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Florida Accused of Concealing Worst Tuberculosis Outbreak In 20 Years
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."
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.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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.
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.
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.
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Isn't this the Libertarian paradise the Ron Paul legions envisage?
I don't know, I've never been to Somalia.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
paintball
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...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
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!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
One cannot mention pertussis without also mentioning the Jenny McCarthy Body Count. (Also valid for diphtheria, measles, etc, etc.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
"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.
@de_machina
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.
DATABASE WOW WOW
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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
As a western country, USA is pretty third world
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.
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.
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.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
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?