WhyNot, I hate to disagree with you, because I am fully in favor of breast feeding, but newborns whether breastfed or not are at more risk from TB. And this may be because the body fights off TB with cell-mediated immunity, not antibodies. And the mother cannot transfer the whole apparatus of cell-mediated immunity (a large network of several kinds of white cells checking with eachother and responding via interleukins about a potential enemy) through her breast milk. It has to happen in the child’s body. That requires a mature immune system. Pardon me, but I have to disagree with you when you say that a child is born with a mature immune system. A child is born with an immature immune system, as it is with an immature brain, immature lungs, and immature gonads. It requires a great deal of help from many physiologic and natural sources (such as mother’s breast milk, but not only mother’s breast milk) to mature through natural and intended stages to the point where it can handle the immune challenges of a healthy adult.
The risk of becoming infected with TB is greatest for children under 2 years old. After two, they are relatively more immune until immunity decreases again for unknown reasons around age 12 – the age suggests the onset of puberty has something to do with it.
Also, newborns who become infected with TB are more susceptible than children of any other age to miliary TB, a dreaded complication in which the TB escapes all immune control and spreads to every organ. Death is not inevitable but is likely.
PS hijack – as long as I’m here, wanted to say I was reading a post of yours in Chowder’s thread on matriarchy – I hadn’t anything to add to the thread, which has gone dormant, so didn’t want to wake it up just to say “Wow, Whynot”, but I thought you spoke with such uncommon common sense and delectable perspective (as well as the only voice of experience in actual women-run groups) – was going to write you privately and say so, only here I can show the Dope how impressed I was.
I would advise you to see a pulmonologist or infectious disease specialist as soon as possible. You can call your local public health authorities to assist you.
Why take chances with his own and the public’s health? A team of epidemiologists has already been dispatched to his home, along with a containment unit.
Actually if you watch the news there is a new one every day, practically.We will get something someday but the tv news overdoes these stories again and again.
The debate is about whether this is different. Is this a real threat or not.Tis possible the answer will be yes. This is air bourne.
Dad was in tinfoil hat mode about this one. Thanks for the info, grabriela, like always. (I noticed the typo of your name just after I typed it in, but I kinda like it this way, so I left it).
I had heard before about a huge amount of the population being exposed to the virus, but I had thought that the body did something more…active…to kill the disease, instead of quarantine it in an internal nook.
