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Comments
TB cases increase in U.S. for first time in 23 years
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/03/24/tb-case...
Two Or Three Factors
I would contribute the rise in TB in the US to one or more of these factors
-People coming in from a foreign country (most likely from a rural or poor area) who were never vaccinated
-People who would rather risk their children and other children by not vaccinating them because they are irresponsible and crazy
FWIW - some of the day care centers in Brookline do not require your vaccinations are up to date. We made sure our children were in one that ones.
Now, some people will go on about freedoom of religion, freedoom of expression etc as not getting their childen vaccinated. My take on it is, these hippy dippy big pharma fearing folks need to grow up a little. Maybe I'm being foolish, but hey.
They're the climate change deniers of the left
I am 100% OK with any unvaccinated child being excluded from all civil services and public events, unless their parents can produce a letter from an MD explaining exactly why their immunological disease prevents it. These people are lunatics, and they're unleashing a public health crisis on the rest of us by weaponizing their kids, who have no choice in the matter.
We don't vaccinate for TB in the USA
Here's the vaccine schedule:
http://www.vaccines.gov/who_and_when/infants_to_teens/index.html
You'll note that neither TB nor tuberculosis appear on that list.
You left out prisons
From what I understand the US prison system is also a vector in the spread of TB.
Prisons and Poverty
Wonderful side effects of neo-libralism and hating the poor.
Yes, however
In the United States and most industrialized countries, you do not get vaccinated for TB.
A vaccine exists (BCG) but its overall efficacy is iffy, and really only works in locations where there is a lot of TB.
CDC on TB vaccine
FWIW - all licensed daycare centers are required to have immunization records from all children. Religious exemptions are still allowed though.
Data from the Vermont
Data from the Vermont Department of Health show that more than one-third of refugees resettled in Vermont test positive for tuberculosis.
Since 2013, about 900 refugees admitted to the Green Mountain State have been tested for tuberculosis, a potentially fatal infectious disease affecting the lungs. Of that number, 318 refugees, or 35.4 percent, tested positive.
Watchdog.org obtained the health data on Wednesday following reporting by Stateline that the disease may be making a comeback in the United States.
Refugees brought to the United States undergo TB tests as part of comprehensive health screenings. State health departments track the data to monitor cases and protect against public health crises.
According to IGRA (Interferon-Gamma Release Assays) blood test results from 2013 to the present, the highest percentage of incoming refugees to Vermont infected with TB occurred in 2013. That year, 108 refugees out of 248 tested, or 43.6 percent, showed positive for TB.
Two things you neglect to
Two things you neglect to mention:
1) If you were exposed and developed latent TB, and completed a course of antibiotics, you still are going to test positive going forward.
2) I believe if you've had the TB vaccine, that will cause a false positive.
Quelle Surprise
A right wing "institute" does "analysis" that only proves - once again - that bigots aren't terribly scientifically or medically savvy (and don't bother looking past their assumptions).
You are what you eat
Exposed versus Infected
The tests you name only identify people who have been exposed, not people with active infections.
That includes people who have been actively infected in the past, but fully treated; people who have been exposed without developing a clinically evident and communicable infection; and people who have been vaccinated.
You might try understanding the science yourself before posting nonsense from extremely questionable sources with no understanding of the basic science behind this.
Nice black eye you have there
Now that you have some ice on where your knee-jerk reaction caused you pain, consider this.
TB IS NOT A VIRUS.
The vaccine isn't terribly effective even when administered.
TB vaccines are not specified for children. They aren't in the vaccine schedule.
Now, a question: when did you have your TB vaccine? What, you didn't? Why not? Are you some pharma fearing hippy science hater!
Vaccine clarification
While anon is 100% correct that TB is not a virus, vaccines are for more than viruses. See: tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, Hib, pnuemococcal, meningococcal, and yes, in other areas of the world, TB.
While original commenter might have had slightly misguided ire, believing that documentation of vaccinations would have prevented this case, the base of their comment I think is also rooted in proper medical care, where latent TB or a risk of active TB should have been picked up on and treated. (Especially for an area as medically-minded as Boston.)
I'm old fashioned
Can you call it "the consumption" instead?
I was visiting a friend in MD and they had a friend from Burma living with them and she had tested positive for it so had a required treatment regimen. I happened to join them for an appointment and scored a couple of bike water bottles with "Montgomery County Tuberculosis Clinic" on them. I rested well knowing that people would be extremely unlikely to steal either a drink or the bottle from me.
How is this even a thing in Boston?
For Chrissakes, we live among the best medical scientists and doctors on the planet. I thought intelligence was respected in this community. When somebody with no fewer than three college degrees tells me that a substance needs to be injected into a child to stop them and others from getting really deathly ill, I (expletive) accept that as a fact.
Anti-vaxxers are precisely the kind of people I'd like to try to buy out of the breeding pool using public money.
Hey Will
When did you have your TB vaccine?
We don't vaccinate.
Echoing the comment above, the United States (and pretty much only the US) does not vaccinate against TB. The vaccine has only modest effectiveness, and once someone is vaccinated the (cheap) skin test diagnostic test is no longer useful (the vaccine may have only modest effectiveness, but causes recipients to be positive to the skin test). The alternative diagnostic tests include chest X-ray, so there's more cost and risk for having the test. The idea is that that not vaccinating allows us to screen with a low cost test (there's some balance, and this works better if incidence is low). The rest of the world (or rather, those that can afford wide-spread vaccination) vaccinates a high proportion of the population in the hopes it will slow spread despite variable individual protection.
TB at BPS
There was a case of active TB at a BPS school last year (a teacher, not a student) where a family member teaches. CDC was called in, yet no news agency covered it to my knowledge. My initial response echo'd many here...where were the vaccines...only to think about it a little longer and realize I at least had never had a TB vaccine.
Social injustice aside (things do seem to get more play in Brookline...strange), CDC informed the school community that 1 in 3 people worldwide (not specific to just refugees) are actually carriers of TB, granted rates are lower in the US. As TB is only contagious in the "active stage" (think coughing blood, Doc Holliday, quarantine), the CDC official explained they try to only test those "directly" exposed to avoid false positives relating to the high rate of carriers, so as to avoid hysteria of an outbreak. In this case, they only tested kids in one class! Seemed questionable, but guess it worked since no one heard about it.