An alert EMUTalk.org reader sent me an email today that raises some interesting questions about the recent news about a student with a documented case of tuberculosis. The official EMU announcement, with the easily deleted subject line “Message from University Health Services,” does not mention that the student worked for EMU food service (The Eastern Eateries), but this article in The Eastern Echo and this and this article in The Detroit Free Press.
So, why did the official EMU email about this omit this detail?
TB, as both the Freep articles mention, is not spread through food, drink, shaking hands, etc., but rather is “transmitted through the air when someone breathes in the bacteria from the infected person who is coughing, sneezing or speaking nearby, the CDC reported.” So in a sense, the extent to which it matters that the student worked in food service is probably debatable.
On the other hand, a food service employee– especially one who served food– would potentially have come in contact with a lot of students.
So, how come that detail was repeated in the press in a couple different places but it didn’t make it into the official release?
I was exposed to TB in grade school. Just about everyone in my second grade class was tested. I don’t believe one person came up positive.
My understanding is you have to be in confined spaces with prolonged contact for it to be an issue, which is why they probably aren’t making it such a huge issue.
It probably is no big deal. I just find it odd that that detail about the eateries found its way into both newspaper articles but was not in the EMU press release, that’s all.
Mike and Alum,
Sitedad’s last paragraph consists of a type of sentence known as a question that neither of you paid any attention to.
The issue isn’t the danger, communicability, or transmission of a disease. The issue is: Why the discrepancy between what EMU officials are telling outside media and what they’re telling the campus community?
If it’s no big deal that the student worked in a campus eatery and that an additional 14 students have now been tested for TB, why omit it from campus notifications? The omission makes it look like there’s something to hide.
We know that EMU officials know about this because they had no problem telling non-EMU people about it. We also know that cover-ups aren’t exactly new to EMU officials–especially since so many of them were around the last time we had trouble over a cover-up.
Just to follow up on this: AnnArbor.com reports “No additional tuberculosis cases found at Eastern Michigan University, testing confirms.”