Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret | www.palmbeachpost.com
JACKSONVILLE — The CDC officer had a serious warning for Florida health officials in April: A tuberculosis outbreak in Jacksonville was one of the worst his group had investigated in 20 years. Linked to 13 deaths and 99 illnesses, including six children, it would require concerted action to stop.
That report had been penned on April 5, exactly nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill that shrank the Department of Health and required the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital in Lantana, where tough tuberculosis cases have been treated for more than 60 years.
--------------------
Florida Governor Rick Scott is, of course, not only Gollum's doomed younger brother. He is also one of the Tea Party darlings who hates gubmint, taxation, and, it seems, public health services at or above the level of Somalia. And has he ever given Floridians a present: "Furthermore, only two-thirds of the active cases could be traced to people and places in Jacksonville where the homeless and mentally ill had congregated. That suggested the TB strain had spread beyond the city’s underclass and into the general population."
I can't wait to hear the libertarians explain how the free market will take care of public health programming.
No comments:
Post a Comment