Tuberculosis Rates Rise In Tennessee

Joy of diversity continues.

Thirteen of Tennessee’s current cases involve people born in another country. TB is more common in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and South and Central America than it is in the U.S.

“There is no country without TB,” Shelley Walker, a Tennessee Health Department spokeswoman, told The Tennessean newspaper. “People should not be afraid to encounter people who are foreign-born.”

Symptoms include a bad cough that lasts longer than three weeks, chest pain, coughing up blood or phlegm, chills, fever, fatigue, and weight loss.

Local health departments offer free TB screenings, Warkentin said. The disease is treated with medication, but the treatment can take six months and two years.

Black and Hispanic residents of Tennessee have higher risk factors and make up a disproportionate* number of the state’s cases, health officials said. In Tennessee, blacks made up 17 percent of the population and 40 percent of the TB cases last year, and Hispanics accounted for 3 percent of the population and 15 percent of the TB cases.

Although Tennessee is seeing a quarterly increase in tuberculosis, the state has reported a steady decrease in new cases since 2005. The U.S. had 14,000 new cases last year, the lowest level ever.

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*EAU’s Board of Directors sent the Tennessee Department of Health the following correspondence:

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Hello!

In the Knoxville News The Tennessee Department of Health and / or a subsidiary is recently quoted as saying the following:

“Black and Hispanic residents of Tennessee have higher risk factors and make up a disproportionate number of the state’s cases, health officials said. In Tennessee, blacks made up 17 percent of the population and 40 percent of the TB cases last year, and Hispanics accounted for 3 percent of the population and 15 percent of the TB cases.” http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/mar/31/tennessee-tuberculosis-cases-up-sharply-so-far/

We find the term disproportionate to be paternalistic and troubling. Defined as “out of proportion, as in size, shape, or amount, unequal,” the use of this term obliquely implies if more European derived Tennesseans were to contract TB it would be more “proportional” i.e.; less chauvinistic (racist). In 2006 White persons in Tennessee comprised 80.4% of the total population but may be following the national trend and actually falling.

Perhaps a better term to use in the future to describe this medical inequality in the Black and Hispanic subgroups would be “corresponding.”   

Very Truly;

Board of Directors 

European Americans United

2008-03-31