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Snakes TB on planes: another excuse to restrict our civil liberties? You heard it here first.
The Department of Homeland Insecurity, always keen to abuse your tax dollars to scare you into submission, will be thrilled with Tuesday's story from the AP's Paul Elias:
Health officials were searching Monday for dozens of airline passengers who may have come in contact with a 30-year-old woman infected with a hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis on a flight from India.
"She did have symptoms on the flight," said Santa Clara County Health Director Dr. Marty Fenstersheib. "She was coughing."
This is great! I mean this is great if you're a winger politician. Now you can scaremonger your way to higher office by claiming that those illegal immigrants are endangering your families once again. Oh no---they're taking away your jobs AND they're giving you germs.
Since TSA clearly doesn't already have enough information to "protect" us, in the way that a local thug will offer to "protect" your car for a fee, they will insist that Congress permit our electronic medical records to be available for review to look for scary terrorists, now defined as anyone with a cough.
Of course they would always use any controversial medical information they learn about you very discreetly. I trust them, don't you?
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egr!
deja vu all over again!
Flying fingers, brothus!!
Coming soon to an airport security line near you; “Turn your head to the right and cough, please…”
Good morning pups!
It’s almost like they want people to stop flying completely which is one more way to control the masses by keeping them in America and behind the “walls”.
egregious!
Don’t phlegm me, bro.
Perhaps the airlines could pump fresh air into the plane instead of circulating stale air?
oh, no - they stopped that because it was too expensive.
Good morning EG
Mornin’, eg! It’s been reported that cacao is more effective than codeine for subduing cough congestion. The Sunshine household can report this to be true…. we recommend the 60% cacao. Hmmmm, you don’t suppose chocolate’s now going to go the way of medical marijuana?
We will see all kinds of scaremongering in upcoming months. But fear won’t work any more. It just won’t.
The media talk about Hillary’s NH firewall, but the real story is the cracking levee that is the Republicans who are–see Barbara, tail of last thread–already cracking and crumbling before the coming Democratic tide. Couldn’t have a more fitting metaphor than that, methinks.
Electronic medical records will be used for both good and evil. The good, that there will be fewer mistakes made especially in hospitals. Altho the mistakes will be really spectacular ones as there will be fewer humans in the chain of command to go Hmmm? when something looks hinky. The evil use, instantly available sensitive medical information in the hands of people who will use it for their own purposes. I always laugh when I sign those long documents about patient privacy. Just give me the short version–Patient Privacy: you don’t have any.
Morning, all.
Since some airports now have machines that can see through our clothing, I’m sure the next “epidemic of fear” will come in the form of screeners mistaking moles on the body as small pox or black pox. Oh yeah! That ought to keep the fear going until election season for sure!
Having spent a good deal of time in the NYC Subway, seeing someone with advanced TB enter a car and start coughing is a pretty scary thing, as evidenced by how quickly the car empties when the train arrives in the next station. But then one normally doesn’t see emaciated half naked homeless guys getting on trans Atlantic airliners.
THE BLACK DEATH!
hey egregious.
if I go on a plane I can’t cough? what about the kids? my son will only cover his mouth if he doesn’t have his DS in his hands - which is, like, never. I guess he gets the boot, too.
At London Heathrow they pulled me aside for about a dozen of these X-ray pictures. I took it as kind of a compliment to how well my diet was going.
The best way to cure the cough reflex on airplanes or anywhere else is liquor.
There you go. Problem solved.
If I’d been on a long flight with a person who had an active case of TB, I’d want to know about it. And if I did know about it, I’d call up my doctor and ask her what I should do.
menth-o-lyptus…
Ha! I can’t fly without it.
Good morning EG, hope you’re having a great time at chezSmith.
The medical records issue was one of Newt’s talking points at my alma mater in 2004. How everything would be electronic and save boatlaods through efficiency of market demanded choice healthcare. NOT a Word about privacy!
Do you remember that tunnel that used to be under Gimbels? It went from the PATH station at 33rd & 6th to Penn Station/Madison Sq. Garden. They built it long before the Gardn was ever there. Always smeled like piss. It’s been closed for awhile but I remember going through it all the time when I was a kid goin’ to games at The Garden. I just rememberd it when you mentioned half-naked emaciated people. There were always a few in the Gimbels Tunnel.
LOL
half a dozen x-ray pictures in rapid succession? Isn’t that like potentially fatal?
Absolutely.
[eg puts public health hat on head]
TB on planes is a real public health concern, but one which can be handled with a minimum of alarm by responsible authorities. I am just extrapolating how this administration can take yet another small problem and scaremonger it into something outrageous.
Then they’ll find a way to make a lot of money off of it, instead of, you know, actually working to reduce multiply drug resistant TB.
yes i want to be protected for idiots with TB who ignore medical advice, but I don’t trust this administration for one second. Fear mongering as excuse to bolster the dossiers they have on all of us. I’m just glad my ex doesn’t work at the NSA.
Glad the diet is going well. Survived the holidays? Mine sorta did, but after Xmas I went after any and all leftovers. Back to the drawing board.
My grandmother used to talk about how her parents, when they came to Ellis Island from Norway, Europe, weren’t able to cry upon seeing the Statue of Liberty, because they didn’t want the Americans to see their red swollen eyes, which would have meant a trip back to their country, because they looked sickly.
Now look at where our country is?
You can’t cough now!
Sad.
I made a 12 hour mistake yesterday. When I made my reservations, I thought I was on the 7am flight from JFK to SLC. Got to the airport at 5:30am, to discover I was on the 7pm flight. Ooops. They wouldn’t even let me thru security until 6 hours before flight time, so I was stuck in the check in area with no bathrooms, drinking fountain, shops, nothing. I eventually got on the 4:30pm flight without paying penalty, and the flight attendant, upon hearing my story, comped my drinks. Don’t know as it was worth the delay, but it sure helped. Meanwhile, I read 3/4 of Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, which is the perfect book to read while traveling to Utah. All in all, it wasn’t a bad day.
I thougt all the Norweigens came into the country by way of Minnesota.
A dozen. But it’s a different kind of x-ray, “probably safe.”
Morning Egregious!
Santa gave me a shredder for Christmas. Sign of the times….
I used it in a very therapeutic way - to shred a joke birthday card with photo of Jr. & Laura wishing a very happy birthday. It was wayy too much fun. I gotta go find another of those cards for the next time I’m in a frump, heh.
((((((Peace)))))) Pups!
I remember that tunnel very well, an entire avenue long! Musicians used to play right in the middle of that thing and they could be heard from one end to the other. For all of it’s um…character, it was acoustic perfection. That was back in the 70’s when music was still illegal, but some of the best street music in the city could be heard there.
What a nightmare. They should have comped you drinks first. But that is a tad early to start. ;)
Anyone interested in drug resistant TB, how the problem is growing around the world and what can be done should read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.
It’s the story of a young American doctor, Paul Farmer, and his efforts to address this growing issue.
Surprisingly, in the fifteen years my book club has been meeting, it’s our collective favorite read. One of those rare books (especially for nonfiction) I could not put down.
‘morning, eg… all - coffee?
nice and hot!
Not in my great-grandparents case. I’ll have to ask my mother how they came through Ellis Island, but that is where they came in. They almost were sent to Portland, Oregon too.
Paul Farmer is a saint. I have the highest respect for his work.
No more tunnel. No more Gimbels. Soon enough, no more MSG. Thank God for those memories. As a kid, I remembered it more for the sad people there than the music.
Mmmmm, smells great. But I’ll have to pass. I’m on day 5 of the Master Cleanse fast.
This is what happens when we don’t have National Healthcare. It sure would be great if when people were sick they could go to the Doctor. But we don’t have National Healthcare so the Homeland Security people have to track everyone who flew on the plane to prevent a Plague.
Because we know that many Americans can’t afford to go to the Doctor unless they go to the emergency room. But by the time that happens many more people will get sick.
I think that our first real plague of antibiotic resistant disease that infects rich people will be the lever we need to convince GOPers that we need National Healthcare.
All the GOP Presidential Candidates had better avoid eating at restaurants and large crowds of people TB is spread through the air by coughing. It would sure be ironic if we were to lose a GOP Presidential Candidate to TB because he voted against Hilary Care and one of his followers got sick.
I would prefer though that nobody gets sick passing Healthcare before people get sick is wise. Passing Healthcare after people get sick is doing it because you have to.
Tracy Kidder always writes interesting books, will look for this one, thanks.
If you don’t support the terrorists you would have already sent the feds your medical records…
You don’t support the terrists, do you?
Oh my
I just heard John Edwards make news. He said he’d not quit, that he’d be there through the convention
Go John!!!!
NO! And ahm lookin’ fwd to havin’ ‘im retah from MY white house.
My mother had TB when I was a senior in HS. Obviously a different strain than this but the major impact on our family was that we maintained specific dinner dishes, glasses, and silver for her use. Oh and we made sure to wash our hands immediately after emptying her trash can or such.
*waving to WDD!
Sure do! When I was a senior in high-school my buddies and I took the Erie-Lackawanna to Hoboken and then the PATH into the City almost every Saturday night.
Wonder what ever happened to big ol scary avian flu. I think V for Vendetta tore a hole in that scam. Another normal public health issue turned into an opportunity to make people afraid and make money off of it.
Yes it is a problem, but not one that should be making us hide under our beds.
Good morning, Elliot!!
Ah, but the mistake was mine, so they didn’t owe me anything. Also talked to some nice people, including a baggage handler who was flying standingby. He’s a (6′9″) lapsed Mormon, and when I showed him what I was reading, we had a very good discussion about religion in general and religious extremism in particular. Also, he teaches (part time) behaviorally challeneged small children, so it was interesting to learn how he does it. (lots of love and lots of discipline.)
I agree with eg @ 27. There are legitimate public health problems, including TB on airplanes, but they, like terrorism, can be dealt with by targeted programs without scaring everyone to death or trashing civil liberties.
eg-how contagious is TB? I understand there are two forms, the regular one and the one that is drug resistant. Is that right? Are there differences in the contagion aspect?
Well there are several different forms of TB, roughly equally contagious, but for civilian purposes you mostly care if you get a kind that can be treated or not. My brother got a case when he was working with institutionalized teenagers, took several months of meds but he was finally ok. This did not make me wanna turn my medical records over to Homeland Security.
Speaking of public health, great series in LATimes on the price the
Navajo are still paying after 50 years of uranium mining.
Okay, I just called my mother in Florida to find out how her grandparents got here and she said the Terrisons (her grandmother was a Larson) came to Ellis Island by boat from Europe. The Larsons stayed in New York and the Terrisons (now spelled “Terison” because the person filling out the paperwork got the spelling wrong) came to Portland, Maine…though (I got this part wrong above)…they were supposed to go to Portland, Oregon. No one went to Minnesota…well…not in our family anyways.
There, I feel better now that that is straightened out. LOL
mornin, all
thing that spooks me about the med records is that when they are available to all to see, the only insurance people with any genetic predisposition to anything, or any history of any problem at all, will be able to get will be govt insurance, and if we don’t have that by like uh next week when info is actually no longer private, you’re toast. this dovetails nicely with certain neocon notions of population reduction in the US via benign neglect. And that scares me more than anything.
Only your oncologist will know for sure!
But seriously, it is not an issue. A CT scan delivers a comparatively large dose of radiation compared to a simple Xray.
IIRC, Rumsfeld made a killing on that issue. Further, he said that when he told others in the White House that he owned stock in the company that would manufacture a vaccine, they all agreed that that was okay as long as he was upfront about it.
How do you charactarize such behaviour? It’s more than thievery. More than arrogance. More than hubris. Is there a word that fits this behavior?
Is there a word that fits this behavior?
nepotisticassininity
Hi Kayln,
That reminds me of the story about an acquiantance’s grandmother who was a sprightly young Jewish Russian anarchist when she got to Ellis Island in 1908.
After she passed the mandatory physical health inspection there was one final step that was required before she could enter the U.S. and A. The immigration agent asked her several questions about her political orientation. The final question was “Miss, would you attempt to overthrown the Government of the United States by means of sedition or violent revolution?” After a few pensive moments she smiled and replied: “Sedition.”
They let her in.
There we are. A CT scan (CAT scan) of the chest is roughly the same as 100 Xrays.
And it’s perfectly safe… …trust us.
Saw that too and felt the same! He had to reapeat it when Stephie said “To the convention?” I think this was the only show that had him on and he was good. I’d been disappointed in his appearances sometimes but he was good today, Jeez. McCain and Wilard are all over the tube. Matthews compared Edwards (& some other “losers”) to the black knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail who gets chopped up but doesn’t know when to quit. Know what ? Good. I’m glad Edwards doen’t know when to quit.
That’s funny. Love it.
In ultra far left England, where they have socialised medicine, we were required to be vaccinated against TB at age 13. I have a vivid memory of the whole second year class standing in line outside the medical room, going in for our shots one by one. Don’t they do that in the US?
Love that story, Ray! Wow. Things have changed a ton since then, huh? I would love to know what my great-grandparents said to that question if they were asked. If my grandmother was any indication (she died at 93 two months after 9/11 and went out spitting about the Bush family and republicans in general), I bet they would have responded in a similar fashion! ;-)
When I was young they did the same thing with the oral polio vaccine, but then the whole town went to the auditorium of the local elementary school. One drop on a sugar cube for everyone.
Later on I found other sugar cubes to be far more interesting…
And besides bein’ all over the BoobTube, McCain is just nuts. Bush should get credit for finding a winning strategy in Iraq. The biggest problem is spending. Has anybody gotten a stop watch on these guys to see who says “Mistakes were made” the fastest? I’ve heard insincere, throwaway lines from poloticians before, but that’s one the R’s just blurt out as fast as they can to get it over with before they tell us how great things are in Iraq.
MSM Goebbels Will calls Edwards today’s Trotsky.
We don’t do TB vaccinations, just skin tests. BCG isn’t considered very effective. I’m sure the Republican administration is hard at work developing a new, effective vaccine right?
Yeah, we did the sugar cubes. And then later, some small squares of blotting paper.
Re:
I’d call Rumsfeld a sociopath. However the American Psychiatric Association prefers the term Antisocial personality disorder.
At any rate, Rumsfeld is mentally ill. Of course I think the same can be said about most CEOs in corporate America today.
boy they sure don’t telll you that on House.
I’m linking this to PeteCO but I’m throwin’ this out for anybody.
Yesterday, I saw Hillary on c-span at a Q&A in NH (O’Reiley was there-seemed well behaved. somebody asked a question for him. weird) and somebody asked her about her health care plan. And the questioner mentioned Canada’s disparagingly. I’ve heard & read some good things about Canada’s health system. What’s the real deal? I figured NH is almost Canada, they would know. No? Eh?
no !!!really!?
School nurse would check for required immunizations and tests. Pediatricians would give shots and TB test back when is was about health, not money…..
http://www.guaranteedhealthcar.....lth-reform
Isn’t Rummy an investor of Tamiflu and it’s this drug that is now having psychotic effects (hallucinations apparently) on some that have taken it? Makes you wonder if they’re testing something on the populace? Knowing Rummy, it wouldn’t surprise me. He’d love to be able to control the minds of the American citizens.
I was reading a couple of years ago that during the 60’s and 70’s many millions of people worldwide used entheogenic substances, and as yet no one has undertaken a study on what effect that had on society. I think such a study would have been fascinating.
Yeah, they did it as a big community get-together type deal where everyone went to the county health center for three Sundays in a row IIRC and took the vaccine.
Canada is the system I hear compared to the UK’s most often. Both are not without problems, which seem to stem mostly from demand outstripping supply. People want a better service, but are unwilling to shoulder the additional tax burden, so the consequence is waiting lists and “quality adjusted life years”.
It’s not perfect, but it seems to me that with the many different systems in place throughout the developed world, it should be possible to look at them all and come up with a workable system.
Canada’s healthcare system is really great in Alberta and its damn good in Toronto. I have friends and relatives in both places. I wish I’d moved in 2000. Economically, things were advantageous to American expats. Now, I’d take a huge hit financially. Then, it would have been great. I just couldn’t leave my sick parents. Dad passed away last year and Mom is on her way out. If I can get the hell out, I’m going.
Homeland Security epidemic management:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFXGwHsD_A
I’ve been told be a friend that the Canadian system is run by the provinces. My friend’s mother-in-law lives in Montreal, where he says there is no opt-out, and they hate the system in Quebec. Just reporting what he says. No idea if it is accurate.
I read Huxley’s “Doors of Perception” before using hallucinogenics. His comment that the person who steps through the door is forever changed is true for me. I see the world differently. I suspect that’s true for many.
Different in what way?
Bah hahahahahahaha! “…but I’m not dead yet!” Yep. America’s Homeland Security won’t care either.
Re:
Rumsfeld holds stock in Gilead which licensed Tamiflu production to Roche. It’s a bit convoluted, but here’s the story. The Global Research article does not mention the scale Rumsfeld’s beneficial ownnership of Gilead stock, but the rumors on the blogs about the time of this hoax indicated that Rumsfeld made at least $1 million by perpetrating this fraud. Which is a good indication of his sociopathy, since his net worth was already around $100 Million.
All the time. Here’s but one example of many dozens cited:
1950 - In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Francisco. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.
((egregious!)) btw, lets not forget they got it wrong the last time about that young man from Atlanta but quietly released their corrected diagnosis - jes sayin
Your last comment sent chills down my spine. It’s very obvious to me that our government for a long time has used each generation as a testing ground. Even our soldiers haven’t escaped this wrath!
Visually. I look at things more closely. Autumn leaves, sunsets, the shapes drifting snow makes. I didn’t really pay that much attention before.
Poisoned pet food, poisoned toys, diseased cows and people………Hey, I thought the wingers liked globalization. Had your Malaria vaccination yet?
Of course, it’s not just the American government.
Nice.
I never tried LSD because when I heard descriptions of “trips,” they sounded like my childhood nightmares, seeing through things, out of body experiences, changing sizes (yep, like Alice), and all of them completely terrified me. I would wake up screaming and it took over an hour to get me calmed down enough to go back to bed. No way I wanted to risk reexperiencing that!
I actually learned to observe the physical world more closely by carrying a pocket camera around, so that it was easy to snap a picture when something was interesting.
Don’t go by Quebec. Quebec wants to opt out of Canada. That movement supports a bit of the libertarian-styled bootstrap puller upper type meme. Wealthy Quebecois feel that too much of their tax revenue is being sent out to support health care in the other provinces. Much in the same way that the American Right Wing in the US was able to shanghai low wage dupes into union bashing (and joining the republican party) with dog-whistle politics, there is a massive campaign afoot in Quebec to sway public perception against the system. Everyone else is quite happy with it overall. I have seen it with my own eyes. Its fantastic by comparison. You would love to have that same system here.
Maybe they should elect Ron Paul ;)
One of the simplest and most intelligent ways to compare health systems is to look at life expectancies.
Canada ranks #11 in the world. The U.S. ranks #38. Even the impoverished and brutally sanctioned nation of Cuba outranks the U.S.
Yet we spend roughly twice as much as a percentage of GDP as any sane OECD country.
Are we stupid, or what?
Single payer health care is the civilized world’s solution to humanity’s needs. The idiot system in America is designed to outrageously overcompensate a handful of brazen CEOs. This is nuts.
I think I need a booster shot. I’m not seeing the colors as well. ; )
More Pie Fight upstairs…
It’s so sick to me that governments think of their citizens/soldiers as guinea pigs. Putting our soldiers in locked rooms to expose them to Anthrax to see the effects of it or putting them and our citizens a few miles from the testing of a nuclear bomb is just plain scary to me!
What is being tested on us right now? We have no idea. Even Teflon coated pans could be the next epidemic in this country. Apparently Teflon particles can build up in our bodies and because it hasn’t been used for too long, the scientists don’t really know what effect it is having on us. I do know…when I was taking in rescued parrots/birds I stopped using Teflon coated pans. Why? Because if the Teflon is heated up to a certain temperature, it releases a gas into the air that kills a bird instantly. Oh gawd.
Your budweiser would be $12 a six pack and a pack of smokes would be $8. Drink less and smoke less. No big deal.
Hm?
As far as I can tell, the U.S. gov’t is in deep denial about the impact another influenza epidemic, as with the 1918-1919 one, would have on today’s world.
In fact, I’m kind of surprised they *haven’t* tried to turn it into a fear mongering issue in order to control us. I think their very silence is much more ominous than any political footballing of it would be.
Here’s a good site to start with
http://www.fluwikie.com/
Here in Ontario…great health plan. No cost to visit your Dr. No cost if you go to hospital. More or less triage model of who gets care first..and can have longer than one would like wait for surgery perhaps in some locations, but this is offset in my opinion, by the lack of worry about cost of an operation.
Re: meds, over 65 yrs coverage of many meds thu Ontario Drug Benefit. Costs pt dispensing fee only in many cases. Here in Ontario there are retrospective studies done on var disease states in order to assess which meds have worked most succussfully, and modifications are made to the Ont Drug Formulary based on these criteria, ie updates according to the latest info perhaps every few months.
For pts c low income and very high rx costs, there is the Trillium program which covers the same meds as the over 65 group, but with a sliding scale deductable according to a persons salary which is deducted when a person fills rx ie no upfront payment, but one pays the rx until the deductable is satisfied then the drug cost is free, until another quarter rolls by.
Many people have private health plans from their work, in some plans a person can choose how to structure their plan each year…ie my son opted out of dentists plan last year…until I said it is time to give Mother her birthday present and all go to the dentist.
We are really free from worry,,,
Thanks for that. Among other lies, Americans are deceived into believing that they would have to wait until they are dead to receive care.
This is actually a recent, real report about chemical trails - check it out:
http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?s=7339345
Cut it out. You sound like Tom Tancredo.
It’s highly unlikely that electronic medical rcords will do anything but cost more. IT is replete with projects where “projections” forecast a boatload of savings, and delivered more expense.
If one is sick enough that the medical record is relvant, then one has a serious problem.
They will be used to deny insurance coverage. I’ll repeat. Electronic medical records will be used to deny health insurance coverage.
The only “savings” will be for the insurance comapany shareholders & executives.
Thanks for this link, Allan.
About ten years ago, I saw a person with AIDS interviewed by Charlie Rose. The PW AIDS said he had given up flying because every time he did, his physician diagnosed him with TB. The problem was that the airlines didn’t dry out and disinfect air ducts on planes. I suspect that conditions are the same and that we are all, every time we fly, subject to contracting diseases that like that environment.