As the current administration rushes to restore the worst aspects of the past, the scourge of tuberculosis (TB) is resurgent in the terrible lockups of the private immigration detention facilities. Though both preventable and curable, tuberculosis, which may be familiar as the illness of “consumption” haunting many Victorian novels, is the most deadly infectious disease, killing 1.5 million people worldwide every year.
While TB cases have declined markedly in the United States in the past hundred years, the poor sanitation, crowding, and lack of health protocols flourishing in prisons have fostered its resurgence. As the volley of ICE raids increases the numbers of people in detention (great news for investors of these private, for-profit institutions) tuberculosis cases are on the rise.
“I hesitate to say there aren’t enough resources,” said Dr. Katherine Peeler, medical adviser for Physicians for Human Rights and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “ICE just got an appropriation of $45 billion, but if I had to predict, the line item for health care is not the thing that’s going to be increased.”
The recent surge in TB cases in ICE facilities, including one death from the disease at the notorious Eloy Detention facility in Arizona, is eminently avoidable, even by giving detainees more space in which to breathe. The choice not to meet these very basic human needs means that the U.S. government is actively encouraging a deadly TB epidemic.