logo
The tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas is alarming. It's not the biggest in US history though, CDC says

The tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas is alarming. It's not the biggest in US history though, CDC says

A yearlong outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City, Kansas area has taken local experts aback, even if it does not appear to be the largest outbreak of the disease in U.S. history as a state health official claimed last week.
'We would expect to see a handful of cases every year,' said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Kansas Health System. But the high case counts in this outbreak were a 'stark warning,' he said.
The outbreak has killed two people since it started in January 2024, Kansas state health department spokeswoman Jill Bronaugh said. Health officials in Kansas say there is no threat to the general public.
What is tuberculosis?
TB is caused by bacteria that lives in the people's lungs and spreads through the air when they talk, cough or sing. It is very infectious, but only spreads when a person has symptoms.
Once it infects a person, TB can take two forms. In 'active' TB, the person has a long-standing cough and sometimes bloody phlegm, night sweats, fever, weight loss and swollen glands. In 'latent' TB, the bacteria hibernates in the person's lungs or elsewhere in the body. It does not cause symptoms and does not spread to others.
Roughly a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5% to 10% of those develop symptoms.
How big is the tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas?
As of Jan. 24, 67 people are being treated for active TB, most of them in Wyandotte County, Bronaugh said. Another 79 have latent TB.
The state's provisional 2024 count shows 79 active TB cases and 213 latent cases in the two counties where the outbreak is happening, Wyandotte and Johnson. Not all of those are linked to the outbreak and Bronaugh did not respond to requests for clarification.
The situation is improving, though: 'We are trending in the right direction right now,' Ashley Goss, deputy secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the state Senate's Committee on Public Health and Welfare Jan. 21.
Is the Kansas tuberculosis outbreak the largest in U.S. history?
Kansas health officials called the outbreak 'the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history' since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began counting cases in the 1950s.
But a spokesperson for the CDC on Tuesday refuted that claim, noting at least two larger TB outbreaks in recent history. In one, the disease spread through Georgia homeless shelters. Public health workers identified more than 170 active TB cases and more than 400 latent cases from 2015 to 2017. And in 2021, a nationwide outbreak linked to contaminated tissue used in bone transplants sickened 113 patients.
How is tuberculosis treated?
TB is treated with antibiotics over the course of several months. A vaccine is available, but generally not recommended in the U.S. because the risk of infection is low and getting the vaccine can interfere with the test doctors use to diagnose the disease.
TB is a much bigger problem outside of the U.S.
TB is a leading cause of infectious disease death worldwide, and has been on the rise.
In 2023, the bacteria killed 1.25 million people globally and infected 8 million, the highest count since the World Health Organization started keeping track.
While tuberculosis was a much bigger danger in the U.S. in earlier generations, it has been trending back up in recent years. In 2023 there were more than 9,600 cases nationwide, the highest in a decade, according to the CDC.
___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk
House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk

Associated Press

timean hour ago

  • Associated Press

House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Thursday that would solidify federal policies cracking down on the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs in a bid by lawmakers to combat the nation's opioid epidemic. The HALT Fentanyl Act makes permanent a 2018 emergency rule that classifies knockoffs of fentanyl as Schedule I controlled substances, which results in harsher sentences for possession of the drug. The bill passed the House 321-104 and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. The legislation, which applies to what are known as known as 'fentanyl-related substances,' garnered support from nearly every Republican and many Democrats despite concerns that the bill does not address the root issues at hand and will add to problems in the criminal justice system. Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed passage of the bill and promised more legislative action to come. 'I don't need to tell anybody about the horrible impact of drug overdoses in this country, many of them caused by fentanyl,' Thune said on the Senate floor. 'In the coming weeks, we'll be taking up legislation to address another aspect of the fight: securing our borders,' a nod to Republicans' tax package, which includes billions of dollars in additional immigration enforcement and border security funding. Proponents of the legislation argue that the bill will make it easier to stop drug traffickers by making the federal emergency rules permanent. Opponents say the framework does little to stem the epidemic and warn it will make it harder to conduct important research. Congress has regularly renewed the emergency rules since 2018, meaning there is no immediate change to federal policy. The bill does not include increased funding for law enforcement to conduct anti-drug trafficking efforts, nor funding for public health efforts meant to reduce fentanyl addiction and deaths. The bill's supporters say that the reclassification will give anti-trafficking efforts clearer standards to operate under as law enforcement combats the trade. Federal, state and local law enforcement have sought to break up the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by targeting Mexican drug cartels and local gangs. The Trump administration has declared stemming the flow of fentanyl precursors from China a priority in trade talks with Beijing, an effort that follows a spate of initiatives by the Biden administration to reduce the importation of such substances into the U.S. from China and other illegal supply chains. 'A loophole that the cartels have tried to use to drive their illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing one part of the fentanyl chemical structure to create fentanyl analogs,' said GOP Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, one of the bill's co-sponsors, during Wednesday's debate on the House floor. 'The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws,' said Griffith, who argued that the bill would help prevent further fentanyl deaths and increase the potential for research into the drug and related substances. And lawmakers appealed to the human cost of fentanyl smuggling. 'We must give our law enforcement the tools to combat this problem. This bill does exactly that,' said GOP California Rep. Jay Obernolte, a co-sponsor of the bill. Obernolte recounted the stories of families impacted by fentanyl overdoses in his district and noted that more than 100,000 Americans died of an overdose last year, mostly from fentanyl. The bill 'gives our law enforcement agencies the tools that they need to begin dealing with this problem,' Obernolte said. Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone said during debate that he opposed the bill because it uniformly criminalizes fentanyl related substances. Pallone said it will impede potential research into their benefits rather than provide an 'offramp to substances found to have potential medical applications.' Pallone also chided Republicans for saying they aimed to tackle the opioid epidemic while supporting the Trump administration's cuts to federal agencies tasked with research and public health policy. 'This Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on Schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing,' Pallone said. 'The bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge.' Schedule I drugs are substances considered by the Drug Enforcement Agency to have 'no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.' Possession of a Schedule I drug is considered a felony and can be prosecuted as drug smuggling. Drugs currently classified as Schedule I include heroin, marijuana and methaqualone. Fentanyl itself is classified as a Schedule II drug, which the DEA designates as having 'a high potential for abuse.' Schedule II substances include cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and Adderall.

House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk
House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk

San Francisco Chronicle​

timean hour ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Thursday that would solidify federal policies cracking down on the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs in a bid by lawmakers to combat the nation's opioid epidemic. The HALT Fentanyl Act makes permanent a 2018 emergency rule that classifies knockoffs of fentanyl as Schedule I controlled substances, which results in harsher sentences for possession of the drug. The bill passed the House 321-104 and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. The legislation, which applies to what are known as known as 'fentanyl-related substances,' garnered support from nearly every Republican and many Democrats despite concerns that the bill does not address the root issues at hand and will add to problems in the criminal justice system. Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed passage of the bill and promised more legislative action to come. 'I don't need to tell anybody about the horrible impact of drug overdoses in this country, many of them caused by fentanyl,' Thune said on the Senate floor. 'In the coming weeks, we'll be taking up legislation to address another aspect of the fight: securing our borders,' a nod to Republicans' tax package, which includes billions of dollars in additional immigration enforcement and border security funding. Proponents of the legislation argue that the bill will make it easier to stop drug traffickers by making the federal emergency rules permanent. Opponents say the framework does little to stem the epidemic and warn it will make it harder to conduct important research. Congress has regularly renewed the emergency rules since 2018, meaning there is no immediate change to federal policy. The bill does not include increased funding for law enforcement to conduct anti-drug trafficking efforts, nor funding for public health efforts meant to reduce fentanyl addiction and deaths. The bill's supporters say that the reclassification will give anti-trafficking efforts clearer standards to operate under as law enforcement combats the trade. Federal, state and local law enforcement have sought to break up the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by targeting Mexican drug cartels and local gangs. The Trump administration has declared stemming the flow of fentanyl precursors from China a priority in trade talks with Beijing, an effort that follows a spate of initiatives by the Biden administration to reduce the importation of such substances into the U.S. from China and other illegal supply chains. 'A loophole that the cartels have tried to use to drive their illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing one part of the fentanyl chemical structure to create fentanyl analogs,' said GOP Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, one of the bill's co-sponsors, during Wednesday's debate on the House floor. 'The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws,' said Griffith, who argued that the bill would help prevent further fentanyl deaths and increase the potential for research into the drug and related substances. And lawmakers appealed to the human cost of fentanyl smuggling. 'We must give our law enforcement the tools to combat this problem. This bill does exactly that,' said GOP California Rep. Jay Obernolte, a co-sponsor of the bill. Obernolte recounted the stories of families impacted by fentanyl overdoses in his district and noted that more than 100,000 Americans died of an overdose last year, mostly from fentanyl. The bill 'gives our law enforcement agencies the tools that they need to begin dealing with this problem,' Obernolte said. Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone said during debate that he opposed the bill because it uniformly criminalizes fentanyl related substances. Pallone said it will impede potential research into their benefits rather than provide an 'offramp to substances found to have potential medical applications.' Pallone also chided Republicans for saying they aimed to tackle the opioid epidemic while supporting the Trump administration's cuts to federal agencies tasked with research and public health policy. 'This Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on Schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing,' Pallone said. 'The bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge.' Schedule I drugs are substances considered by the Drug Enforcement Agency to have 'no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.' Possession of a Schedule I drug is considered a felony and can be prosecuted as drug smuggling. Drugs currently classified as Schedule I include heroin, marijuana and methaqualone. Fentanyl itself is classified as a Schedule II drug, which the DEA designates as having 'a high potential for abuse.' Schedule II substances include cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and Adderall.

Map Shows Assisted Dying Laws Across US
Map Shows Assisted Dying Laws Across US

Newsweek

time5 hours ago

  • Newsweek

Map Shows Assisted Dying Laws Across US

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. New York has recently joined a number of other U.S. states that have made assisted dying legal. The state's Senate approved a bill on Monday allowing constituents with terminal diagnoses to end their lives on their own terms, and the legislation is now headed to Governor Kathy Hochul for her to sign into law. There are currently 10 states, as well as the District of Columbia, that have passed laws making medical assistance in dying (MAID) legal, according to Death With Dignity, and a number of others are considering similar legislation this year. Why It Matters Assisted dying laws are extremely divisive and are being considered and sworn into law in various countries across the globe. Those in favor say the legislation allows terminally ill individuals to seek medical assistance in ending their lives under specific conditions, promoting personal autonomy and a relief from suffering. Critics have voiced concern over suicide contagion, a phenomenon where increased exposure to suicide is believed to trigger suicidal behavior in others, and what the legislation means for the deaths of patients struggling with depression. What To Know In the U.S., California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington all have legislation in place that enables those in the states to access MAID. Oregon was one of the first countries in the world to establish this form of support for patients and did so in 1997. Since then, other assisted dying laws in the country have utilized the state's legal framework for their own MAID legislation, according to the BBC. New York is not the only state that has been eyeing such legislation, as more than 15 other states have also been deliberating MAID laws this year. These states include Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. In America, for a patient to have access to medically assisted dying, they typically have to be terminally ill and expected to die within six months, under the terms of the "Death with Dignity Act," according to an Oregon government report. They must also be over the age of 18 and capable of making and communicating health care decisions. A patient's request to access MAID services must also be approved by two doctors, and their request must be witnessed by two adults, who have no claim to any form of inheritance in the incidence of the patient's death. Should they feel it necessary, the doctors can refer the patient for a psychiatric evaluation. While MAID laws remain divisive, a Gallup poll conducted last year found that seven in 10 Americans, so 71 percent, believed medical doctors should be "allowed by law to end a patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it." What People Are Saying Professor Thaddeus Mason Pope, a professor of law at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Minnesota, told Newsweek: "Millions of Americans die every year. Hospice and palliative care can address the physical and existential suffering of most but not all dying patients. MAID is for the small subset whose suffering is refractory to other measures." He added: "Nearly 20 states considered MAID legislation in 2025, and many of these bills made significant progress passing one or both legislative chambers. While fewer than 1 percent use MAID, nearly 75 percent of the public want to have this option. Decades of experience in other states shows a solid patient safety track record. Generally blue states pass MAID legislation and red ones do not. Few expect to see MAID authorized in the South or even the Midwest except for Illinois and Minnesota." Alan Meisel, professor of law Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Pennsylvania, told Newsweek: "Assisted dying laws allow people who are near the end of life to die in a dignified fashion, without being hooked up to medical machinery which only extends the process of dying, often in a painful way. People have understood how undignified the dying process can be and are seeking to implement laws that have proved highly successful in other states and countries." He added: "The states that have been hesitant to enact such laws are often those with large populations of people whose religious beliefs hold that a scintilla of life, no matter how painful or undignified, must be preserved at all costs. These people are often not in the majority but can be very vocal in opposing such laws and therefore state legislators can be reluctant to enact such laws, even though a majority may support them, because they are afraid of damage to their political careers." What Happens Next As a significant number of states are set to discuss possible MAID legislation in the coming months, there could be an increase in the legalization of the practice in America.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store