Michigan lab workers testing deer contract Tuberculosis

[Beendare]

LINK

Not good, from the article, Detroit Free Press at link above;

Five people who worked in a Michigan wildlife disease lab have been diagnosed with a latent form of tuberculosis, a spokesman said Friday.

The Department of Natural Resources' lab processes thousands of deer heads during the annual hunting season to check for chronic wasting disease and bovine TB.

TB is an illness caused by bacteria that attack the lungs. It can be fatal, although a latent form shows no symptoms, doesn't make people feel sick and is not contagious, according to federal health experts. It typically involves treatment to prevent full-blown TB.

The DNR learned about the infections last year, including three people in June and two later in the summer, spokesman Ed Golder said.

“It was discovered through routine testing we do with people who work in the wildlife disease lab,” Golder told the Associated Press.

 

[robby denning]

Dang if coronavirus ain’t gonna get me TB will.

Hopefully they’ll get a full recovery.

I bet someone’s worried about his job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Beendare]

Obviously poor lab controls....someone should lose their job...or multiple folks....but to add insult to injury its probably some of the folks that have the disease.

A lesson for us? I already wear latex gloves on every animal....should we be wearing masks?

___

 

[ericthered]

Thanks for posting. I live in Michigan and have heard nothing of this....

 

[zacattack]

We also have a lot of bovine TB in Michigan and it’s all tested at the MSU state diagnostic lab. DNR is just a part of the lab. Would be interesting if they ever determine if it came from deer or cows.

 

[william schmaltz]

As long as proper PPE was used as stated in the article, it seems like something outside of known human control. However, there isn’t much detail. Could’ve been something as simple as not having their air exchange operating or not operating at a proper capacity, which falls on the state/lab manager.

It also doesn’t say what activities take place at the lab. Or what exactly these people were doing. They talk about a mass head sampling event and also talk about necropsies. Someone above makes it sound like they are performing full pathology (we’ve sent plenty of samples for analysis at MSU I know this is probable). Were they prepping samples under a faulty hood?

If they were just plucking lymph nodes and brain stems from heads wearing gloves and no face protection, that’s a pretty common SOP and it suggests there is more to transmission than we are currently aware.

 

[Beendare]

Yeah, that article doesn't really tell us anything unfortunately.....

Just passing it on.

 

[GotDraw?]

Or, one of them is sleeping with all the others