stupid post, please remove

[kpete]

New Flag: Don’t Cough On Me
By: egregious Sunday January 6, 2008 7:03 am

The Department of Homeland Insecurity, always keen to abuse your tax dollars to scare you into submission, will be thrilled with Tuesday's story from the AP's Paul Elias:

Health officials were searching Monday for dozens of airline passengers who may have come in contact with a 30-year-old woman infected with a hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis on a flight from India.

"She did have symptoms on the flight," said Santa Clara County Health Director Dr. Marty Fenstersheib. "She was coughing."

This is great! I mean this is great if you're a winger politician. Now you can scaremonger your way to higher office by claiming that those illegal immigrants are endangering your families once again. Oh no---they're taking away your jobs AND they're giving you germs.

Since TSA clearly doesn't already have enough information to "protect" us, in the way that a local thug will offer to "protect" your car for a fee, they will insist that Congress permit our electronic medical records to be available for review to look for scary terrorists, now defined as anyone with a cough.

more at:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/new-flag-dont-cough-on-me/

[xchrom]

1. what an idiotic OP -- tuberculosis is incredibly scary

as someone remembers sanitariums -- sanitariums with sometimes many THOUSANDS of people living there.

you have no idea what you are talking about.

[wtmusic]

2. That's a reach

Tuberculosis is contagious and kills half of its victims if left untreated.

A known carrier was coughing on an airplane and precautions were taken. As they should have been.

[Avalux]

3. Emergent drug-resistant TB is a very real threat. You get it, you don't have much of a chance.

The disease is spread through droplets and she could have potentially infected a lot of people. The symptoms do not show themselves right away as would a cold or the flu, so testing of those exposed is extremely important.

I understand your distrust of DHS but your post is off the mark.