Thread: More than 100 workers exposed to TB at plant

Another TB scare but this time at a chicken processing plant. Doesn't say who had the germs but the location is a good bet they didn't enter the country legally.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/i ... xml&coll=2

More than 100 workers exposed to TB at plant
Friday, June 17, 2005
KENT FAULK
News staff writer
More than 100 employees of a chicken-processing plant in Jasper were exposed to a former co-worker who had tuberculosis and are being screened for the disease, a state health official said Thursday.

Results of chest X-rays of the workers should be ready today, said Dr. Karen Landers, public health officer for a six-county area that includes Walker County.

The public shouldn't be concerned about contamination of food processed at the plant, Landers said, because TB is not transmitted via food.

Officials of the Alabama Department of Public Health on June 6 gave TB skin tests to more than 200 people who may have worked close to the former employee, Landers said. Just over 100 of the tests came back positive for TB exposure, she said.

"A positive skin test generally indicates a person has been around a TB germ," although other germs can cause a positive test result, Landers said. Public health officials on June 8 came to the plant, which has 600 employees, and took X-rays of those with positive skin tests, Landers said.

Anyone whose X-ray is abnormal will go through further testing and begin taking medication, Landers said. In addition, those with positive skin tests will be given the option of taking preventive drugs.

The public shouldn't be concerned about being around anyone who has a positive test but doesn't have the disease, Landers said.

TB is a disease caused by bacteria that usually attack the lungs, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is spread to others when a person with active TB coughs or sneezes.

Most people who breathe in the TB bacteria have a latent form of the disease - meaning the body is able to attack it and keep it from growing. A person who has the latent form has no symptoms, can't spread it to others and likely never gets it unless his or her immune system is damaged.

An estimated 14 percent of Alabamians have positive skin tests, Landers said; only 10 percent to 20 percent who have a positive skin test ever get the active form of the disease, she said.

Marshall Durbin has been working with the health department to protect the safety of the workers and the community, said Stephen Bradley, a spokesman for the company with Stephen Bradley & Associates.

Bradley said there is no danger to anyone in the public through any of the food processed at the plant because tuberculosis can not be spread through food. "Food safety has not been compromised," he said.

As MRSA spreads, the only choice left to doctors is the use of Vancomycin, often called the drug of last resort for infectious diseases. But there are already at least two documented cases in the U.S. just in the last year in which an infection proved resistant to the powerful antibiotic.

This is particularly devastating for patients with impaired immune systems, like those with cancer and AIDS. About 90 percent of AIDS patients who get multiple-drug resistant Tuberculosis (TB) die.

TB, a bacterial lung infection, has long been responsive to antibiotics. But not anymore. WHO estimates that TB affects a third of the world's population and kills more than 2.5 million people in each year. It is the leading cause of death among infectious diseases.
While medical misuse of antibiotics is thought to be largely responsible for the increase in antibiotic resistance, another major source is thought to be the current high agricultural use. Some of our most powerful antibiotics are mixed into the daily feed for our farm animals.
About 50 percent of antibiotic production in the U.S. is used to prevent disease, encourage growth, and treat sick livestock, as well as poultry.

Penicillin and Tetracycline make up about 80 percent of that total. Some antibiotics are also used as crop pesticides.

But although the U.S. government, along with the FDA, etc., has requested studies into this issue, we are not aware of any formal action that has yet been taken in an attempt to solve these health threats from America's heartland.

Oh goody, my home state. I heard about this yesterday.

I called the Jefferson County Health Dept. yesterday asking about MDR TB. The guy said they had not had any cases in over 3 years and that they were "home grown cases". Then he tells me that they have only had about 12 cases of TB this year. But he did admit that there has been about a 15% rise in TB cases. There is a major coverup on this crap as far as I am concerned. What is really scary is what are they NOT telling us!

What is really scary is what are they NOT telling us!

So true! If Americans, that are otherwise blind to this issue, would just grasp this single, frightening aspect of illegal immigration (ESPECIALLY those with children attending public schools), our Nation would wake up...and FAST!

Originally Posted by ohflyingone

Oh goody, my home state. I heard about this yesterday.

I called the Jefferson County Health Dept. yesterday asking about MDR TB. The guy said they had not had any cases in over 3 years and that they were "home grown cases". Then he tells me that they have only had about 12 cases of TB this year. But he did admit that there has been about a 15% rise in TB cases. There is a major coverup on this crap as far as I am concerned. What is really scary is what are they NOT telling us!

"Only" 12 cases of TB this year!!!!
A 15% rise is HIGH for any area, especially a small county in Alabama.