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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history
An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has become the largest in recorded history in the United States.
"Currently, Kansas has the largest outbreak that they've ever had in history," Ashley Goss, a deputy secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee on Tuesday.
As of Jan. 17, public health officials reported that they had documented 66 active cases and 79 latent infections in the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area since 2024. Most of the cases have been in Wyandotte County, with a handful in Johnson County.
"The current KCK Metro TB outbreak is the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history, presently," Bronaugh said in a statement to The Capital-Journal. "This is mainly due to the rapid number of cases in the short amount of time. This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases. There are a few other states that currently have large outbreaks that are also ongoing."
https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025/01/24/kansas-tuberculosis-outbreak-is-largest-in-recorded-history-in-u-s/77881467007/
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dem4decades
(12,305 posts)Historic NY
(38,449 posts)LisaL
(47,051 posts)NT
Historic NY
(38,449 posts)Brucellosis, leprosy, scarlet fever, Justinianic plague.
Blues Heron
(6,399 posts)Someone impeach him, Quick!
Maru Kitteh
(29,622 posts)What I wish someone would do doesn’t have to be voted on, and beyond the reach of any pardon.
RockRaven
(16,856 posts)Get ready to revisit that old chestnut.
sakabatou
(43,982 posts)and possibly other diseases becoming pandemics.
hlthe2b
(107,835 posts)"Some of you are aware, we have and still have mobilized staff and resources addressing an unprecedented tuberculosis outbreak in one of our counties," Goss told lawmakers. "We are working collaboratively with CDC on that. CDC remains on the ground with us to support. That's not a negative. This is normal when there's something unprecedented or a large outbreak of any kind, they will come and lend resources to us to help get a stop to that. We are trending in the right direction right now."
THAT just makes me GD crazy! What Trump, RFK JR and all that MAGAT crowd have done to destroy Public Health in this country is going to harm us all for generations! I am so damned angry.
MMWR should be reporting on the epidemiology of this outbreak. Oh, yeah.. incommunicado per order of der Fuehrer.
Wounded Bear
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NoMoreRepugs
(10,967 posts)that happens to be a SlobFather voter.
JT45242
(3,136 posts)Maybe the mist since we could accurately count them. But given the large number of deaths fewer than 100 cases cannot be possibly larger than the TB outbreaks in the POW camps of the civil war or many other outbreaks historically.
But to say it's the worst since 1900 is likely accurate.
Maru Kitteh
(29,622 posts)Seems to me, in order for there to be enough patients to even take care of in Kearney Nebraska in the early 50’s, there must have been a fair bit of it around.
muriel_volestrangler
(103,020 posts)(that's when the article says it's counting CDC monitoring and reporting from)
Over 57,000 in the country. So yeah, it's not "in US history". It might be "in Kansas City, since the 1950s". If they had been really lucky - KCK metro population was about 800,000 in the 50s, so with the national rate, that would be about 250 for KCK metro.
Does their "since 2024" mean "in the 24 days of January 2025 so far", or "in 2024 plus those 24 days"?
allegorical oracle
(4,045 posts)A large TB "sanitarium" was in Tampa until at least the 1970s and people were confined there until they tested negative.
twodogsbarking
(12,711 posts)allegorical oracle
(4,045 posts)TB complications in the 1960s. What's the difference between the "fatal" disease and TB?
twodogsbarking
(12,711 posts)Maru Kitteh
(29,622 posts)SMDH.
ananda
(31,220 posts)Simply: survival of the fittest.
superpatriotman
(6,629 posts)Bang!