New York Times confirms TB, other health risks at Zuccotti Park

Jack Kemp

The New York Times has produced an article confirm and expanding on my speculation that Zuccotti Park (OWS) in New York is a major health risk for tuberculosis and other health problems. The failed to see the irony in their first photo, a scene of the health station at Zuccotti Park with a sign that said "Flu Shots." Yes, protect yourself against flu while you sleep in filth with people urinating in front of your tent.

Here's a link and some quotes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/nyregion/for-occupy-wall-street-health-is-a-growing-concern.html?_r=2

The chorus began quietly at a recent strategy session inside Zuccotti Park, with a single cough from a security team member, a muffled hack between puffs on his cigarette. Then a colleague followed. Then another.

SECTION OMITTED

The city’s health department said that officials had visited the park and that it would continue to monitor conditions with winter looming. “It should go without saying that lots of people sleeping outside in a park as we head toward winter is not an ideal situation for anyone’s health,” the department said in a statement.

Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr., the director of clinical microbiology and immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center, said the conditions could leave park-dwellers susceptible to respiratory viruses; norovirus, the so-called winter vomiting virus, which can lead to vomiting and diarrhea and which could quickly overwhelm the limited bathroom facilities in the area; and tuberculosis, which is more common in indigent populations and can be spread by coughing.