[3eb7988a1663]

I had a TB scare last year. Coworker was exposed to a confirmed case. Got tested, and we all turned up negative. I then asked if I could get a TB vaccine, but was told no, because it makes the TB visual assessment test useless. So, to aid future potential diagnoses, I need to be able to be infected by the genuine article.

[ksenzee]

That’s one reason the BCG vaccine isn’t given in the US, but it’s also because the data on whether it’s effective in adults is really inconsistent. It seems to vary based on geography (maybe distance from the equator? they’re not sure). If we were going to administer it routinely, it would be for infants, where the data is better.

[throwup238]

Can confirm. I got the vaccine in the Soviet Union as a kid and tested positive in the US for school admission and when volunteering with special kids. It’s a huge pain in the ass every time because doctors insist on a course of antibiotics that is particularly hard on the liver or kidneys so I have to spend significant time fighting them and getting an exception from administration.

[BeetleB]

That's silly. There's a globule test that doesn't give a false positive for vaccinated people. Perhaps it's more recent than when you last had to go through this?

[classichasclass]

Quantiferon is the test you're thinking of, and is now preferred for most individuals, even those who haven't had BCG.

- TB physician since 2006

[throwup238]

What’s the name for that test?

I last had one in the late 2000s

[BeetleB]

https://www.cdc.gov/tb/testing/blood-test.html

Developed in the 90's.

Approved by the FDA in 2005. Probably took a while for it to become widespread.

The thing is: The protocol for a positive skin test wasn't "Here, take this 9 month treatment." It was "You need a chest X-Ray to show it's not active. If not, you're good to go!" Especially if they know you've received the vaccine. And no one should have made you go through the treatment multiple times - it's pointless, because even if you never had the vaccine but had latent/active TB, you will always test positive with the skin test. Knowing you'd gone through treatment once should have sufficed.

I know a nurse who definitely has latent TB (i.e. no vaccine). And she never had problems after a positive skin test - her employers always knew about it and as long as she had a clean chest X-Ray, she was deemed fit to interact with (at risk) patients.

Whoever made you go through treatment was incompetent.

[throwup238]

To be clear I never went through the treatment, it just took a lot of arguing with doctors and the school/nonprofit administration in question after the false positive. I never had a chest xray either, I just had to drill it into their heads that Soviets got the vaccine and that it causes a false positive.

It sounds like they weren’t very well informed of TB protocol.