Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s • Hacker News Board

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#351

Post by nobodyandproud » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

danw1979 wrote: post #294

mhandley wrote: post #51

Not being from the US, I find it odd that the article didn't mention anything about vaccination. Until 2005, pretty much everyone in the UK received the BCG vaccine. After that the TB rate fell too low to merit routine vaccination, but even today it's still given routinely in a few areas where the rate merits it, or if there's elevated risk of exposure via family from abroad, etc. Has vaccination in general become su…

Kind of related to your point… I remember my maternal Grandmother was looking after me one day and I’d either missed or skipped my earlier vaccination appointment in school (which, I think was a BCG or booster, it was in the early 1990s). She was raised by her maternal Grandmother after her mother died from TB when she was 2 years old. Her father died of… something infectious when she was teenager (the oral history i…

Tried-and-true vaccines are like plumbing or city infrastructure: Once established, it’s taken for granted and the true value can’t be intuited.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#352

Post by eth0up » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #325

eth0up wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resistance. It's not quite the end of the world if TB becomes impervious to, say, catnip or whatever, which isn't front line medicine. And some options might have a more mechanical rather than biological mechanism/function. Compliance for a 6 month course of just about anything is difficult and more so for something that may seem asymptomatic. Oozing sores, foul oders and overt discomfort would probably help, but ala…

I'm sorry but this doesn't make sense. Antibiotic resistance to TB only affects those who have TB, so if another 'natural' medicine is found and TB gets resistant to it, then it is still just as bad for the people affected . Natural means nothing in this context. Effective medicine is effective medicine, and there is nothing that makes TB less prone to developing a resistance to a 'natural' effective medicine over an…

I admit I slipped into the octogon of HN where animals weak and strong come to test their teeth on impulse. Therefore I must be prepared to write essays on semantics even when I use subtle indicators such as quotes.

For the first portion of your reply, I think that if TB became resistant to potatoes with licorice icecream, it would be preferable to having absolutely no recourse with antibiotics. But that's silly. If you are 100% certain that latent TB is innocuous and can't be reactivated, I must admit my logic was flawed.

Edit: is not, eg mrsa, becoming resistant to various things in the environment? Biofilms make many bacteria resistant to even alcohol. Staph, ubiquitous and thus exposed to pretty much anything a person's skin is exposed to is probably resistant to many things it previously wasn't. But it remains vulnerable to a few antibiotics, for now.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#353

Post by rounce » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #144

hedora wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting resources often is the root cause for an outbreak. - SARSv2 (aka Covid-19) happened after Trump disbanded the team that contained SARSv1. - During COVID, the west suspended polio vaccination programs in developing regions, so now polio outbreaks are a thing again. - Antivaxxers in NYC caused a massive measles outbreak a few years ago. Etc, etc.

I won't attempt to defend the administration's actions, but no team ever really contained SARS. That outbreak burned out largely for natural reasons.

I think they’ve muddled a few things together and are in part referring to the disbanding of the NSC’s Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense as part of John Bolton’s NSC reorg.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#354

Post by eth0up » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #308

eth0up wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Treating it casually has led to widespread resistance. I have long suspected this as part of why the subject isn't much discussed, despite being more prevalent than most realize. The elephant here is (aside from latent infection) the atypically long duration of treatment, which can exceed 6 months and is harsh. Many, even otherwise responsible people, will founder before the proper end of treatment and this, I think…

"It's probably time we start looking a bit harder for "natural" or alternate treatments. Some in medical journals, are under scrutiny, but inconclusive." Antibiotics are found in, and derived from, nature.

Amazing ain't it? And the use of the word is found in medical literature too!

Reflect for a moment on whether such a comment serves any positive purpose.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#355

Post by rounce » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #257

tzs wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if any of these would count as being significantly sized, but Japan, Australia, and South Korea handled it a lot better than the US [1] when it comes to deaths per 100k. Interestingly, Australia and South Korea did have more cases per 100k than the US[2]. [1] https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr... [2] https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...

So basically it's good to be an island?

An interesting thing to look at is the differences between European countries differing responses and how that worked out for them given many are connected via land borders.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#356

Post by eth0up » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 2:10 PM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #272

eth0up wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Treating it casually has led to widespread resistance. I have long suspected this as part of why the subject isn't much discussed, despite being more prevalent than most realize. The elephant here is (aside from latent infection) the atypically long duration of treatment, which can exceed 6 months and is harsh. Many, even otherwise responsible people, will founder before the proper end of treatment and this, I think…

What kind of natural treatments? Because tuberculosis has been a massive problem from the start of human civilization up until the advent of antibiotics, and they tried every natural medicine and treatment under the sun because of how long people can end up living with it before dieing, and they accomplished pretty much nothing in stopping it. In fact it continued to get worse throughout that entire time, at one poin…

I'm not going to devote the time required to search, retrieve and cite extent material. But you will find results if you do, but probably no panacea. Also, I deliberately don't mention specifics in this instance (and many others) due to potentially and probable controversy. As an example, if I were to (but won't!) cite research indicating the universally reviled Ag showing efficacy in mitigating TB, I'd be attacked by waves of hostility as if it was my own rogue idea.

I enjoy discussions, but find it often tends to be argumentative here, so I avoid things I expect to go in that direction. Note the hostility to my use of the forbidden word in quotes. It's a thousand cuts with these kinds of compulsive prison shanks of logic that makes me awkward.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#357

Post by eth0up » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #247

eth0up wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Treating it casually has led to widespread resistance. I have long suspected this as part of why the subject isn't much discussed, despite being more prevalent than most realize. The elephant here is (aside from latent infection) the atypically long duration of treatment, which can exceed 6 months and is harsh. Many, even otherwise responsible people, will founder before the proper end of treatment and this, I think…

> The elephant here is (aside from latent infection) the atypically long duration of treatment, which can exceed 6 months and is harsh. Many, even otherwise responsible people, will founder before the proper end of treatment and this, I think, is what terrifies health professionals - so much, that it almost seems to be avoided. The fear is overblown. I've known multiple people do the 9 month treatment and none had is…

Don't take this as a touche, but are you suggesting that full compliance is the rule and that the vast majority completes the course as prescribed?

Again, this isn't some passive aggressive challenge. But I will be genuinely surprised to see this is indeed the case, which very well may be. I certainly know people who'd follow the course with perfection, and some who absolutely wouldn't.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#358

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

fingrprintr wrote: post #344

ceejayoz wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So each state should have an healthcare embassy to coordinate with the other 49 states? Collecting the same data, but 50x? Maybe we can call them the “Duplicate Centers for Disease Control”. Sure sounds efficient.

You’re missing that these centers already exist.

State health agencies exist, yes.

Coordinating between them is the CDC's job. Having them all individually coordinate with everyone else would be wasteful and silly.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#359

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 2:51 PM UTC

chillfox wrote: post #169

redler wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…of the 63% who bothered themselves to vote.

In a democracy anyone wo doesn't vote should be considered to have voted for the winner as they were equally OK with any outcome.

Perhaps, but the US isn't a functioning democracy.

Re: Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is America's largest recorded since the 1950s

#360

Post by Eisenstein » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 3:11 PM UTC

eth0up wrote: post #352

Eisenstein wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make sense. Antibiotic resistance to TB only affects those who have TB, so if another 'natural' medicine is found and TB gets resistant to it, then it is still just as bad for the people affected . Natural means nothing in this context. Effective medicine is effective medicine, and there is nothing that makes TB less prone to developing a resistance to a 'natural' effective medicine over an…

I admit I slipped into the octogon of HN where animals weak and strong come to test their teeth on impulse. Therefore I must be prepared to write essays on semantics even when I use subtle indicators such as quotes. For the first portion of your reply, I think that if TB became resistant to potatoes with licorice icecream, it would be preferable to having absolutely no recourse with antibiotics. But that's silly. If…

I understand now what you mean. The thing is that TB doesn't transfer its resistance to other pathogens like MRSA does. It develops resistance via a different mechanism (mutations of its genome) then MRSA does (horizontal gene transfer).

Thus, you have a misconception about the nature of TB resistance. This accounts for the pushback. People tend to forget that we all have different knowledge bases and we talk past each other.