Photo Credit: Dean DeMilio
By Sandy Wells, KABC
Health experts say a growing pile of trash and garbage adjacent to a large homeless encampment between Downtown L.A.’s Fashion and Produce districts pose a serious threat to public health. The filth has attracted a large population of rats along with the fleas that spread disease. Orkin rated Los Angeles as the No. 2-most rat infested city in America. Dr. Drew, host of KABC’s Dr. Drew Midday Live with Leeann Tweeden, has long warned that the unsanitary conditions in the city’s homeless enclaves could lead to the spread of infectious diseases city-wide and beyond.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor at UCLA and an infectious disease specialist, says the outbreaks of typhus, syphilis and hepatitis A, have been compared to conditions in medieval times when cities lacked clean water or sewage systems.
Dr. Klausner was a guest on KABC’s Larry O’Connor Show.