Washington Woman, Who has Refused Tuberculosis Treatment, is Still on the Run
She headed to a casino, where she was found…then eventually let go by an officer with an arrest warrant.
I recently noted that a significant percentage of immigrants surging into the cities across this nation were either likely unvaccinated or potentially infected with a wide array of communicable diseases.
One of those diseases was tuberculosis (TB), a known killer. Over 10 million people died of the disease worldwide in 2021 and is the 13th leading infectious killer. Vidya Krishnan, a health-focused Indian investigative journalist, once noted: “Tuberculosis shaped history; it’s the phantom plague.”
It’s a testament to the quality of medical care and public health level this country has enjoyed for decades that many Americans seem to have forgotten exactly how serious an active case of TB can be.
And, as there are more people now in this case with potentially active cases that can infect others, news that a missing Washington woman has refused TB treatment is concerning.
A Washington state woman who has refused to isolate or get treatment for tuberculosis for more than a year was found in contempt of court Friday.
“Law enforcement has the civil arrest warrant that authorizes them to detain the patient who is still refusing treatment,” the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said Friday.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorenson signed an order of contempt and an order for involuntary detention, testing and treatment.
Tuberculosis is spread through the air from one person to another, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If not treated properly, TB can be fatal, the CDC says.
And what is even more disturbing is that one officer with an arrest warrant for her allowed her to go free after being detained at a casino.
A Washington state woman who has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and refused numerous orders to isolate was spotted boarding a bus to a casino by an officer who had been tailing her and had a warrant for her arrest, according to a court filing obtained Wednesday.
Instead of arresting the woman, identified only as V.N. in documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court, the officer let her go and a local judge found her in contempt.
On Friday, Judge Philip K. Sorenson ordered that she be seized and treated against her will, online records show.
Authorities haven’t been able to find her, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman said in an email.
The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is spread through the air when a person with an active case coughs, sneezes or speaks. Treatments, once started, must continue to completion to fight the infection successfully.
TB disease can be treated by taking several drugs for 6 to 12 months. It is very important that people who have TB disease finish the medicine, and take the drugs exactly as prescribed. If they stop taking the drugs too soon, they can become sick again; if they do not take the drugs correctly, the germs that are still alive may become resistant to those drugs.
TB that is resistant to drugs is harder and more expensive to treat. In some situations, staff of the local health department meet regularly with patients who have TB to watch them take their medications. This is called directly observed therapy (DOT). DOT helps the patient complete treatment in the least amount of time.
After overreacting to the novel coronavirus, public health officials and those tasked to carry out public health orders need to begin focusing on real hazards to public health….like TB.
The one bit of good news: the University of Massachusetts Amherst microbiologists have identified a long-sought gene that plays a critical role in the growth and survival of the TB bacterium. This finding offers a potential target for new drug therapies.
Published in the journal mBio, the research showed that the putative gene cfa encodes an essential enzyme directly involved in the first step of forming tuberculostearic acid (TBSA), a unique fatty acid in the cell membranes of mycobacteria. TBSA was first isolated from mycobacteria nearly 100 years ago but exactly how it’s synthesized had remained elusive.
“There is a long history associated with this very fascinating fatty acid,” says senior author Yasu Morita, associate professor of microbiology, in whose lab lead authors Malavika Prithviraj and Takehiro Kado carried out the research.
The experiments revealed how TBSA controls the functions of the mycobacterial plasma membrane, which acts as a protective barrier for the TB pathogen to survive in human hosts for decades.
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Comments
It’s the old question:
What do you give the girl who’s got everything?
Answer- A large dose of penicillin
The left really thinks they are immune to these diseases they are blessing us with
I think the cop didn’t want to put her in the same car as himself
Just let her spread her love to the rest of us
I’m a pulmonary physician. This is shameful. TB is indeed a killer, and one of the things traditional public health officers had to do was identify and skin-test all known contacts of a person with documented TB. I wonder if the state of Washington will do that this time?
One of my early Iraq deployments TB spread through the unit, discovered as part of medical screening upon redeployment. For whatever reason of fortunate circumstance I didn’t contract it even though I had been in the same places with the same exposure. The guys who had TB all got put on a very long course of treatment which the Docs told them wasn’t compatible with alcohol. Those dudes were hella PO after year in the sandbox without drinking and then hit with another extended period of no alcohol.
Public “health” officials these days are too busy trying to get guns banned and make tr@nnys out of teens.
Let’s see, she’s been out there for a year. What you just said would be impossible.
The article’s mention of “immigrants either likely unvaccinated or potentially infected” suggests a connection not confirmed or denied anywhere else in the article. Is Typhoid Mariel here a citizen or an illegal?
Well we know half are not vaccinated against polio https://nypost.com/2023/04/16/half-of-migrants-piling-into-nyc-not-vaxxed-for-polio-top-doc-warns/
And they also are the highest percentage of tb cases https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/191758
Looks like there are some slow-release TB treatments on the horizon: injections which stay in the body for months, slowly delivering the medication.
If the infected person is one of the millions of illegal invaders of our country, the current government’s ideology is that the TB is part of the wonderful diversity that they are bringing to the rest of us. We are just ungrateful.
Subotai Bahadur
Tuberculosis is our strength.
Working in a jail we test every one for TB. We don’t even test for Covid unless you show symptoms or it’s a requirement to be released to a program.
TB? Every single inmate. No exceptions. If you resist getting the test they will schedule a chest x-ray. You’re getting tested one way or the other.
I’ve seen a person who didn’t want treatment get arrested and brought in to get treatment. TB is not a joke.
And shame on that officer for seeing her and not stopping her. This isn’t a warrant for shoplifting or something else. This is a woman with a disease that’s easily transmittable to others. How many people has she infected?
She’s a walking Typhoid Mary. At least until they finally find her and take her to get treatment. She’ll probably eventually end up in a emergency room because of it.
The problem with what you said, is it the public health officials no longer deserve the trust that you’re talking about investing with them. They lied to us about everything for years on end as far as covid is concerned and once that happened I’ll never trust them again so if I had someone tell me that I had to go in with them so they could treat me at that point no you’re not arresting me and you’ll have to kill me to take me in
If this woman is knowing going to public areas while knowingly having active TB then IMHO, she should be treated as a fleeing felon who is actively committing Assault and Attempted Murder.
Watch this be a poster child providing the excuse for imposing medical tyranny any time it is determined that person X is a “threat to public health” and must therefore be forcefully
quarantinedimprisoned and/or “treated.”They were pulling this kind of stuff in Australia, so it’s hardly farfetched or “conspiracy theory.” And we’ve had three years of seeing how willing TPTB are to trample on our Constitutional rights.
There is no “pandemic clause” or “threat to public health” exception to the Constitution.
I do NOT trust a single one of these “health care” authorities.
Anyone with cystic fibrosis, COPD, ARDS, or several varieties of restrictive lung disorders is basically a sitting duck to this woman.