South Africa's TB-Infected Saliva Trade is Booming

How do you know when your country is in dire straits? Having a booming trade in TB-infected saliva might be a good indicator. TB sufferers in Cape Town, South Africa are selling samples of their sputum to healthy people to pass off as their own in a scam to gain medical grants. John Heinrich, chief executive of the SA National Tuberculosis Association, said, "It is definitely happening. People are trying to get a grant by pretending to be TB positive. Instead of handing their own sputum in, they buy it from people who have TB-positive sputum."

Comments

Overreaction much?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

South Africa is all kinds of screwed in a variety of ways; but I find it hard to believe that a bit of petty insurance fraud is really such a dire indicator. The fact that TB infected materials are so easy to come by, on the other hand...

Re:Overreaction much?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. And how exactly is this 'News for nerds'? If they were selling nanite-infected spit?

Re:Overreaction much?

[LordAndrewSama]

Having grown up in south africa and recently left, I have to say this doesn't surprise me at all. what honestly surprises me(and will also surprise my sister when I go tell her about the latest za scam) is that there's medical grants? o_O seriously? medical grants? Holy crap, THAT should be news.

Re:Overreaction much?

[Anonymous Coward]

They get a temporary grant of 1010 rands = 130 US$ per month, and maybe treatment for other diseases that they actually suffer from and that they wouldn't get treatment for because they're not highly infectious. The people who profit from this scheme are probably the ones who need it most. It's sad that it was exposed.

niggers

[Anonymous Coward]

South Africa's full of nigger's am i right?

Re:niggers

[LordAndrewSama]

yes, and the vast majority of them are better people than you, cowardly shithead.

Overreaction much?

[clint999]

Am I the only one that is completely confused?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What?

[clint999]

yes, and the vast majority of them are better people than you, cowardly ****head.

Re:What?

[spun]

Read at -1 if you are confused by a response that seems to be a nonsequiter.

Re:What?

[clone53421]

clint999 is a spambot.

All of the comments are either the confused comment or direct quotations lifted from other people's posts. All of the comments are also posted at exactly 30 minutes past the hour, which reveals that it's not even a human spammer.

Re:What?

[spun]

Thanks for the info. Sheesh. Probably doesn't even have an emotion chip, so it can't even feel gratitude for my help.

Re:What?

[girlintraining]

Thanks for the info. Sheesh. Probably doesn't even have an emotion chip, so it can't even feel gratitude for my help.

I think that's rather prejudiced. We know CowboyNeal is just a 7 line perl script, but we accept him just the way he is...

Re:What?

[spun]

To be fair, some of those lines are very long.

Re:

[clint999]

Having grown up in south africa and recently left, I have to say this doesn't surprise me at all. what honestly surprises me(and will also surprise my sister when I go tell her about the latest za scam) is that there's medical grants? o_O seriously? medical grants? Holy crap, THAT should be news.

Re:

[clint999]

yes, and the vast majority of them are better people than you, cowardly ****head.

Re:

[clint999]

yes, and the vast majority of them are better people than you, cowardly ****head.

I thought...

[JackPepper]

the headline read "South Africa's TB-Infected Saliva Trade is Booming"

Note to self: The next time I have health insurance, get checked for TB.