Uncle Lou Tuberculosis Informative Speech

Hey grandma, I know you think Uncle Lou was a bit crazy the other day, but I want to clarify and educate you on what Tuberculosis really is. First, let us start off by defining tuberculosis and what it does to the body. Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that mostly affects the lungs but can also attack other parts of the body; there are however two types of tuberculosis: latent tuberculosis infection and regular tuberculosis disease (CDC, 2014). People with latent TB are people who are infected but show no symptoms and cannot spread the bacteria; those who do have the TB disease do however show symptoms, can spread it, and tend to feel very sick (CDC, 2014). Tuberculosis is caused by airborne bacteria spread from person to person; the bacteria is spread when someone who is infected sneezes, coughs, or even talks and someone who isn’t infected breathes in (CDC, 2014). Now that you understand what it is and how you can get infected, we
should talk about treatments and preventions. First let’s talk about how to treat latent TB. People with latent TB don’t have the full on disease so they usually get prevention treatment which consists of four regiments using different types of antibiotics (CDC, 2012). Now treating the full on TB disease takes a little less than a year and is done so by taking specific medication for two months and then taking other doses of medication for another four or seven months (CDC, 2012). Grandma, you may be thinking that this disease isn’t that big of a deal since there’s medicine out there that can take care of this disease, right? Well actually the medicine and regiments that we’ve been using for the past few decades are slowly becoming obsolete. This bacteria isn’t just some brainless cell that just infects your body; this is actually a living organism that is evolving and becoming more and more problematic throughout the world. This bacteria can evolve and become immune to our medicine, known as antibiotics, for many reasons such as; we as humans are misusing the antibiotics, we don’t properly take our medicine as directed to get rid of the bacteria, and lastly because the bacteria can reproduce and multiply exponentially. The reasons we misuse antibiotics are, many doctors freely prescribe antibiotics to their patients just because the patient wants them many animals are given antibiotics not just because they’re sick but to make them bigger for us to consume, and we have also included them in our household cleaning products (Teach Evolution). When we are told that we have a bacterial infection we are most likely prescribed some form of antibiotics to fight off the bacteria. The problem that arises here is that the antibiotics react and go to work very quickly making you feel better within a few days, so because of this people stop taking their medicine (Teach Evolution). This is a bad thing to do because you are not fully getting rid of the bacteria in your system and letting the bacteria mutate to create a strain that is immune to your antibiotics (Phelan, 2010). Since all of these antibiotics are out in the open, the bacteria that are susceptible start recognizing and adapting to the medicine, thus making them resistant (Teach Evolution). The way bacteria become immune are through mutations in their cell structure (Teach Evolution). Mutations can occur quickly in bacteria due to the fact that they have very short generation times; their generation time could be a couple hours or even as short as a couple minutes (Teach Evolution) This becomes very problematic because, since they can multiply so quickly they can also evolve quickly; thus allowing some bacteria cells to mutate and become smarter and stronger(Teach Evolution). Many countries around the world face off with drug resistant TB, more in third world countries, because the technology and medicine isn’t readily there for them. Due to the fact that this disease is contagious and fatal, laws must be placed to protect the public.
There was an article written about seven years ago where the government used law that they haven’t used in 44 years to quarantine a man because he had Tuberculosis; he didn’t even know he had TB until he went in to get some chest x-rays done (McKenzie 2007). The law for isolating an individual has different protocols depending on the location. For instance if someone is out of seas, then they would be contacted by the CDC and told to stay where they are and also put on every transportation station available (McKenzie 2007). The CDC would want you to stay where you are so that you don’t go around spreading the disease, and they would also like to personally fly you back to America to treat you. In this article however, the man did not listen and was afraid for his life so he did whatever he could to get back to America. He traveled from Prague to Canada and then to New York so he can be hospitalized (McKenzie
2007). The government has every right to quarantine someone with a contagious disease. Our government is performing a service to the public by containing someone who possesses a major threat to the health of the public. It’s very relaxing knowing that our government knows what to do if someone was infected with a deadly disease. It may seem as if though our rights are being taken away by being quarantined, but in a sense you are a walking bioweapon so being out in public wouldn’t be the best idea. The only way it can become problematic would be when the CDC spends a lot of money just for one person. The public would think they are spending money recklessly, and that would really anger some people. For example, a while back a go a US citizen who was out of country was known to have the Ebola virus; so the CDC flew him and only him on a single plane back to the United States to be treated. This seems a little extreme but I know the government does what they can to protect us.