Posted on 08/18/2019 11:59:22 AM PDT by catnipman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is rarely seen in the United States, but cases continue to emerge in Los Angeles County, a new report says.
Dr. Ochoa and colleagues identified 187 patients with the disease in a review of medical records from their leprosy clinic spanning 1973 to 2018. Most patients were Latino, originating from Mexico, and they experienced a median delay in diagnosis of more than three years, the team reports JAMA Dermatology, online August 7.
(Excerpt) Read more at drive.google.com ...
What does a leper say to a hooker?
Keep the tip
Years ago when I was building fuel systems, a honduran laborer had caught an armadillo on a jobsite and put it in a trash can next to my newly installed above ground tanks. I was expecting a visit from the fire marshall, so I took the animal out and placed him back where he belonged. The little brown boy raised so much hell about it, his supervisor (a union goon) asked me why I was so cold as to deprive his boy of supper. I told him that I would gladly call the game warden if he wanted to push the issue (transporting live armadillos is a no-no in Texas).
If you had any idea what is coming into this country you’d be astounded and disgusted. And these illegals get very expensive free health care that the rest of us pay for in higher insurance premiums and taxes .
When Aunt Tillie down in Mexico needs dialysis her relatives here buy her a plane ticket, pick her up at the airport and take her to the hospital. She’s here and she gets free dialysis.
My favorite case recently - an illegal showed up at the ER with what looked to be brain tumor. Lucky guy. He had a giant tape worm in his gut and one of its eggs had migrated to his brain and was encapsulated.
Guess who paid the cost of the neurosurgery, anesthesia, meds, hospital and rehab. He didn’t.
Another illegal recently had surgery for appendicitis. LOL The problem was a pinworm in his appendix. We paid for that too.
These guys with tape worms and pin worms (not to mention hepatitis) are working in restaurants preparing your food!! Think about that!
“Let LA become a leper colony. No one in or out.”
“Escape From LA”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116225/
There was a Plague outbreak in 1900-1904 in San Fransisco’s Chinatown.
It was detected early on, but the city fathers simply refused to acknowledge that there could be plague in Their Fair City.
As a result they fiddle-farted around for years before doing anything effectual. Plague spread from the street and sewer rats to the local ground squirrel population and thence now uncontainable, to the entire western US.
Any parallels one may wish to draw to a more recent gayer plague are purely coincidence.
Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Today, the third lesson is massive quantities of un-screened un-quarantined, untreated, diseased invaders in every city and burg nation wide.
Passing grade is stopping an emerging disease early and well.
Failing grade is death.
In a county with 10.16 million people in it, 187 cases over 45 years is a very very small number.
Because of the movements of people, deaths, births, vacation visits, this count of the population is misleading too.
Many more people than 10.16 million people have been present in the county over the 45 year period. That figure could balloon to over 50 million quite easily, people being born, people dying, people moving in moving out, and people simply visiting...
We may be talking more in the range of 100 million or more people over time, and still just 187 cases over the 45 years.
Using the simple numbers, we’re looking at a little over four diagnosed cases per year, during that 45 years.
With as many people seeing physicians as there are, I can see how diagnosis might be missed in some instances. It’s a rare disease. How rare?
With thousands of physicians, clinics, hospitals, and other places that might see patients in the county, hardly any of these entities will ever see a case of Leprosy.
To say this is a nothing burger, is an understatement. It seems as if the talk of it at all would nearly have to be sensationalism. Scare the crap out of people who don’t think it out.
187 cases out of 50 million people, is a factor of 3.74 per million people. If we’re talking 100 million people, you can chop that figure in half (per million).
Those street $h!tt!ng “ people” in LA are humping Armadillos.
Ol’ Snake Plissken...
Did you hear about the businessman who didn’t know his secretary had leprosy until his business fell off . . . ?
Re the armadillos... I thought it was the only reservoir of leprosy in the US. I wonder whether imported leprosy is due to armadillo, or other occasional cross-species consumption, of if it has become endemic to humans in the immigrant population.
A shorter reply to the supervisor would have been, “’cause leprosy.”
Democrats - Make America Third World Again
Thanks for the National Geographic link about armadillo consumption and leprosy occurrence in Brazil.
One phrase stood out for me: “...armadillo liver ceviche, a mixture of raw meat and onions.”
Also, the article talked about a high incidence of leprosy antibodies in both people and armadillos. I wonder (didn’t find it in the article) whether the leprosy antibodies indicate successful resistance, or are more indicative of early or latent infection which will tend to get out of hand over time.
Corrections, insights are welcome on this side note about Hansen’s bacteria.
Medical rumors about leprosy question if a genetic weakness may be involved, implying only a minority of people can get leprosy.
Also, the bacteria is said to be weak, suggesting that those who get leprosy aren’t eating a nutritional diet, their immune system consequently too weak to kill the bacteria.
Otherwise I’m sure many FReepers have Googled that leprosy is 100% curable.
The problem is...
The bacteria is said to work slowly. So even if you get contaminated by the bacteria, it may be awhile before you become insensitive to temperature extremes and otherwise painful bruising for example. (Based on unreferenced story about Florida high school girl athlete from Cuba(?) who discovered her leprosy after seeing a doctor about a sports-related bruise that she though didn’t hurt enough. Only thing left of her leprosy is minor scarring.)
Finally, regardless that leprosy works slowly, what works to leprosy’s advantage in the USA is this. Medical doctors aren’t used to dealing with leprosy. So even if you’re slowly going numb because of leprosy, it may be awhile before your doctor clues in on the possibility of leprosy and tests for that.
Why did the leper’s case get thrown out of court?
He didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Time to quarantine CA. No flights in or out. No cars in or out, until it’s declared safe. Line the National guard on the adjoining borders of state connected to CA. To hell with that state.
That comes to approx. 4.1 per year........
That certainly doesn't equate to an epidemic in my opinion........Just sayin'
fyi
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.