Posted on 01/24/2007 8:06:50 PM PST by FairOpinion
People infected with a deadly, virtually untreatable new form of tuberculosis should be isolated and confined -- against their will, if necessary -- to prevent a "potentially explosive international health crisis," according to a group of Canadian and African scientists.
These harsh measures are justified given the "extreme risk" posed by an ongoing outbreak of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) in South Africa, they argue in today's edition of the medical journal Public Library of Science Medicine.
"We're not saying put people in leper colonies," Ross Upshur, director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and co-author of the paper, said in an interview. "But if voluntary measures fail, we need systems in place to contain the spread."
Dr. Upshur said the call for draconian restrictions on the movements of people infected with XDR-TB is not made lightly -- it reflects the severity of the outbreak.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
Anyone wonders how many lives could have been saved if they had the same approach to HIV AIDS when it first appeared?
ping
These harsh measures are justified given the "extreme risk" posed by an ongoing outbreak of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) in South Africa, they argue in today's edition of the medical journal Public Library of Science Medicine.
Africa? How about it coming up from Mexico? It's already been brought here. There was a woman from Mexico that came to Albuquerque, NM with it because she was going to die if she wasn't treated in the US. Our doctors at the University of New Mexico Hospital treated her and after one year, she was doing OK, but her treatment has to continue. The problem is that treatment for one woman with that TB cost the taxpayers of NM $250,000.00. That's a quarter of a million dollars for one person. It's a fact too. I can get the newspaper article to verify it if anyone wants to see it. It's on line. I checked it out a year or two ago when I read it in my local paper. Can you imagine if every state had 2 or 3 a year? Or perhaps an epidemic. It would bankrupt our health care system!!
Being brought into the US from Mexico too.
Build the wall.
Why not? Slowly drowning in your own fluids in your lungs is not a nice way to go.
One of the few times when it makes sense for the government to make tough decisions to protect the people, they are too wussy to do it, so many more people will die as a result.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Bring it. What do you think FR is all about?
If it was sexually transmitted they'd just recommend throwing money at it.
"Being brought into the US from Mexico too."
you got that one right. TB is on the rise in the U.S. also. So is a disease called Chagas.
Chagas is INCURABLE, and deadly.
I am sure there are other diseases including bed bugs on the rise from our neighbors to the South of us.
I guess back then they were more sensible: Drugs, not hugs!
Oh, but we can't offend people, or inconvenience them, or *infringe* on their rights to go where they will, when they will. It doesn't matter if they're infecting thousands of people, subjecting them to a horrible death, we just can't impose our wishes and desires on others, we have no right,
Bu!!cr@p. If someone is going around doing that, it's no different that if they were shooting them, or poisoning them. They're still killing someone. Murder is murder, assault is assault. It doesn't matter what weapon you use.
This country is made up of such a bunch of whiney crybabies that can't be inconvenienced in any way, shape, or form, but they have the right to inconvenince others, even to the point of death. The ultimate in selfishness. To be willing to kill someone in the name of your rights.
ping
The fact that anyone is even willing to talk out loud of quarantine is a scary red flag indicating just how bad this is. Quarantine is an extremely un PC subject.
Isolate incurables by any and every means possible. The very first of the ''inalienable'' rights mentioned by Jefferson is life. If your very existence, literally, threatens people's lives, your right to peaceably assemble ANYWHERE is void.
NEW MEXICO: Mexican Woman Getting TB Treatment in Albuquerque
Mexico woman TB $250,000. cost of treatment
Associated Press (05.15.05) - Friday, May 20, 2005 Sue Vorenberg
A Mexican woman with multi-drug- resistant TB (MDR TB) is being treated in New Mexico, where she has relatives. Gary Simpson, infectious-disease director for the state Health Department, said treating MDR
TB is so expensive, many developing countries cannot afford to treat such patients. Treatment for MDR TB can cost $250,000 per patient, compared to around $2,000 per patient for regular TB, said Dr. Marcos Burgos of the University of New Mexico Hospital.
"About 2 million people die of tuberculosis each year in the world," Burgos said. "If left untreated, each person can infect 10 to 15 people in a year."
The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease said up to 50 million people globally could have MDR TB.
"Our patient was basically told, 'Go to the United States or you will die,'" Simpson said. Her two-year treatment regimen will be finished in October. The New Mexico Health Department paid for her treatment.
Simpson said it makes sense to treat Mexican patients. "We're going to get more patients like this. And if we don't treat them, then the disease will grow and spread into our own population."
Burgos said the root of the TB problem in the developing world is policy and funding. Without resources for early testing and monitoring patients so they take all their medications, MDR TB continues to spread. If other nations do not help poor countries fight TB, Burgos warned, "it will come to us, to places like the United States."
New Mexico has about 50 TB patients a year. Two cases of MDR TB are currently being treated there. Health care workers expect that number to grow soon, Simpson said.
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