The Los Angeles Homeless Containment Thread (Pasadena, Orange: repel, specialty, reservoir)

[Matadora]

This is a great 2019 discussion with Dr. Drew.

Sounding Off: Dr. Drew on How LA's Homeless Problem Is a Public Health Emergency

He has the right idea when asked: What can be done to address these issues—from a health care provider standpoint and a policy standpoint?

Dr. Drew: People say it’s complex; I think it’s simple.

First thing, I would go out and vaccinate all the homeless with MMR. My second move would be to go to the state legislature, which I’ve already done, and change the Lanterman-Petris Act, and we have to change the criteria for greatly disabled. In the 1960s, it changed from “need for treatment” to “harm to self or others” and that’s a giant gap. We have to have things like “unable to care for medical needs.” We have to be able to help people and protect their wellness.

What I would tell my peers is, why do we treat dementia—cognitive brain disorders—different from say, schizophrenia? Schizophrenia causes confusion and abnormal behaviors and lack of insight and impaired judgment. Same as dementia. But somehow dementia, of course we take these patients and help them. With schizophrenia, you can’t touch them. Our laws in California have privileged psychiatric symptoms over the wellness of the individuals and the ability of caretakers to get in and help them...It’s ridiculous. It’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen and it’s causing massive a decay in civilization and it’s going to endanger tens of thousands of people. We already have 1000 dead homeless people in Los Angeles so far in 2019. I think we all know how quickly that could click to 10,000. How many have to die before we do something?

First thing, is we revisit Lanternman-Petris Act. Second thing is we expand conservatorships. Third thing is we create some sort of facilities or focal areas of wraparound services for the chronically mentally ill. Fourthly, we start enforcing drug laws and helping motivate drug addicts to get better.

This is a humanitarian emergency.

The problem is the politicians are telling me I’m too early. My theory is I’m too late. If I’m too early, what is too late? When there’s 100,000 dead? I don’t understand the alchemy; I don’t understand the math. I wake up every day beside myself. As a physician, all my susceptibilities are activated to do something. It’s beyond anything that is sustainable or rational or morally allowable.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Matadora

This is a great 2019 discussion with Dr. Drew.

Your articles featuring Dr. Drew are from July 1. He predicted a major infectious disease epidemic this summer, and it didn't happen. He does have some good insights into the issue that contributes to escalating numbers of homeless: drug addiction, which is what he believes contributes to mental illness (and he ought to know).

From previous posts on this thread:

Originally Posted by Podo944

This is concerning, and he's right, it's mostly a mental health and addiction!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MRrlIpQ-Hk

Originally Posted by CA4Now

But that's not at all what Dr. Drew Pinsky said. Did you watch the clip? He said that yes, we have a homeless problem, which is mostly being dealt with by providing services (housing, counseling, food, etc). And yes, we have a housing problem in L.A., which affects the number of homeless here, but that's not what he's concerned about.

He's referring to the mentally ill homeless, who, he believes, are NOT being served. He sees the mentally ill homeless--and he believes that drug addiction is the major contributor to mental illness among this population--are not receiving the treatment that they need. He believes that the rate of death among the mentally ill homeless will increase in the near future because drug addiction is a progressive disorder. He discusses possible solutions to this problem.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Your articles featuring Dr. Drew are from July 1. He predicted a major infectious disease epidemic this summer, and it didn't happen.

He did no such thing and yes the spread of Typhus did happen!

Read the article and you find him stating this:

All of these dumps are completely overrun by rodents, just exploded with rodents. I became aware of this last summer when my own home became overrun and I thought, “Oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like this.

” Having practiced medicine for 35 years in the San Diego Valley, I thought “Oh my God, we’re going to have a typhus outbreak.” Typhus is endemic in the region. It’s usually in the possums, the racoons, maybe the bats. But with the volume of rodents, I thought, “Wow, this is everywhere now and of course typhus is going to spread.”

And it came. It was huge, it was terrible in the San Diego Valley, particularly in Pasadena. It spread all the way to the ocean. It did something I’ve never seen before; it crossed the 405 freeway, which is sort of a barrier between inland and coast. All the while the city denying that this was going on and taking the position that typhus is not a serious illness.

Things continued to deteriorate. I started talking to my infectious disease colleagues, and they were telling me that they were starting to see explosions of tuberculosis…Measles started breaking out…My concern was what happens when it gets into the homeless population, it could absolutely just tear through there.

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Y He does have some good insights into the issue that contributes to escalating numbers of homeless: drug addiction, which is what he believes contributes to mental illness (and he ought to know).

It does not take listening to Dr. Drew to see the issue at hand.

Yet what he states is so blatantly obvious. All it takes is paying a smidgen of attention to what's going on around you!

What factors are contributing to the rise in infectious diseases on the Pacific Coast and, particularly, Los Angeles?

Dr Drew:
We have a horrible humanitarian crisis in Los Angeles where the government has been unable, because of various legal maneuvers taken against them, to enforce local laws as it pertains to people sleeping on the streets. Not only sleeping on the streets, but also anything that they accumulate while they’re on the streets also can’t be touched because that’s “their belongings.” Even if it’s a schizophrenic who’s rolling his or her stool up into balls and saying, “that’s my belongings.”

We have just an atrocious situation. It’s almost without exception that the people who are really languishing on the streets and decaying have severe mental health issues, [the] most common being drug addiction, primarily opiate and stimulant, but also chronic severe major mental illness like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. For some reason, the government has taken the position that this is a housing problem, which, of course, housing is a piece of this, but for most—and by most I mean the vast majority of people on the streets—their condition makes them unwilling or unwanting to go indoors. So, even when they correct the housing issue, they’re still going to have the same problem on the streets.

This is a result of the decay of the system we once had in place for treatment of the chronically mentally ill, which was strangled following the Community Mental Health Act in 1963. It was systematically completely eviscerated. There were no provisions given to the patients who were pouring out of these institutions…so they spilled into the prisons, the nursing homes, and the streets and that’s what started the spiral into our current situation.

Sanitation has also been ignored by the city. The sanitation circumstances around the homeless encampments has broken down to a point that I don’t think we’ve seen certainly not in the history of this country, and probably not anywhere in the last 800 years. It is an absolute complete breakdown where the people living on the streets are defecating and urinating on the streets and every excrement, every byproduct of what they’re eating and food and everything else is just piling in the streets. On some streets, it’s literally 2 stories high. These gigantic unsanitary accumulations…they’re just profound, they’re all over the city. By the city I mean the San Diego Valley, all the way to the beaches, it’s now spilled everywhere. It’s just uncanny.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Your articles featuring Dr. Drew are from July 1. He predicted a major infectious disease epidemic this summer, and it didn't happen.

Yes he talked about his 2018 prediction in the 2019 article.

Looks as if he predicted accurately.

Typhus reaches 'epidemic levels' in parts of Los Angeles area

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Entire Population of California Could Fall Victim To Bubonic Plague Due To Homelessness

DR. DREW PINSKY: 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, 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 tyhpoid 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 on this. The entire population is at risk. And God forbid is measles. This is a population that's suboptimally immunized. If measles gets in, I just have an image of myself on my knees in the gutter tending to people.

I agree with Dr. Drew that both LA and SF government officials should be charged with reckless negligence.

[Genghis]

Originally Posted by Matadora

Yes he talked about his 2018 prediction in the 2019 article.

Looks as if he predicted accurately.

Typhus reaches 'epidemic levels' in parts of Los Angeles area

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Entire Population of California Could Fall Victim To Bubonic Plague Due To Homelessness

From the first article:

Twenty cases have been reported in Pasadena, mostly in the last two months, health officials told NBC News, noting that a normal year would typically only see five infections. The city of Long Beach, California, has 12 cases so far in 2018 — double the normal annual number, said Emily Holman, the city's infectious disease response coordinator.

The number of cases in the rest of the county since July is nine, which counts as an "outbreak,"

That's quite an epidemic. I believe this is called "hype". About 50 Americans die due to lightning strikes every year. Does that mean we have an epidemic of people being zapped to death from the sky?

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Matadora

He did no such thing

Um, what's this, then?

Dr. Drew Pinsky warns Los Angeles could be at risk of a deadly epidemic this summer:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dr-drew-p...kill-thousands

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by Genghis

From the first article: Twenty cases have been reported in Pasadena, mostly in the last two months, health officials told NBC News, noting that a normal year would typically only see five infections. The city of Long Beach, California, has 12 cases so far in 2018 — double the normal annual number, said Emily Holman, the city's infectious disease response coordinator.

The number of cases in the rest of the county since July is nine, which counts as an "outbreak,"

Originally Posted by Genghis

That's quite an epidemic. I believe this is called "hype". About 50 Americans die due to lightning strikes every year. Does that mean we have an epidemic of people being zapped to death from the sky?

LOl at the folks here that don't understand that 20 cases in two months vs. a typical year only seeing 5 cases, is indeed an epidemic. An epidemic occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people. Yepper 20 cases in 2 months is an epidemic.

Perhaps you should take this Lesson from the CDC website.

Lesson 1: Introduction to Epidemiology
Section 11: Epidemic Disease Occurrence

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Genghis

That's quite an epidemic. I believe this is called "hype".

No kidding.

How the Homeless Ended Up Being Blamed for Typhus:
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/...eles-homeless/

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Um, what's this, then?

Dr. Drew Pinsky warns Los Angeles could be at risk of a deadly epidemic this summer:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dr-drew-p...kill-thousands

What I stated was he did not such thing when stated this: "Your articles featuring Dr. Drew are from July 1. He predicted a major infectious disease epidemic this summer, and it didn't happen."

No he did not make a predication in the 2019 article that did not happen.

Show me in where he made a predication in the 2019 article I posed that according to you "did not happen".

1. He did not make a prediction in the 2019 article...he simply discussed the prediction he made in 2018.
2. He predicted accurately as it did happen.

The link wording you posted is misleading. Dr. Drew never stated that an epidemic will hit LA and kill thousands. What he stated was that he predicted that many people possibly in the 1,000's will die from an epidemic spread of infectious diseases in the cites of LA, SF and San Diego.

When epidemiologists see a jump in any infectious disease it's a legitimate concern especially when those conditions that enable the spread of disease continue to exist.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

No kidding.

How the Homeless Ended Up Being Blamed for Typhus:
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/...eles-homeless/

LOl at the folks here that don't understand that 20 cases in two months vs. a typical year only seeing 5 cases, is indeed an epidemic. An epidemic occurs when an infectious disease spreads rapidly to many people. Yepper 20 cases in 2 months is an epidemic.

Perhaps you should take this Lesson from the CDC website.

Lesson 1: Introduction to Epidemiology
Section 11: Epidemic Disease Occurrence

The only hype is from lame news outlets that people parrot.