Tag Archives: tb

Influenza

Operation Jupiter : New TB killing deer & beef cattle!

13 April 2017 / 19:38 UTC-07 Tango 06 (25 Farvardin 1396/17 Rajab 1438/18 Jia Chen 4715)

“I can’t explain how this is moving around.  My concern is it is moving in something.”-Bret Marsh, Indiana State Board of Animal Health

In the United States, the Indiana State Board of Animal Health warning of what appears to be a new type of Bovine tuberculosis (TB) hitting both wild deer and domestic cows.

Supposedly Indiana’s cattle industry was TB free from 1984 until about nine years ago.  U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) testing revealed that the most recent cases of Bovine TB in wild white-tailed deer and domestic cattle are of the same strain of TB.  Also of interest is that one raccoon also tested positive for the same TB strain.

The particular strain of Bovine TB first popped up in 2008 in domestic cattle in Indiana. In 2009 the first wild deer case was found, also in Indiana, and it has spread across the United States.  Since then thousands of cattle and several types of wild deer and elk have been culled.

Last month South Dakota’s Game Fish and Parks Department discovered a herd of cattle infected with TB (the first time since 2011), they will be culled at U.S. taxpayer expense (the USDA will compensate the farmer).  Even the cows that tested negative will be killed.

In February this year the USDA identified cows from Nebraska as being infected.  It was also revealed that infected cows were found in feed lots in Nebraska and South Dakota in November 2016.

Bovine TB is considered the most infectious across animal specie, but I’ve discovered that until 1994 Bovine TB was considered rare in wild animals. Michigan Department of Natural Resources says until 1994 only eight wild deer were documented to have the disease. However, for some publicly unexplained reason, in 1995 Michigan required that wild deer killed by hunters, or found dead, had to be tested for the disease.  Since than not only have deer been found infected but so have elk, black bear, bobcat, coyote, opossum, raccoon, and red fox (‘You big dummy!’ No not that Redd Foxx).

Michigan’s domestic cattle industry is also being hit.  Earlier this month the USDA confirmed that a cow in Newaygo County tested positive.   A study by Michigan State University concluded that the main culprit in the spread of Bovine TB are salt licks set out by cattle ranchers.  Basically the wild deer come onto the farms at night to lick the salt, then move on during the day.  They pick up the TB from the domestic cows and then spread it across state lines.

The country of New Zealand reporting great progress in fighting Bovine TB.  In the Gregorian year of 2000 there were at least 7-hundred documented cases in deer and cattle.  Today the Operational Solutions for Primary Industries reports that there are currently 41 cases.

In the country of Ireland it’s reported that from the 1st quarter of 2016 to the 1st quarter of 2017 at least 2-thousand 8-hundred cases of Bovine TB were confirmed!  Interestingly wild deer are being blamed (even though it’s actually domestic cattle who should be blamed) and the Manor Kilbride Deer Management Project is demanding that hunters be allowed to kill-off as many as 50-thousand deer just in the tiny county of Wicklow!  Local news reports revealed that cattle farmers are blaming the deer for the TB epidemic in the hopes of freeing up more grazing land for their domestic cows.

In the United Kingdom, the Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales and County Hall is demanding an elk cull, not because they have Bovine TB but to find out if they do!   Turns out that the elk roam on private lands and are not required to be routinely tested, as domestic cows are required to be.

OPERATION JUPITER: RACCOONS HIT WITH UNKNOWN DISEASE?

U.S.

Medical Martial Law: TB outbreaks popping up in California, Virginia & Wisconsin! Whistleblower fired for revealing coverup in South Carolina?

22 June 2013 (14:35 UTC-07 Tango)/13 Sha’ban 1434/01 Tir 1391/15 Wu-Wu (5th month) 4711

In Virginia, the Fairfax County Health Department is investigating a TB outbreak where as many as 430 people at Robert E. Lee High School, in Springfield, have been exposed.

In South Carolina, a nurse formerly in charge of the tuberculosis program with the Department of Health and Environmental Control, is suing the DHEC for firing her after she revealed the DHEC intentionally tried to cover up a recent TB outbreak at the Ninety Six Primary School in Greenwood County.  She also says the DHEC actually ordered her to stop follow-up tests on students at the school.

She was fired on 30 May, after repeated requests to continue the TB testing.  The DHEC claims they fired her because she was the one refusing to conduct TB tests. Testing was resumed after her termination.

According to the lawyer representing the nurse there is a posting on the internet to the DHEC, from the nurse, requesting more staffing and supplies, which was ignored.

South Carolina is also where a school janitor was placed in detention under Title 44-Health, Chapter 31, Article 2 THE EMERGENCY DETENTION AND COMMITMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS law.

I don’t know what’s going on with the DHEC, but TB has now spread throughout South Carolina.  Reports of outbreaks at a Myrtle Beach homeless shelter, and at Clemson University.

In Wisconsin, after slashing and burning funding for health care, the state legislature is considering $4.6 million USD to fight an outbreak of tuberculosis in Sheboygan.  Eight cases confirmed.  Those infected have been quarantined in their homes or in hospitals.  At least one person has a type of TB that is resistant to almost all anti-biotics.

Many people in the U.S. don’t know that back in February 2013, Los Angeles, California, saw a TB outbreak that is suspected of exposing at least 4600 people.  It was so bad that Los Angeles County Health Department asked for help from the federal government.  Of interest is that these cases seemed to be targeting homeless or low income people (par for the course in the history of TB epidemics), and have been getting worse year after year.  The TB outbreak in LA hasn’t stopped.  The latest reports say the UCLA School of Nursing Health Center is on the front lines trying to fight the outbreak, in the past two years they’ve screened 11000 people: “Our screening has gone up about 200%!”-Mary Marfisee, director UCLA nursing clinic inside the Union Rescue Mission

In 2012, the state of Florida saw a TB outbreak that was called the worst in the past 20 years.  This as the state government slashed and burned funding for health programs.  Hundreds of people were confirmed infected with TB, thousands exposed.

Symptoms include fever, chills and coughing up of blood.

International, Technology

Drug resistant TB affecting thousands of Europeans

“TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance.”-Zsuzsanna Jakab, UNWHO

The United Nations World Health Organization is warning European countries  to be alert against the extensively-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Estimates show 15 of the 27 countries with the highest burden of MDR-TB are in the European region.  More than 80,000 MDR-TB patients are diagnosed in the region annually.  London, U.K., has been the hardest hit capital city with 3,500 new cases diagnosed each year.

About half of the newly diagnosed MDR-TB patients are expected to die!