US Hospital Employee Exposes 800 People to Tuberculosis

A hospital employee in Atlanta's Emory University Hospital exposed 700 patients and 100 other employees to tuberculosis, according to a new statement from the hospital. Georgia Department of Health and Emory have begun contacting the patients, all of whom must be really pissed off about the situation.

Apparently, the employee did not know he was infected with the TB bacteria when he came in contact with others. Emory says they will contact everyone who was in the hospital in the 3 months before the employee developed symptoms.

Scary stuff. Here's something even scarier: about 11 million Americans are infected with a "latent" form of tuberculosis, which doesn't cause symptoms and, apparently, is not very contagious. About 5-10% of those people eventually develop an active TB infection, which is fatal if not treated quickly and can be spread through the air.

Experts say the number of TB cases in the United States have been in decline since the early 1990's. But they are worried about the new "super strains" that have developed strong resistance to nearly all anti-biotic drugs. Those are on the rise in several third-world countries and are being seen more and more here in the US!

We say: Why aren't all American hospital employees required to get TB vaccine shots? Also, it has become totally obvious that we need more tools to deal with the "super" tuberculosis strains and other emerging diseases. For now, we'll keep our vitamin D levels up (easy here in Las Vegas!), continue taking selenium supplements, and keep some MMS/sodium chlorite on hand just in case!

Learn some mo': Atlanta hospital notifies nearly 700 patients about TB exposure