VIDEO: 8 cases of TB in Grand Forks county, officials say
November 9, 2012 at 5:13 am in Grand Forks Herald
Eight cases of active tuberculosis, including a student at Phoenix Elementary School, have been diagnosed in Grand Forks County, health officials said today. Continue Reading
What is the source of the infection?
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“What is the source of the infection?”
They’ll never tell us. First Guess: Lutheran Social Services.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Interesting speculation. When stories are this vague there’s more there than meets the eye.
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In this case Schurkey you are probably correct. TB & Malaria are both rampant in Sub Saharan Africa. What is being overlooked is they more likely than not contracted it either in Europe during their initial processing or once they got here. All LEGAL immigrants are screened extensively before being let into the country. No TB. No HIV/AIDS. No malaria, etc.
That is why I think they probably contracted it on this side of the border. The refugees do not arrive here in ND fresh off the boat. It is usually a several month process. My guess is they contracted it during one of their processing stops.
If you are truly concerned about contracting TB, here are your top three places to avoid in GF (or anywhere in the US for that matter): the jail, the homeless shelter, & any nursing home.
You want to avoid anywhere people are jammed together in close quarters with inadequate ventilation, sub standard hygiene & nutrition & weakened immune systems
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Sounds like the first place to avoid would be Phoenix school
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According to the U.S. State Department website HIV-infection is no longer grounds to forbid entry into the U.S.
Lifescript website lists the following TB risk factors:
These factors increase your chance of developing TB:
Weakened immune system or chronic diseases (highest risk)
HIV infection
Malnutrition
Intravenous drug use
Alcoholism
Leukemia , lymphoma , and other cancers
Poorly controlled diabetes mellitus
Severe kidney disease
Corticosteroids
Some medications used for treating rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases including etanercept , infliximab , and adalimumab
Suppressed immune system caused by medications, such as drugs to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ
Other risks factors include:
Silicosis (an occupational lung disease)
Living in crowded, indoor conditions (eg, homeless shelters, dormitories, military barracks)
Age (infants, young children, and elderly people)
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Dang I wanted to be the first to thank LSS for bringing this to grand forks
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Statistically speaking, the source of infection is someone that came here recently from a foreign country. Here is the data from the CDC showing TB cases in the USA from 1993 through 2011:
http://www.cdc.gov/tb/statistics/reports/2011/table5.htm
Note, how the ratio changes. That would coincide with more foreigners coming here.
So… yes, you can bet the source was brought here by LSS.
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Oh my … what are you guys capable of reading my mind now … or what?
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And you can bet LSS will COMPLETELY FAIL to reimburse us for the cost of treatment and screening.
That’s what they do: promote socially irresponsible outcomes using tax money to finance both the source of the problems AND the required mitigation.
And Gershman ‘n’ Brown wear cheerleader skirts for them.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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From what I read on the CDC’s website legal immigrants are tested before they can get a visa to enter the US. The same as if you were to adopt a child from overseas. They blame illegal immigrants, who aren’t tested, for bringing TB and other diseases such as leprosy and hepatitis A-E to the US.
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My bet is the city will do everything to save its reputation and that of LSS rather than thinking about the safety of its citizens.
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Then again it was probably dormant in some Norsky blood line and suddenly brook loose after a few generations……I mean if we’re going to make wild speculations before the evidence is conclusive. It’s that kind of foolish speculation that often leads to hate crimes
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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The implicit contention among some of us is that the evidence of who is responsible for TB, which has been absent from GF for how many decades?, will never be revealed.
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Probably not, but speculation doesn’t help. It very well might be any of the above….My concern is that many of those who might be suspect in those speculations are often non whites, and in the great white north that can become a problem very quickly if people become afraid
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Gene: you are wrong on this one. TB is and has been alive & well in ND for as long as I’ve been here (2002). The assertion we have been TB free for decades is completely false.
See my discussion above re: jail, homeless shelter, & nursing homes.
In the picture above the gentleman second to the right – next to Mayor Brown – is the infectious disease guru. He gets all the untreated, partially treated, & under treated cases.
He also has most of the HIV/AIDS cases in the county, of which there are many more than you would imagine.
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My point is TB is not inherent in GF; it is brought here.
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The price you pay for living in a global economy. Every disease known to man & a few that have not been written about yet are a short plane flight away.
Last year there was an HIV patient hospitalized locally. Only standard (universal) precautions were taken even though the patient had a fever & cough. Sure enough a week later the whole place is in an uproar because he had TB.
ND isolation is a two edged sword. It protects us, but it also hampers our vigilance. Because the staff’s experience with HIV/AIDS was extremely limited, it never “clicked” that HIV/AIDS patients are common carriers of the disease.
At Mayo, or Hennepin County, or any other large hospital that is used to these patients, this patient would have been in respiratory isolation from the get go.
I am glad I do not have to suspect every patient I take care of has something that can kill or maime me, but it should always be in the back of my mind.
Who died of SARS a few years back? 25% were healthcare workers.
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I don’t think the brouhaha is about TB; it’s about how it got here and if the powers that be are going to fess up or remain silent. It’s about whether the city council is married to the LSS or if they will suspend relations with them until this is resolved.
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It will never be resolved. TB & Malaria share the top five for infectious disease deaths worldwide.
Like I said, they probably contracted it here in the states. AFTER they were initially screened.
I understand everyone’s anger over LSS dumping refugees in Grand Forks, but in this instance I fail to see how LSS could have done anything different – if the normal policies & procedures were followed.
UND attracts people from all over the world. It was only a matter of time.
I have been working with patients with TB for 30 years, that is why I have to be tested twice a year. I’m not dead yet.
My question: are you angry over the flare up of a treatable disease or are you angry because people who do not look like you, talk like you, or believe like you are now living next to you? Two different subjects.
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Oh cut the BS fn. I’ve traveled all over the world. I speak 6 languages. Don’t throw the old PC stuff back on me. You can start by saying where in the US they contracted TB. If you can’t do that, then you have to decide where they got it before coming here. And please provide more than your speculations.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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You wear your heart on your sleeve too much Gene. Be it the library or the communist plot to turn all institutions of higher learning into capitalist engines of the depressor.
Your argument that they entered the country with it, while possible is not very likely. They are tested before entry as described.
Reading between the lines of the articles, one of the kids came up positive on a routine school surveillance. They then tested his/her family & their close contacts & identified most everyone else.
In other words the system worked as designed. They will be treated & in 30 days, when they are no longer contagious, they will be back in school.
As for where in the US did they contract it? Choose a state. TB is everywhere. Why do you think I have to get tested every year. Not to mention the mandatory education on it every year.
TB may not have started in the US (neither did AIDS but that hasn’t slowed its growth any), but it is present in every state & every county & has been for centuries. Many of our founding fathers died of it. Jamestown at one time had a sanitarium.
Your faux anger is either an overreaction or misplaced. You make the choice.
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A few questions for you FN…First…..I still sport a scar from that strange shot I got as a kid to innoculate against TB. Is that a life time innoculation the way I was told as a kid? Do they still give those shots to all kids in the US?
Also: Do we have drugs that can cure TB once someone get’s it? Or is it possible to go full blown once caught?
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I guess I should have read further…I forgot it was Polio that shot was for. Same question thouhg…Is that really a life time innoculation?
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Probably the best source for vaccine information is the CDC’s Pinkbook, which can be found in its entirety here:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/index.html
The free download is a bit down the page, and there is a polio-specific chapter.
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Tundra: That scar is not from TB or Polio. It was a smallpox vaccine. Very painful way to get inoculated. They scraped the skin multiple times with a needle/lancet impregnated with the attenuated (half dead) smallpox virus.
Polio should be life long immunity. While some people initially received injections, most Americans remember sugar cubes with the vaccine dripped on them (sugar cubes so the kids would take it).
There is no vaccine for TB. Smallpox is 99% eradicated, but because it was weaponized and there are parts of the world modern man still has not conquered, it is not 100% gone.
There was an outbreak of smallpox in China a few years ago. Massive immunization program to keep it from spreading. They figure it was some weapons grade stuff that got into the population by accident.
The former Soviet Union had the same thing happen during the Cold War.
The soldiers in the First Gulf War were immunized against smallpox because of the fear of Sadaam’s weapons stockpiles.
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The nurse hasn’t passed away yet … so there is still something to look forward to.
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You bet we were.. In fact I was immunized again even though I had the scar from a child. I received a complete updated set of immunizations before I deployed.
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Off the topic…But what the hell was the logic in building a brand new school and renaming it South Jr. (Not much imagination there). Then remodeling a school that’s been around sine the early 1900′s and changing the name from Belmont to this Phenoix when clearly Belmont should have remained Belmont and the other would have been closer to the myth? Anyone know how the hell that foolishness happened?
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As I recall, Belmont got taken out by the flood and was refurbished with the symbolic name Phoenix.
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That’s my point…..Belmont had interior repairs where South was rebuilt in another area. Hell……Central had water damage and had to get interior work but nobody would have considered renaming that old land mark. It’s just irked me that they renamed this old landmark where my family has a long history of attending…at least three generations.
I was on the road when it happened. I think the only reason it went through was because of all other things that were going on t the time. Had they tried to pull something that foolish when long time residents weren’t distracted (Or out of the area) they’d have had a fight on there hands. Damn cheap shot non the less…..
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Naming buildings is left to a few people, without much input from the many.
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New building fine…But land marks…….Someones head should have rolled for that one…
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As an aside for Gene. We have never come close to eradicating TB in this country. It is in every county of every state. There is also a direct correlation between socioeconomic status & the prevelance of TB. The poorer the population the higher the incidence.
Unfortunately, one disease we thought we had eradicated is making a comeback: polio. When parents stopped immunizing their kids polio started to reappear.
The genesis is immigrants from countries where it still exists. They come over here as carriers & infect unimmunized people here.
The same is true with smallpox & other diseases we are no longer protected against.
Legal immigrants are screened. Illegal immigrants who come from Asia & drive across the Canadian border are not
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I’ve read where there’s also new strands of STD’s that resist all our current drugs too…..You know that quote about the “Meek inheriting the earth?” That very well could be germs. Some speculate that one of the dinosaur’s extinctions was bascially caused when land masses bumped and suddenly animals brought germs into other areas where the native populations had no built up defenses for them. Those little buggers have probably inherited the earth a few times…
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I do not know specifically about STD but there are many multi drug resistant bacteria out there. Unfortunately TB is a big one.
Drug resistance occurs when people only partially treat the infection. That is why your doctor always told you to finish your antibiotics even though you felt better after the first 48 hours.
If you only half treat the infection the bacteria mutate and become resistant to the antibiotic. Think Methacillin Resistant Staph Auerus (MRSA) that is so prevalent. We as a society made it by overusing antibiotics (giving them when they were not indicated simply to make the patient leave happy) and patients not completing their prescribed course.
MRSA was the result of our behavior, not a natural mutation.
TB is the same. We have some nasty resistant strains of TB because people take their meds when forced ( in jail or the hospital) but when released to the street they stop.
There was a reason I said homeless shelters, jail/prison, and nursing homes.
When I first started working the streets I rarely wore a mask. Now, I do not go into a nursing home without putting one on. The same for the basement of a homeless shelter (100 men, one room, mattresses on the floor, no ventilation, alcoholism and drug addiction ravaging their immune systems). If at all possible I make them bring the patient to me. I do not want to go there. I do not earn enough to die on the job by simply breathing.
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You type too much and as a result I never read it
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And yet you felt compelled to type about it….curious
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I just call it like I see it
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I wasn’t going to chime in on this one but I believe nurses theory over the overreaction and bigatory comments. The original reports were of single adult men that did not have a permanant residence. The original source very easily could be a white middle aged man from the midwest.
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So poverty, not immigrants, caused the outbreak. How disappointing for the “blame the immigrant” flank of the tin foil hat brigade.
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Poverty caused the “local” outbreak. We don’t know the true source. It could very well be what was first speculated. We have yet to hear the real story. It will take investigation. I’m not ruling anything out at this time.
I feel the tin foil hat comment, first made by the nurse, is unwarranted. There is no need for name-calling. It would be nice to discuss this like adults.
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Child: as I explained above, the recent immigrants did not bring TB to Grand Forks. It was here long before they arrived. Again, remember what the health department said, there are new cases here every year; they just don’t make the news.
As for immigration in general: legal immigrants rarely introduce disease; they are too thoroughly screened.
Illegal immigrants go import all type of good stuff. No doubt about that. GF had a case of malaria awhile back that almost went undiagnosed (from Asia) because no one had ever seen it.
The group everyone is talking about came here legally.
With all due respect, you & Gene are barking up the wrong tree
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Gadults don’t overreact with racialy charged attacks
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There are certain risks we take everyday. We can do things to protect ourselves like wear our seatbels while we drive or practice good hygein. The only problem is we cannot protect ourselves 100 percent from the other guy. The other guy can do 40 on ice and slam on his breaks to rear end you even though you took extra caution to stop in a controlled manner. The other guy can not complete his medication cycle and pass a nasty bug your way. The family in this story made a terrible mistake by exposing they’re children to the homless man/men. The sad part is they were trying to do a good deed and such a terrible disease is passed onto them. The chances of this effecting you are very low unless you have a child in the particular class room that is affected. Even than the chances are still low.
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