When state Sen. Arthur Orr meets with local Wayne Farms officials, we hope discussion is about pre-testing and routine testing of workers for tuberculosis.

He announced the meeting last week after the state health department tested 167 employees at the local chicken processing plant this month. The testing came after a doctor diagnosed a former employee with an active case of TB.

Forty-seven employees tested positive for inactive TB, which isn’t contagious, but one employee’s tests were inconclusive.

Another 127 workers voluntarily submitted to the skin tests, and 22 percent tested positive.

This isn’t the first incidence of TB at Wayne Farms, which employs a high percentage of workers native to Mexico or countries in Central America.

Border authorities seem overwhelmed or indifferent to the spread of TB. A Mexican national traveled to the U.S. 76 times in the past year, even though Mexican and U.S. authorities knew he was infected with active tuberculosis.

Authorities blamed the breech of security on the man continuously changing his identity.

Pre-testing and continuous testing of employees, especially in a food processing plant, should be mandatory.

The American Christmas Seal debuted in 1907 to help keep sanatoriums open for TB patients. Today those seals help the American Lung Association fund research and provide information about a variety of lung disorders, after helping once to bring TB under control.

It makes no more sense to import TB than it does to import poverty, which go hand in hand. But we are doing both.

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