wary of both corporations and government and support checks and balances on both.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm exactly the opposite. I'm wary of multinational corporations but I'm downright afraid of what government can and does do when given free reign.
Most of the really terrible things (Western) governments do these days are in the name of corporate profits, because corporations have gained power over government. At least doing things for the public good is in the mission statement for government. The corporation's only interest is in acquiring as much of the pie as it can for itself and its investors. If you don't see a conflict of interest between absolute greed and the common good, then you've drowned in the kool aid.
The difference being that at least I can switch the company I'm dealing with but the government is the ultimate monopoly and represents the ultimate tragedy of the commons where people vote themselves goodies without caring how it affects the overall health of the economy.
Because corporations would never do something for themselves at the detriment of the economy as a whole, right?
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Informative)
Ron Paul is the only hope we have to cast off our corporate overlords.
Oh really? His new "Internet Freedom" campaign is all about giving corporations the freedom to restrict the Internet in the name of profits. If he's fighting "our corporate overlords" by campaigning to give them even more power, I think he's doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the Republicans have a solution. They'll just get rid of the CDC, so there's no centralized data gathering, and that way, fifty TB cases could pop up a day, and until you started coughing up blood, you'd have nothing to worry about!
Isn't this the Libertarian paradise the Ron Paul legions envisage?
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this the Libertarian paradise the Ron Paul legions envisage?
I don't know, I've never been to Somalia.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is lost on some of you here, but there's a continuum between "world's largest inmate population" and "anarchy."
I'll leave guessing which end we're at as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is lost on some of you here, but there's a continuum between "world's largest inmate population" and "anarchy.
Truly, there's no reason a nation as special as us couldn't have both.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Funny)
I fail to see the relevance. This is not a political problem. The Lord will cure these people. If they cause an epidemic, killing millions, that's obviously just His will.
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:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, the Republican legislators and Governor closed down the only hospital in Florida that was treating the poor, homeless, substance abusers and mentally ill people who are the main ones who get TB, according to TFA. The Republicans knew about the CDC report as they pushed to close the hospital. That's why they concealed it.
Now, even if they wanted to confine them, they would have no place to put them. Or rather -- they're putting them up now in motels. You realize that hospitals have special laundry equipment to sterilize the laundry. Motels don't.
This is a time bomb. They're growing drug-resistant TB, which is incurable.
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You realize that hospitals have special laundry equipment to sterilize the laundry.
You mean like... bleach? There are lots of reasons they should be in a hospital over a motel, this is a rather weak choice of argument.
Like high-temperature washers and dryers, which have to meet specifications and inspections. There's a difference between laundering and sterilizing.
And you need special handling procedures for contaminated laundry before it's laundered.
The reason I mentioned laundries is that I read about a case in which a small hospital was using a regular commercial laundry (in violation of health regulations) and ran into these troubles.
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Re: (Score:3)
Ronmey care -- supported by a majority of the state's citizenry, and passed by a bipartisan majority in a state legislature.
ObamaTax -- crafted in closed-door meetings, opposed by the majority of citizens, not understood by congress at the time of the vote, and "reconciled" into existence, whatever the fuck that means.
Uh... if you followed the news with a third-grader's attention span you'd know that Republican committee members wrought *massive* changes to the bill before it came to a vote. (And then voted against it even after the Democrats caved on almost every point.)
And I don't know why people call it "Obamacare". He wasn't exactly out there using his bully pulpit to make sure we got a good law out of the process.
Re:Political correctness in action (Score:5, Informative)
And when you can't pay the fine, because you can't afford that either, you'll go to jail
This is straight from the law itself, under section 5000a, page 131:
‘‘(2) SPECIAL RULES.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law—
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.’’.
Re: (Score:3)
Prisoners receive better medical care than most Americans, and it's illegal to let them go untreated. I don't know where you got your info, but it's fucked.
Nonsense. There was a series of articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Andrew Skolnick about prison medical care, which is basically terrible. There are similar investigative stories every year or so.
Prison doctors are the worst doctors in medicine. Many of them are criminals themselves. States used to have a practice of convicting doctors of crimes, and limiting their license to practice in prison.
Many prisoners have died because their nurses, or the prison guards, ignored basic car
Re:Outbreak? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Outbreak? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry but the BCG vaccine doesn't work in most adults and there's a lot of work going on to find out why (here's a recent paper with a possible hint:
http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/myvu/news/2009/05/21/study-of-ineffective-tb-vaccine-may-lead-to-new-vaccines.80590/ [vanderbilt.edu]
and therefore treating the disease when it appears becomes crucial.
Re: (Score:3)
The defining feature of a vaccine isn't whether it's against a virus or bacteria. A vaccine is something that primes your immune system to deal with a threat. TB is a bacteria, but the TB vaccine is a weakened form of that bacteria that primes your immune system to be ready for actual TB bacteria. That's a vaccine.
Antibiotics on the other hand are directly toxic to bacteria or fungi.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the CDC, and they tried....
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I know this is Slashdot, and no one reads the articles, but this one shows an unbelievable story of Democrat corruption. They pushed to conceal the truth about TB and it was incredible.
What's wrong with you AC? What's with trying to get people to read TFA by lying about what's in it? Geez! I posted TFA and *I* didn't even read it. You should so get banned. In fact, they should take your username away from you! :)
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The Democrats did it! The Democrats did it! The Democrats did it! The Democrats did it! I am going to shout it at the top of my lungs until
you die from TB?
Re: (Score:2)
According to the article, the Democrats were the ones who suppressed this information. How do you Democrats feel now?
Probably pretty much the same as they did the first time you posted that. Though perhaps a few felt a change in the few seconds between reading the two posts.
Sack of shit paid spammer (Score:4, Informative)
None of the linked articles even contain the word Democrat.
What the fuck are you talking about? (Score:3, Informative)
None of the linked articles even have the word Democrat. You're a spamming sack of shit.
Sack of shit spammer (Score:4, Informative)
None of the linked articles even contain the word Democrat. What the fuck are you talking about?
Re: (Score:2)
None of the linked articles even contain the word Democrat. What the fuck are you talking about?
He's talking about Republican Reality (tm).
Probably his dad is paying him to watch Slashdot and intervene whenever he can.
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like their thoughts on consumption didn't have much... gumption?
At any rate, they didn't function.