3-27-2007
It's not your average company memo. Hundreds of employees at Stream.
com's office in
Beaverton (Murray and Millikan) received notice that one of their co-workers had contracted Tuberculosis and they would be testing other employees in the coming days to prevent any further spread.
When I went over to their office today, the employees were genuinely spooked by the news. After all, TB is a fatal disease. It's also not one that pops up normally these days (for reference, about one in every hundred thousand people contracted TB in
Multnomah and Washington Counties last year). One employee, Allen
Maderos, told me he felt like he had to sacrifice his health just to earn a paycheck. Others worried that the disease had already spread and being tested now wouldn't do much good. Still others were worried that the company's environment was contributing to the spread. And EVERYONE I talked with was concerned that they were bringing the disease home and infecting their spouses, children and friends.
In reality, the case of TB does NOT have health officials too worried. Dr. Gary
Oxman (health officer) explained to me that first of all, to get TB you have to be around someone CARRYING TB for an extended period of time, breathing the same air. It's tough to even CONTRACT TB in an open office setting because the ventilation systems usually whisk any TB particles outside (and Dr.
Oxman assures me the ventilation system at Stream is perfectly fine).
Second, according to
Oxman, about 90% of people who contract TB never even get sick. It is an exceptionally slow developing illness. When it DOES show up (either in a preventative skin test or through symptoms like a cough or fever) it can be treated effectively with antibiotics.
Dr.
Oxman adds that the management at Stream have been exceptionally co-operative and they have no reason to believe anyone else is at risk. The only reason they are testing SELECT employees at this point is because the cost of a test is rather expensive. Any employee who would LIKE to be tested can, and if more cases appear they will INCREASE the number of employees to be tested.