Comment Re:America (Score 1) 480
Being born in Central Europe, I was vaccinated against TB as infant - I have an quarter-sized scar on my shoulder. That's where the bug remains alive and produces my immunity. (Aquired immunity against TB is short-lived, so persisting live pathogen is needed for keeping the immune response. Weakened pathogen is injected into skin for the vaccination and the idea is that it would not spread but remain alive there).
In US, there is no vaccination so my imunity became a problem when I took the TB skin test to get my medical for the green card. Even after a negative chest X-ray, the doctors insisted I must take 6-month combination therapy of two tuberculostatics. I was trying to explain to them that all it would do to me (apart from a 5% chance of getting cirrhosis) would be "curing" my inoculation, killing the helpful bugs in my shoulder. I ended up refusing to pay the medical bill until they gave me negative X-ray result for INS.
Btw: until very recently TB was practicaly eradicated in central Europe - because of the culling of infected cattle and mandatory vaccination + forced treatment of TB pacients since 50s. By early 90s, it was rare even to get a single TB pacient in a lung clinic to be shown to medical students. Now it has changed because of immigrants from former USSR.
Even if the efficiency of vaccination is only 90%, it is useful thing to do.
In US, there is no vaccination so my imunity became a problem when I took the TB skin test to get my medical for the green card. Even after a negative chest X-ray, the doctors insisted I must take 6-month combination therapy of two tuberculostatics. I was trying to explain to them that all it would do to me (apart from a 5% chance of getting cirrhosis) would be "curing" my inoculation, killing the helpful bugs in my shoulder. I ended up refusing to pay the medical bill until they gave me negative X-ray result for INS.
Btw: until very recently TB was practicaly eradicated in central Europe - because of the culling of infected cattle and mandatory vaccination + forced treatment of TB pacients since 50s. By early 90s, it was rare even to get a single TB pacient in a lung clinic to be shown to medical students. Now it has changed because of immigrants from former USSR.
Even if the efficiency of vaccination is only 90%, it is useful thing to do.
