Dr. Drew Pinsky said Friday that Los Angeles faces an imminent outbreak of bubonic plague because of the growth of the homeless population and the failure of state and local authorities to deal with rodent problems.
Dr. Drew made his comments during a Periscope broadcast by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who has become a popular political pundit with a daily live audience of thousands of people.
Dr. Drew told Adams that he had predicted the recent typhus outbreak in Los Angeles, which was carried by rats, transferred by fleas to pets, and from pets to humans.
Bubonic plague, Dr. Drew said, like typhus, is endemic to the region, and can spread to humans from rodents in a similar fashion.
Though commonly recognized as the medieval disease responsible for the Black Death in the fourteenth century, which killed one-third of the population of Europe, the last outbreak of bubonic plague in the U.S. was nearly a century ago, from 1924 to 1925 — also in Los Angeles. Only a “heroic effort” by doctors stopped it, Dr. Drew recalled, warning that conditions were perfect for another outbreak of the plague in the near future. – READ MORE