Health officials talk about TB
Tyson managers, support staff have questions answered
By Bobbi Mlynar
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Health officials presented eight hour-long educational talks to Tyson Fresh Meats management and management support staffs at the plant Thursday, in response to questions about the death on Jan. 4 of a 20-year-old Tyson worker.
The man had come to the plant's health center for treatment and had been taken by ambulance to Newman Regional Health, where he died. Preliminary results of an autopsy were received Wednesday afternoon and in a news release Thursday morning, health and plant officials said that the man had active tuberculosis, which contributed to his death.
The final autopsy report may not be available for six to eight weeks. Information about the sessions at Tyson and details about TB came Thursday afternoon during a news conference at the Flint Hills Community Health Center.
"Our goal was to be very upfront and direct in giving people an education," said Phil Griffith, tuberculosis supervisor for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Some of the sessions were videotaped to provide references for those who will be working with other employees who have questions.
Griffin and KDHE nurse consultant DeAnna McClenahan, Renee Hively and Lori Torres of the Flint Hills Community Health Center, and Darla Stout and Joe Bohrer of Tyson were involved in the cooperative effort to disseminate information to about 200 Tyson employees.
There is no vaccination to prevent TB, though treatments are available and effective if directions are followed.
They talked about the differences between latent and active TB, the treatments, ways people become infected, and more, and answered questions from the audience.
TB is only infectious through the lungs, and not even then if the lungs are not capable of expelling the bacteria with a deep cough. While the majority of cases do involve lungs, TB also can be carried to other parts of the body and settle in the kidneys, for example; in at least one case, Griffin said, TB has settled in a toe. The latter type of cases are not infectious.
In 2006, 81 active TB cases were reported in Kansas, while about 3,500 latent cases were reported.
The likelihood that the Tyson worker had spread the disease is small, he said. The man worked in a large space with plenty of air movement, which Griffin saw as a plus for other Tyson workers.
"It requires a lot of close contact in a confined space," he said.
However, the workers involved will be contacted and tested or X-rayed according to need. Family members, social contacts, ambulance personnel who transported the man and emergency room and hospital staff also will be contacted. Officials estimated that between 40 and 60 people will need to be interviewed.
Lougene Marsh, director of the health center, said that it is important for people who come forward if they believe they have had close personal contact with the deceased worker, or if they know someone who has been in close contact. It is also essential, she said, to become educated about TB.
"We'll do as much training as we need," Bohrer said of plans at Tyson. Interpretors are available for every language spoken at the plant and managers will be trained to answer questions.
Griffin said that tuberculosis normally is a slow-moving disease. He told of a woman who'd been coughing in church for two or three years. When a man who sat near her was diagnosed with TB in the early 2000s, he suspected he'd gotten the bacteria from the coughing woman. Upon investigation, health workers confirmed his suspicion.
"The TB had completely eaten away one of her lungs," Griffin said. The woman had a family and "was just too busy taking care of babies to take care of herself."
The X-ray of her lungs was something seldom seen since the 1950s, he said.
"She lived past the TB, then died of cancer," Griffin said.
Other factors, however, can spur the growth of TB.
"Other diseases will pull on the immune system so much, it can't take care of the TB," he said.
The cost of a TB test at the health department is $26.
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January 19, 2007 at 8:28 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )