Huh?
I’ve noticed a trend in reporting about immigrants and refugees—unless they are cute kids or wholesome-looking young adults, avoid the photos. How many times have I seen immigrant food stamp fraud cases reported and the accompanying photo is the ‘scales of justice’ or just a photo of an EBT card? I would say about half of the stories I come across involving immigrant criminals use some other illustration than the person’s face!
So, when I saw this story about Tuberculosis in the UK on the rise in one section of London (Redbridge) due to the large immigrant population, illustrating the story with a photo of a badger seems the ultimate diversion in the main stream media’s politically-correct avoidance of the truth.
Here is the story from the Ilford Recorder.
It seems badgers may be responsible for bovine TB, but the important part of the story is this:
A new health group is fighting the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in Redbridge after it was revealed to have one of the worst rates of the disease in London.
The group was set up by Redbridge Council, which is now in charge of public health in the borough, to co-ordinate a three-year programme to raise awareness of the disease in vulnerable residents.
[…..]
More than 56 residents per every 100,000 in the borough had the disease last year, when 157 new cases were recorded.
The average rate for England is just 14 and 42 in London. Most sufferers were born outside of the UK and aged between 25 and 44.
The Greens have jumped in to defend the badgers and a spokeswoman reminds the public that this is human to human TB and doesn’t involve the scapegoated badgers.
“Although Redbridge has one of the worst rates of tuberculosis in London, residents should remember that it is a separate strain of TB, transmitted only between human beings.”
So you think it’s just ‘over there’!
I bet you missed this story from Sheboygan, Wisconsin two months ago. I did, but reader ‘pungentpeppers’ didn’t.
Tuberculosis Outbreak Shakes Wisconsin City
Looking crisp and official in his khaki-colored sheriff’s department polo shirt, Steve Steinhardt says Sheboygan, Wis., is a pretty good place to be a director of emergency services.
“Nothing bad happens here,” he says, knocking on wood. Unless, that is, you count the tuberculosis outbreak that struck the orderly Midwestern city of 50,000 this spring and summer.
“I never expected TB to be one of the bigger emergencies I’d face when I got into this field,” Steinhardt says.
Sheboygan County officials have had to scramble to contain it. At the height of the crisis, the county activated its emergency operation center — a step usually reserved for major fires, floods and tornadoes.
It began with an immigrant family (apparently refugees).
The Sheboygan outbreak came to light on April 11. The first case was a woman at the center of a large, close-knit family. Health officials decline to identify the family, but they say the people were part of an immigrant community, a common theme in most current TB outbreaks in the U.S.
Sheboygan is home to sizable populations from Mexico and Southeast Asia, where TB is common. Asian immigrants make up half of Wisconsin’s recent TB cases. Refugees among the Hmong people of Laos and Thailand have been among the most difficult to treat cases.
Who will pay for all this? Obama?
But the really bad news was that the woman at the epidemic’s center had a TB strain resistant to at least two of the main drugs used to treat the infection. That’s known as , or MDR-TB. It’s especially hard to cure. The antibiotics can cost around $300,000 for a single case.
For new readers, see our category on ‘health issues’ (here) and see especially this shocking story from last year about the IOM readying drug-resistant TB cases to come to the US.