Diseases That Will Kill

If you weren’t already alarmed by our impending economic doom, here’s some chipper news on the health front!:

-Tuberculosis infections in Washington State are at a 30-year high.

-Public Health has no funding past 2009 (Good thinking, guys!), jeopardizing local prevention efforts by cutting outbreak response staff, killing off the satellite TB clinic that serves the homeless (TB-infested pirates, they are), and weakening the State’s ability to ensure that active TB patients complete treatment.

-Outbreaks will become more likely, and more difficult to respond to/control.

-Multi-drug resistant TB costs $250,000/person to cure.

-Run for the hills!

-81% of active TB patients are low-income, 80% are ethnic minorities, and 76% were foreign-born. Blacks (46 per 100,000), Asians (30 per 100,000) and Hispanics (17 per 100,000) continue to have disproportionately higher TB rates than whites (2.3 per 100,000).

-Super! If you’re white like me, you don’t have anything to worry about!*

*Save for the possibility our underfunded Public Health system misses a multi-drug resistant TB outbreak and we all consequently die.

30-year tuberculosis high in King County reflects ongoing health threat