Disease rates are high in prison

[wdlove]

Massachusetts has the 7th highest rate of prison Hepatitis C & HIV infections in the US. In Mass. 27% of men and 44% of women enter prison with Hepatitis C. Specialists think it is due to the high rate of IV drug use in New England. Item of interest, it might be wortwhile to check on your own state.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/292/metro/Disease_rates_high_in_Mass_prisons+.shtml

 

[Lyle]

Re: Disease rates are high in prison

Originally posted by wdlove
Item of interest, it might be worthwhile to check on your own state.

Yes, especially if you were considering a stay in prison for that next vacation

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Prisons are dirty and filled with disease and sexual abuse. We need to take a serious look at our prison system now and fix it. This is now what these people were sentenced to.

 

[4409723]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Prisons are dirty and filled with disease and sexual abuse. We need to take a serious look at our prison system now and fix it. This is now what these people were sentenced to.

Well if you make prisons clean and healthy, criminals won't mind staying there as much.

 

[caveman_uk]

They're there to be punished by removing their liberty. They are not there to be punished by being infected with life-threatening diseases and by being made to bend over in the showers...

 

[4409723]

Originally posted by caveman_uk
They are not there to be punished by being infected with life-threatening diseases and by being made to bend over in the showers...

Hahaha, I didn't mean to that extreme. I'm all for removing the disease and total squalor, but here in the uk, twice as much cash is spent on making a prisoners lunch as a normal school lunch.

 

[jayscheuerle]

You can't really compare prison population to general population. Most of the people in prison come from the lower end of the economic scale with histories of drug use and are more likely to have these diseases than the general population regardless of being in prison.

That's not to discount the fact that prison is a contained breeding ground for diseases. Of course, the same can be said for kindergarten class, but kindergartners aren't likely to be buggering each other up the booty.

 

[Dros]

Even if you think, "prisoners get what they deserve", we should all be nervous about creating breeding grounds for antibiotic resistant bacteria that could then spread to the general populace. Russian prisons will be the source of the next great plague, I fear.

 

[wdlove]

Yes, in Russian prison that have an epidemic with TB. The problem is that the strain is drug resistant.

http://www.thebody.com/cdc/news_updates_archive/2003/apr8_03/russia_aids_loan.html

 

[themadchemist]

close contact...sexual abuse...maltreatment...and WOW! Higher disease?

What is with all these idiotic studies? Wdlove, thanks for pointing out in your series of threads how much federal grant money is wasted.

Scientist: "Can we use this money to study stem cell lines?"
Bush: "No, because it's immoral."
Scientist: "But we don't have anything else to study."
Bush: "I'm sure you do."
Scientist: "But we don't!"
Bush: "Well, hmm. These are some things that I have been researching lately. How about taking them on? Can tanning beds cause cancer? Is disease more prevalent in prison? Does marijuana reduce fertility rate?"
Scientist: "But that's stupid."
Bush: "I can have you held for an unspecified amount of time for being a 'material witness' in cases regarding acts of terrorism."
Scientist: "So did you want me to study AIDS or Tuberculosis?"

 

[Phil Of Mac]

People who blame Bush for things that have been happening for decades before the Bush Administration are just about as naive as people who blamed Clinton for things that had been happening for decades.

 

[Giaguara]

prisons have also a high concentration of people. so you have little place for you. so more stress. less liberties, no interaction with opposite sex, no sex, and sometimes you are with 10 other same sex people in the same small room. all that lowers your immune system too. add prison food, depression of losing your life before (work, wife, kids etc) .. is it surprising that overall diseases are more spred and common in prison population than in the free population?

 

[Dros]

Originally posted by themadchemist
close contact...sexual abuse...maltreatment...and WOW! Higher disease?

What is with all these idiotic studies? Wdlove, thanks for pointing out in your series of threads how much federal grant money is wasted.

Scientist: "Can we use this money to study stem cell lines?"
Bush: "No, because it's immoral."
Scientist: "But we don't have anything else to study."
Bush: "I'm sure you do."
Scientist: "But we don't!"
Bush: "Well, hmm. These are some things that I have been researching lately. How about taking them on? Can tanning beds cause cancer? Is disease more prevalent in prison? Does marijuana reduce fertility rate?"
Scientist: "But that's stupid."
Bush: "I can have you held for an unspecified amount of time for being a 'material witness' in cases regarding acts of terrorism."
Scientist: "So did you want me to study AIDS or Tuberculosis?"

To be fair, I don't think the health report was released to test the hypothesis that prisons had higher rates of disease. The study provides a "census" of disease rates, something that needs to be monitored to make thoughtful public health decisions. When will antibiotic resistant disease strains make inroads into our populations? The prisons make a good "canary in a coal mine" for this.

And, I blame Bush for overturning the Clinton administration policy of allowing stem cell research. That said, there have been top down priorities in any administration that lead to wasted money compared to the normal peer review process (which is also not perfect).