Hi everyone,

I just have a question. Not to discriminate, but why is it that every "obese" lady that I see have a coughing problem? There's this "obese" lady that comes on my bus almost everyday for school, and she usually smells like a combination of bad perfume/bacteria. She has a fleshy cough constantly, and I'm always constantly worried that I'll get tuberculosis from her.

Going back to a year ago, there was this other "obese" lady on the subway that I sat next to that had an EXTREMELY fleshy/productive cough. She probably coughed for the entire 40 minutes I was on the Subway (it was during the winter). Anyway, from the first cough, I could see that she probably had some evil disease running through her respiratory tract, so I put my sweater hood up to shield from her endless hacks and wheezes. While under the relative safety of my hood, she coughed a lot - she might have even coughed up some blood on her scarf (I wouldn't know). Anyway, it was crowded, and I got dizzy from the lack of oxygen/inability to breathe fresh air in the subway car. Is this a possible transmission of tuberculosis? And if it is, then should I stay away from every "obese" lady that I see?

Thanks in advance.