STORM2K

Border control needed for disease control

The government is ignoring another form or terrorism entering the US through our slipshod borders: leprosy, tuberculosis, hepatitis A, and Chagas Disease, now endemic in our country. In the past three years, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, over 100,000 cases of hepatitis, extremely contagious, have been documented in the United States. Just one illegal who worked at a Denver fast-foot restaurant last fall infected over 1,000 patrons with Hepatitis A.

Since 2001, leprosy has exceeded 7,000 new cases, thanks to newcomers. Most of those infected in our country are illegal-alien immigrants who hail from leprosy hot spots in Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean, and India.

Tuberculosis also enters in the bodies of newcomers to America. Mother Jones News article, “THE PATIENT PREDATOR" by Dr. Kevin Patterson: "Tuberculosis is back, and thanks to globalization, immigration, and slipshod treatment, it's deadlier than ever. It kills two-million people a year."

"We sit on the edge of potential catastrophe. Government won't take this problem seriously, doctors don't treat it, and the public thinks TB isn't sexy enough to merit attention.” So says Dr. Lee Reichman, executive director of New Jersey's Medical Schools National Tuberculosis Center.

These new strains are resistant to all known antibiotics.

One infected illegal alien will infect between 10 to 50 Americans---depending on his public contact. If that illegal alien has children, now numbering over 1.1-million illegal-alien kids in U.S. schools, your kids are at risk.

Chagas Disease is a T-cruzi parasite that infects 14-million people in South America. Known as "Kiss of Death" because it’s spread by a kissing bug, kills 50,000 annually. Undectable, it travels in the blood stream. South and Central Americans crash our borders carrying the disease. It attacks the heart and other organs.

When illegals give blood, they contaminate our blood supplies. Deaths are traced back to this problem, including three heart transplant victims.

When are we going to demand our government take action to guard our borders? Anthrax is not the only form of bioterrorism!

Source

I think we all agree that there are definitely even tighter controls needed. In reality what can be done that is not going to triple the national deficit? I have yet to see any realistic ideas from any source that might be effective. Just asking, not being critical of any one or any agency. Is there in reality a solution(s)?

Whether the infected person was a legal or illegal visitor or immigrant has nothing to do with the problem.

Americans who travel/live abroad bring back diseases. Lots of Americans are responsible for not taking their TB drugs correctly (or at all) and for spreading drug-resistant strains, etc. And what about Americans who do contract these diseases? Should we deport them or forbid them reentry into the country? When I was a kid, I knew a child whose parents had been missionaries somewhere and her mother had leprosy... She lived in upstate New York. I don't think many people knew that she had it. I've no idea how "contagious" she was... But no one restricted her movements.

There are some measures that can be taken at presumably fairly low cost. The French have special cameras at international airports that measure heat--thus pinpointing any incoming travelers with fevers! While leprosy, etc. won't be detected, these cameras will detect the flu, etc.

Perhaps it would be a good thing to have such cameras on all travelers on both incoming and outgoing flights--and perhaps on even domestic flights. Do you really want to fly coast to coast sitting next to someone with the flu? You will almost certainly catch it.... How far do you want to take this?

What about diseases like menningitis? Every year there are outbreaks in the US. For that matter, what about typhoid? When I was a kid, you had to get annual typhoid shots in places like Virginia. There are, I believe, still cases of typhoid there. That's a horrid disease with carriers who infect others...

The spread of infectious disease is a very real issue. It is a serious problem without easy answers.
The problem of illegal aliens is also a very real issue. Again, it is a serious problem without easy answers.
But these are separate problems with only anecdotal relationships.

Don't muddy the waters by putting the two separate issues together because then each issue becomes more difficult to focus on. You defeat your purpose.