Opinion: Statewide health crisis just around the corner, says Dr. Drew Pinsky

This message was passed along by a reader:

“Coming to Madera? I hope not.

“A DIRE HEALTH SITUATION THANKS TO NEGLIGENT POLITICIANS.”

From Dr. Drew Pinsky, the television physician and author who for more than 25 years has advised the public on health matters, and has covered many major health stories:

“We have complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization in Los Angeles right now. We have the three prongs of airborne diseases, tuberculous is exploding and rodent fleas.

“We are one of the only major cities in the country that does not have a rodent-control program. Sanitation has broken down. We had a typhus outbreak last year, we will have typhus this summer. I’m hearing from experts that bubonic plague is likely, it’s already here, it will get onto the rat fleas.

“And then now finally we have this oral-fecal route contamination which is typhoid fever. Three cases. One confirmed, probably three. This is unbelievable.

“I can’t believe I live in a city where — this is not third-world, this is Medieval. Third-world countries are insulted if they are accused of being like this. No city on earth tolerates this. The entire population is at risk. And God forbid it’s measles. This is a population that’s sub-optimally immunized. If measles gets in, I just have an image of myself on my knees in the gutter tending to people.”

One wonders why Dr. Pinsky would blame politicians for this situation, and the answer is that politicians — in this case Democrats, because they dominate the Legislature — are not paying attention to public health.

They are standing by in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and even Sacramento while human filth accumulates, rats multiply and sexually transmitted diseases — particularly among drug addicts and the mentally ill — continue to spread.

Meanwhile, the governor invites women into the state from Georgia and other states with stricter abortion controls than California to have abortions here. If they choose Los Angeles or San Francisco, they could be endangering themselves. Come to California for an abortion, go home and die of bubonic plague.

Even simple vaccination advice isn’t being followed. Some people are avoiding vaccinations because of hystrionic fears that the vaccine, designed to prevent a serious, highly contagious and potentially fatal disease, somehow causes other diseases, particularly in children — assumptions for which there is no evidence, but plenty of voo-doo.

Are the Democrats to blame? Only to the extent that they won the various elections they needed to win to control the Legislature and the government, and therefore are responsible for the failures and successes of their policies.

People are being crowded into the state’s cities without a robust public health policy to keep them safe.

Look at the homeless people in Fresno, and even Madera. How could they not have serious disease problems running through their populations, with their lack of sanitation and mental health care.

Unfortunately, the first line — and sometimes the last — in mental health care is the jail.

Keep this in mind — the bubonic plague still lurks among the sewer rats, street rats and field rats of large cities. Garbage heaps especially attract rats and their fleas which carry the plague. Bubonic plague decimated many of Europe’s cities in the middle ages. The plague can kill an adult in 24 hours if the victim isn’t treated.

And even now, when measles vaccines are low-cost, more than 100,000 children world wide under the age of 5 die because of lack of vaccinations, according to the Mayo Clinic.

And in California, where the governor knows abortion to be a popular attraction, he is wondering whether he should sign a bill, passed by his own Democrat legislature, which would tighten measles vaccination laws.

No wonder Dr. Pensky is worried.