To THIS
Posted on 11/03/2007 7:05:23 AM PDT by B4Ranch
All of the employees at the Wayne Farms fresh processing plant in Decatur have received tuberculosis skin tests and 212 of them tested positive.
Health workers read and tabulated a final batch of tests Wednesday, said Scott Jones, interim director of the State Department of Public Health's Tuberculosis Control Division. Of the 598 tests administered Monday, 165 tested positive.
In skin tests administered to 167 fresh processing employees Oct. 11, 47 tested positive. One of the 47 has active tuberculosis disease, which is contagious.
All told, 28 percent of those who received skin tests at the fresh processing plant tested positive.
Jones said all 165 employees with positive TB results in the most recent tests would receive chest X-rays on Thursday. Doctors will evaluate those X-rays early next week to determine if any of them have signs of active TB disease.
"We have two (X-ray) technicians in the Division of TB Control to cover the entire state," Jones said. "For this situation, we've rearranged some clinics. We've made this a priority, so we have both of our technicians (assigned to Decatur and) working as a team to get them done."
Wayne Farms Sales and Marketing Director Stan Hayman said Wednesday the company offered to reimburse the state for the cost of the tuberculosis control efforts.
Jones said Thursday that he has a better idea.
"I appreciate their offer," he said.
"If Wayne Farms is interested in investing something, my recommendation to them would be to invest within their own facility to establish a pre-employment screening routine.
"If their intent is to invest, I wish they'd think about ways they can invest toward the future as opposed to reimbursing for a one-time event."
Latent TB infection is not contagious, but it remains in the body for life in the absence of treatment. About 10 percent of latent TB infections eventually become active TB disease, usually because of a compromised immune system.
Testing began after doctors diagnosed a former Wayne Farms employee with active TB disease. The testing revealed that another employee also had active disease. Health officials believe the second employee has a different strain of TB than the first employee and caught the disease from a different source.
In addition to testing other employees at the fresh processing plant, health officials said they tested all others known to have had contact with the two men. Jones refused to say whether either individual has school-age children.
Jones said the Health Department soon would give skin tests to all employees at two other Wayne Farms plants in Morgan County. The company employs 1,300 in the county.
"(Health Officer) Don Williamson asked us to evaluate the entire work force because of the concerns in the community and we're going to proceed with that," Jones said. "This is a very large undertaking. We've expanded this in response to concerns in the community, as a precaution."
Hayman said Wayne Farms welcomes the expanded testing.
"The community concern about this is an issue, but we also have 1,300 people who don't want to have to worry about their health when they come to work," Hayman said. "They have families who want them to work in a safe environment."
Jones said he was not surprised at the number of Wayne Farms employees who tested positive.
"The majority of the folks that we're dealing with in this situation are foreign born," Jones said. "I would expect about 30 percent of them to test positive."
Both employees with active TB disease are Hispanics born in countries with a high incidence of TB, health officials said.
Coughing, laughing or talking can transmit the airborne tuberculosis bacteria. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 15 minutes of close contact with a person who has active TB disease will cause up to 50 percent of people to become infected.
People who are contagious almost always are obviously ill, said Dr. Scott Harris, an infectious disease specialist who works in the TB clinic at the Morgan County Health Department.
Humans cannot catch TB bacteria from chickens, and the bacteria cannot be transmitted through chicken meat.
Health officials working TB cases in Jefferson, Morgan counties
Too bad about all that contaminated food from China...
Thanks. You have answered most of my questions.
I would think a TB test would be required of all food care workers. It is an inexpensive test. Usually around $15.00.
Even though the TB bacteria may not be transmitted via food, it stands to reason when a sick person is coughing that TB may not be the only germ he or she is coughing out. That other germ could be transmitted. We don’t need infected people working with food.
Didn’t know if you’d seen this, Liz.
Disgusting..............heard some invaders even have leporosy.
Wayne Farms can't plead ignorance.
Dobbs Report Links Leprosy and Immigration, But Numbers Don’t Hold Up
But the TB issue is bad enough.
No.
You can deport them, but they will likely come back. If they come back and develope the disease, they will infect many others. They will not seek treatment, because they do not want to be deported again.
No, the US is not the world medical provider, but if we do not treat those who are here, they will make the rest of us sick.
Deporting them would be an answer if the borders were secure, but they aren’t. Deporting them now, without medical treatment, will put many American citizens at risk. Same thing with the criminals. We can deport them, and they will come back and commit the same crimes again, or we can pay to lock them up, so that we are protected.
It all comes down to controlling our borders.
No they sure can't. It looks like that "cater" to the illegals. They had to know they were illegal if they put them in the naturalization program. So they just lied about the pilot program.
See Post 91
They are not “my immigrants” and I do not have the ability to verify whether they are legal or not. I would suspect some are and some aren’t.
Immigrants come here and generally live in close quarters with other immigrants. The poor neighborhoods they live in are prime conditions for the transmission of TB and lots of other IDs. It only takes one infected illegal in these conditions to infect several others, so it isn’t just the illegals that are at risk for these diseases. Everyone who comes into contact with the infected individual is at risk, and the transmission rate for active TB is around 25-30%. Sorry, but this isn’t just an illegals problem. It becomes a problem for all of us.
what is there to talk about, they hired juan, who brought in jorge, who brought maria, who brought jose. no need to show drivers licenses or social security numbers, and we pay you 3.00 an hour. next we lay off all of the american legally employed employees, and save boodles of money.
downside, we give everybody an INCURABLE disease, cause this TB is not treatable with antibiotics.
Makes me want to run out and get some not marked origin chicken between the chinese chicken out there and the locally produced. Sheesh
PING - A Must Read
Heck I was thinking Decatur, Georgia. Shows you how carefully I read.
“Few things are obvious to me, except things which turn out later not to be true.”
That is a great statement. Do you mind if I borrow it?
Well thank you "johnny come lately", there is a whole lot of people here that have been saying that for a long time.
“The illegals are transforming this beautiful, clean and healthy country into a barn or worse, a pigsty.”
That’s a fact. We can lay a great deal of the blame on our political leaders, for they have allowed — hell, they have ENCOURAGED — this to happen.
Destiny: Texas and Florida will consistantly be blue in a decade or so.
Don’t like it, but that’s what us pubs get for being so lazy on this issue.
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