I received this e-mail from a PFA Radio listener:
Hi Druff,
Would like you to settle an argument I had with a friend. I am a volunteer in my son's elementary school classroom. I spend 30 minutes there every 2 weeks during a lab, so my exposure to the kids is obviously minimal.
I was very surprised that they wouldn't let me do this until I either took a tuberculosis test, or had my doctor sign off that I wasn't at risk for TB. I had to see the doctor at my own trouble and expense in order to do this. They would not budge and forced me to do this if I wanted to volunteer, so I sucked it up and wasted 2 hours going to the doctor, waiting, and seeing him, just to get that dumb paper signed that I'm not a risk. Also cost me $40 copay.
I was telling my friend that TB is very rare so this is stupid. My friend lectured me that a single doctor's visit is a small price to pay to keep our kids safe from such a disease, and he called me selfish. What do you think?
Here is my take on it:
There were 9,025 new TB cases in 2018. This means that roughly 1 in 36,000 people in the US will get TB each year. Obviously quite rare! To put this in context, even if there are 100 parent volunteers in your school, one of those volunteers would be infected with TB approximately once every 360 years! Even if this fluke occurred, the number would be far less than once every 360 years, because those affected with contagious ("active") TB would have symptoms, and would likely not expose themselves to the children.
And even if you want to take a "better safe than sorry" approach, the problem is that these kids will be exposed to TONS of adults outside of school, none of whom will have taken TB tests. So unless you want to isolate your kids from all adults outside of school (which is obviously impossible), this TB test is virtually useless.
The school is just covering their ass legally, and placing the burden upon you.
Do you guys agree with me?