Illegals and Disease

[dilloduck]

Why worry about avian flu ?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43275
Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards," writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. "Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases."

Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report.

"That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin," says the report. "TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000 with toxic side effects. Each illegal with MDR-TB coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later.

TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to 'foreign born' people who have up to eight times higher incidences apparently, 66 percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam."

Other health threats from illegals include, according to the report:

Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or "kissing bug disease," is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, Trypanosoma cruzi, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. The disease also infiltrates America's blood supply. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs. No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico.
Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Mexico. Recently, according to the report, there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills.
Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants as do intestinal parasites, says the report.
Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas.
The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for protecting the health of Americans:

Closing America's borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops.
Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of "anchor babies."
Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime.
An end to amnesty programs

 

[Shaggy]

more jokes... lmao!

you guys slay me... seriously.

Especially enjoyed the quoting of the WorldNetDaily like it was an actual <chuckle> "news source". Thats great stuff...

but once again, wrong forum. The Humor forum is down there ya silly...

 

[dilloduck]

more jokes... lmao!

you guys slay me... seriously.

Especially enjoyed the quoting of the WorldNetDaily like it was an actual <chuckle> "news source". Thats great stuff...

but once again, wrong forum. The Humor forum is down there ya silly...

Are you denying that illegal aliens pose a health risk to Americans ?

 

[Stephanie]

more jokes... lmao!

you guys slay me... seriously.

Especially enjoyed the quoting of the WorldNetDaily like it was an actual <chuckle> "news source". Thats great stuff...

but once again, wrong forum. The Humor forum is down there ya silly...

What are you, the nitpicky police. sheeeeshhh

 

[OCA]

Let the demonization begin!

If communicable diseases were a big concern we'd have cordoned off all of our major cities by now. Lol this cracks me up!

 

[Annie]

Let the demonization begin!

If communicable diseases were a big concern we'd have cordoned off all of our major cities by now. Lol this cracks me up!

It is a large concern, which they have been trying to address. For some reason though, they try to keep it quiet...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0604020181apr02,1,2624697.story

US-MEXICO RELATIONS

A turbulent border, a cooperative spirit

By Hugh Dellios, a Tribune foreign correspondent based in Mexico City

April 2, 2006

CANCUN, Mexico -- The ever-challenging relationship between the U.S. and Mexico is not quite as pretty as Presidents Bush and Vicente Fox painted at their two-day summit meeting in Cancun last week.

Indeed, it was difficult at times to reconcile their mutual praise and admiration with the debate raging across the U.S. over how to treat the country's 12 million undocumented immigrants, many of them from Mexico.

And there are a host of other issues that dog the two countries: the shrill criticism of how Mexico patrols its borders, Mexican angst at talk of constructing a border "wall," and weekly irritants along the Rio Grande.

In truth, there are many things that work in the complicated reality of the U.S.-Mexico relationship, despite all the anti-Mexico, anti-U.S. and anti-immigrant rhetoric surrounding the election campaigns this year in both countries.

Behind the finger-pointing about border violence, drug trafficking and illegal immigrants pouring over the U.S. border, a functioning partnership chugs along in fits and starts, low-key and often out of sight. It is a cooperation driven by the necessities of an increasingly populated 2,000-mile border.

Consider:

- As American anti-immigrant activists cast doubts on Mexico's seriousness about post-Sept. 11 border security, the Mexican government last month quietly allowed U.S. agents to "escort" a South Korean businessman on a flight from Mexico City to Houston. Once there, he was arrested on charges related to assisting Saddam Hussein in the United Nations' scandal-plagued oil-for-food program.

- As Mexican presidential candidates joined anti-American radicals in condemning the border-fence idea, the two governments last month announced a plan to jointly combat tuberculosis and AIDS along the border.

- As Texas sheriffs decried shootouts among drug smugglers across the Rio Grande, Fox announced last week that Mexico soon would begin extraditing its worst kingpins to the U.S., warning that the powerful drug lords would probably unleash even more violence in Mexico to prevent it. Mexico does hunt down and return fugitive murderers to the U.S., although sometimes the government would rather not publicize it too much.

It is those functional elements of the "friendship" that Bush and Fox sought to highlight at the summit, partly in an attempt to convince the U.S. Congress that Mexico could be trusted. For this moment, at least, they sought to overlook the clashing interests, cultures and shortcomings that always will prevent one side from completely pleasing the other.

"We are arriving at a level of maturity in the relationship," said Silvia Hernandez, president of the Mexican Senate's North American Affairs Committee. "We have stopped just saying, `It's your problem.'

"We have serious problems along the border. Does that make the relationship bad? I would say it demands that the relationship be good, because the incidents get bigger every time."

Political change expected

One concern of U.S. officials is that this may be as good as it gets. When Fox leaves office after elections this year, the next government may be headed by a left-wing nationalist with a defiant streak, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who may not look as kindly on what the U.S. stands for and does.

While the border incidents often are deadly and dangerous, the tensions aren't so unlike those of two neighbors with vastly different income levels and lifestyles, eyeing each other suspiciously over the fence, neither quite confident that the other has chained up the pit bull. But in this case, no one's in a position to pack up and move.

The cultural differences--between Americans' individualism and focus on orderliness and the Mexicans' collective instincts and informality--often make it hard for the two peoples to appreciate each other's interests and points of view.

"The average Mexican really likes the average American," said Carlos Tortolero, executive director of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, who was born in Mexico. "It's when the U.S. uses its big clout that it drives the Mexicans crazy."

A recent survey by Zogby International and Mexico's Center of Investigation for Development illustrated the disparity in perspectives, suggesting that Americans on average have a far better opinion of Mexicans than vice versa.

Only 26 percent of Mexicans thought Americans were hardworking. Only 16 percent thought Americans were honest. And a full 73 percent thought Americans were racist.

By contrast, 78 percent of Americans thought Mexicans were hardworking and 42 percent thought they were honest.

While many Americans see Mexico as corrupt and inept at employing its people despite having billions of dollars in annual oil revenues, many Mexicans see America as arrogant, hypocritical and the cause of many of their problems.

A recent political cartoon in a Mexico City newspaper summed it up. It captured John Negroponte, the U.S. intelligence director, testifying to Congress that Mexico is the No. 1 source of drugs to the U.S. Sitting next to him is a long-haired, hippie-like American drug addict, under a cloud of marijuana smoke, saying, "Yeah, man, we need more and at a better price."

Simmering beneath it all is that old resentment in Mexico about the loss of Texas and California. It's seen in the flashing eyes of a Spanish tutor when she boasts about how Mexican immigrants are slowly taking the land back, or in the Mexican flags waved by marchers in Los Angeles and Chicago protesting Congress' proposed crackdown on illegal immigrants.

"From the historical perspective of Mexico, the line between Mexico and the U.S. is not just a border; it is a scar that has never quite healed over," wrote Daniel Lund, an American pollster who has lived in Mexico with his Mexican wife for 30 years, in a recent newspaper column.

But at a 150-year distance from those events, others have learned to laugh about the historical grievance.

"One of the first things that Mexicans learn in primary school is that the U.S. stole our territory, and because of that we're not developed," Jorge Chabat, an expert in border issues, kidded me over lunch not long after I arrived in Mexico City. "And oh, those gringos! They took the best part-- the part with the good highways, the shopping malls and Disneyland!"

All the talk about building walls between the U.S. and Mexico reminds me of one of the last conversations I had before ending my stint as the Tribune's correspondent in Jerusalem in 2002.

Relatively peaceful border

After learning I was moving to Mexico, an Israeli neighbor cocked an eyebrow and asked over brunch how the U.S. and Mexico can get along so well after the Americans ended up with so much of Mexico's land.

Of course, the Iraqi-born Jew was thinking of the far different situation between the Israelis and Palestinians, who are now separated by a wall.

From his perspective, the U.S.-Mexico relationship looked pretty good.

 

[Annie]

Just in case some genius wants to group Chicago Trib. with Worldnet, Wiki, whathaveyou, here's some stats from CDC:


http://www.cdc.gov/programs/global08.htm

Tuberculosis Among Persons Who Frequently Cross the U.S.-Mexico Border

WHAT IS THE PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM?

* Tuberculosis (TB) is a significant problem among foreign-born persons in the United States. In 2003, foreign-born persons accounted for 53 percent of the 14,874 reported U.S. cases.
* Of cases among foreign-born persons, 2,024 (26 percent) were from Mexico.
* Some TB patients in Mexico do not have access to TB medication because they live in a remote area or are unable to afford the medicine. This may lead to inadequate treatment regimens and multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB.
* Between 1994 and 1998, approximately 3.9 million documented immigrants entered the United States. Of those immigrants, 16.5 percent were from Mexico, the leading country of birth for all documented immigrants.
* Approximately 1 million persons cross the U.S.-Mexico border daily; an estimated 2.7 million persons from Mexico and Central America live in the United States without documentation of citizenship or visas.
* Reducing TB rates along the border depends on finding and treating persons with or at risk for TB disease on both sides of the border.

It's not just tuberculosis:

http://bphc.hrsa.gov/bphc/borderhealth/

Residents living along the U.S.-Mexico Border experience greater rates of communicable illnesses such as tuberculosis and vaccine preventable illnesses than other groups of people across the Nation. High rates of hepatitis and other intestinal infections, due to a lack of clean water and proper sewage disposal, are also a concern. Frequent movement between both countries and within the U.S. compromises continuity of health care for residents of this area. Additionally, the four States in the border area have some of the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and uninsured people in the Nation.
Border Region

The U.S.-Mexico border region is 2,000 miles long, stretching from San Ysidro, California, to Brownsville, Texas, and extending 62 miles north of the border in to the U.S. This border is approximately half the length of the U.S.-Canada border, and represents the distance from Washington, DC, to Phoenix, Arizona, in direct miles.

The border area consists of 48 counties in four states. Some of the poorest counties in the United States are located in this border area. More than a third of U.S. border families live at or below the poverty line. An estimated 350,000 people live in colonias, which are un-zoned, semi-rural communities without access to public drinking water or wastewater systems. The unemployment rate along the border is 250-300 percent higher than in the rest of the country.
Border Health Issues

Sanitation:
The sanitation infrastructure deficiencies of the border area are enormous. Forty-six million liters of raw sewage flow daily into the Tijuana River. Another 76 million are dumped in to the New and Rio Grande Rivers. The management of water use is governed by treaties, but they do not deal with pollution management, such as sewage and pesticide runoff. Communities that use this water for cooking and drinking face serious health threats.

Air Pollution:
Air pollution is also a very serious problem in major metropolitan areas like El Paso/Cuidad Juarez, where meteorological conditions often fail to sweep the atmosphere of pollutants. Industry compliance with environmental regulations is spotty, and the poor often burn highly polluting materials for cooking and warmth. As a result, high lead levels in children and frequent respiratory illnesses are common.

These environmentally linked problems contribute to overall health conditions along the border that resemble those of many Third World countries. According to measures developed by the National Association of Community Health Centers, 10 of 24 counties evaluated along the U.S.-Mexico border are in "double jeopardy" because they are both medically underserved and poor. These counties face both a poor overall health status among their residents and a shortage of primary care physicians.

Access to Health Care:
Lack of access to health care is a significant problem along the border. While the access problem is in part due to a lack of insurance, especially among the Mexican-American population, it is also attributable to non-financial barriers to access. These include an uneven distribution of physicians, other health professionals, and hospitals; inadequate transportation; a shortage of bilinqual health information and health providers; and culturally insensitive systems of care. Standard health indicators bear out the consequences of this lack of access.

Communicable Diseases:
Hepatitis A is two to three times more prevalent along the border than in the United States as a whole. Tuberculosis, a growing threat in the U.S., appears along the border at twice the national average. In addition, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes are problems in the border area because they have a high incidence among Mexican-Americans, who make up over 50 percent of the population of the U.S. border counties. These diseases can be controlled through early intervention and the provision of consistent health care.

The public health problems of the U.S.-Mexico border region are longstanding and profound. Of critical importance to understanding their significance today, however, is the fact that border counties continue to experience rapid population growth. During the 1980s, this region experienced a 25 to 30 percent increase in population, compared to a less than 10 percent increase for the U.S. population. Accounting for this higher increase in population are a higher fertility rate, lower age-specific death rates, and a high rate of immigration. The population on the border is also younger than that of the respective border states and the nation as a whole.

The most immediate implication of this demographic pyramid is a higher birth rate and an increase in the existing need for maternal and child care services. But high dependency ratios and population growth rates also have serious implications for the poverty, environmental pollution, and disease that now plague residents struggling without adequate housing, sewage management, water, and health care in a region whose growing industrialization draws increasing numbers of the desperately poor.

The incidence of several types of communicable diseases is very high in border areas. The areas show high incidences of water borne diseases, such as shigellosis. The rates of hepatitis A infection, tuberculoss, and measles are also very high when compared to the general U.S. population. The incidence of AIDS is partcularly high in San Diego. In general, the ranking of leading causes of death is higher for accidents, diabetes, and infectious diseases in this region than in the rest of the country.

 

[OCA]

It is a large concern, which they have been trying to address. For some reason though, they try to keep it quiet...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0604020181apr02,1,2624697.story

But the epidemic among our own citizens goes unnoticed. Hey if you don't believe me peruse the homeless in Chicago.

This is all starting to seem earily similar in history.......can anyone say the word Juden?

 

[Annie]

But the epidemic among our own citizens goes unnoticed. Hey if you don't believe me peruse the homeless in Chicago.

This is all starting to seem earily similar in history.......can anyone say the word Juden?

Not unnoticed, rather ignored. The homeless in Chicago are not spreading TB, etc. OCA, you are having a problem with the stats.

 

[OCA]

Not unnoticed, rather ignored. The homeless in Chicago are not spreading TB, etc. OCA, you are having a problem with the stats.

Nope, having a problem with the stench of racism and the propoganda being used to fuel the fire.

 

[Annie]

Nope, having a problem with the stench of racism and the propoganda being used to fuel the fire.

Ok now, Chicago Trib, CDC, HHS, all are putting forth propagand. 'Race card drawn.' Wow, Cynthia McKinney time, when the facts let one down, play the race card...

 

[OCA]

Ok now, Chicago Trib, CDC, HHS, all are putting forth propagand. 'Race card drawn.' Wow, Cynthia McKinney time, when the facts let one down, play the race card...

I'm playing the race card? Check yourself on this issue all along. By the way are the illegals White?

Admit it, this whole issue and your side of it stinks with racism. I'm just the only one to call you guys on it. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that if these were Irish etc. etc. coming over we'd be throwing a party.

The McKinney pic was a nice touch too..................LMFAO!

 

[Annie]

I'm playing the race card? Check yourself on this issue all along. By the way are the illegals White?

Admit it, this whole issue and your side of it stinks with racism. I'm just the only one to call you guys on it. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that if these were Irish etc. etc. coming over we'd be throwing a party.

The McKinney pic was a nice touch too..................LMFAO!

Just once, show me where I've displayed racism? Not towards Mexicans, Blacks, Asians, etc. Now the followers of RoP, that is a bit different.

On the other hand, you haven't a problem with your calling blacks lazy, etc. Sorry, racism charge will not work with me. Just like you cannot dispute the stats. That's ok, I like you anyways.

 

[007]

I have some racist tendencies. I've admitted it. I don't care.

But I'm not racist against Mexicans. Most of the Mexicans I bump into are polite, clean, and keep their children disciplined. The fact that they've jumped our border and entered my country illegaly is the ONLY problem I have with them. If Mexico treated AMERICANS as well as we treat them, I wouldn't have such a big problem with it, but they don't. If there was a mass invasion of Americans into Mexico illegaly, Mexico would start shooting us.

Tell me I'm wrong.

 

[Hobbit]

I have some racist tendencies. I've admitted it. I don't care.

But I'm not racist against Mexicans. Most of the Mexicans I bump into are polite, clean, and keep their children disciplined. The fact that they've jumped our border and entered my country illegaly is the ONLY problem I have with them. If Mexico treated AMERICANS as well as we treat them, I wouldn't have such a big problem with it, but they don't. If there was a mass invasion of Americans into Mexico illegaly, Mexico would start shooting us.

Tell me I'm wrong.

I've developed some racist tendancies against Mexicans, though I try to suppress it as much as I can. It happened from years of living in an area where dozens of these dirty, uneducated illegals who refused to learn a word of English were hired to butcher chickens. Their kids went to my school where they wore rags (not really the kids' fault if they're poor, but this stuff was rattier than what you can get from the Salvation Army for free), smelled like they never showered (I know you can get access to a shower. If nothing else, just join a sports team and use the locker room), feigned not knowing English to get out of homework, spoke perfect English when trying to steal my lunch money, and, eventually, started forming gangs which terrorised the whole town. And then there were the teenagers who brought their brats to school. It was so common that we used to say that half the Mexicans in the school were pregnant or mothers and the other half had balls.

That aside, the county and state health departments spent millions a year preventing TB epidemics. It's a wonder I never caught it, because, unlike an illegal immigrant, I would actually have to pay the quarter million it costs to treat TB.

 

[OCA]

Just once, show me where I've displayed racism? Not towards Mexicans, Blacks, Asians, etc. Now the followers of RoP, that is a bit different.

On the other hand, you haven't a problem with your calling blacks lazy, etc. Sorry, racism charge will not work with me. Just like you cannot dispute the stats. That's ok, I like you anyways.

Kathianne it is true that I do not believe the stats, I do not believe anything the media or government(cdc) says. Here is how I see this current procession on this issue............the fanatical anti-immigration crowd has lost on the amnesty issue almost certainly so now they are grasping at straws because its much easier to deny a group of people opportunity when you can classify them as filth and disease ridden rodents. Its villification 101 really.

As for the Blacks being lazy part, that is not true......I believe that many are lazy but there are exceptions to every rule as I know of many very hard working Blacks, but...............well just drive by any S.S. office on check day.

 

[Annie]

Kathianne it is true that I do not believe the stats, I do not believe anything the media or government(cdc) says. Here is how I see this current procession on this issue............the fanatical anti-immigration crowd has lost on the amnesty issue almost certainly so now they are grasping at straws because its much easier to deny a group of people opportunity when you can classify them as filth and disease ridden rodents. Its villification 101 really.

As for the Blacks being lazy part, that is not true......I believe that many are lazy but there are exceptions to every rule as I know of many very hard working Blacks, but...............well just drive by any S.S. office on check day.

You can 'not believe' but you really can't dispute them, they are reputable, without saying you believe some other, less reputable source. So that's that.

Anti-immigration is not what most of the anti-amnesty proponents are. To say that lawbreakers should not go ahead of law followers, is just not smart in our type of governing system. Bush is very wrong on this.

If they get the borders closed, then I would certainly be open to the type of plan put forward by Cornyn-Kyl, which requires a return to Mexico and then ability to reenter, lawfully.

 

[OCA]

You can 'not believe' but you really can't dispute them, they are reputable, without saying you believe some other, less reputable source. So that's that.

Anti-immigration is not what most of the anti-amnesty proponents are. To say that lawbreakers should not go ahead of law followers, is just not smart in our type of governing system. Bush is very wrong on this.

If they get the borders closed, then I would certainly be open to the type of plan put forward by Cornyn-Kyl, which requires a return to Mexico and then ability to reenter, lawfully.

No, no return to Mexico, I will not punish people who produced for America whether here legal or not and if they entered illegally did it with a wink and a nod from the United States Of America. We're supposed to be a compassionate society, maybe not.

And reputable? What, your going to tell me that these people examined all of the people trying to cross the border and the ones already here illegally? I thought they were living on the margins of society? Am I wrong? Come on now.

Oh and this new crap about denying citizenship to babies born to illegals on American soil? Read the 14th amendment(maybe i'm wrong on the amendment number, can't remember now), and no that amendment is not open to interpretation or.....should we say the 2nd amendment is open to interpretation also?

 

[Annie]

No, no return to Mexico, I will not punish people who produced for America whether here legal or not and if they entered illegally did it with a wink and a nod from the United States Of America. We're supposed to be a compassionate society, maybe not.

What about compassion for the others trying to enter?

And reputable? What, your going to tell me that these people examined all of the people trying to cross the border and the ones already here illegally? I thought they were living on the margins of society? Am I wrong? Come on now.

the data is from the government, I'm sure the methodology is explained at the CDC site.

Oh and this new crap about denying citizenship to babies born to illegals on American soil? Read the 14th amendment(maybe i'm wrong on the amendment number, can't remember now), and no that amendment is not open to interpretation or.....should we say the 2nd amendment is open to interpretation also?

I really don't have a problem with the born here stuff, that's me. However, make no mistake, that was a reconstruction amendment passed to make sure that all former male slaves couldn't be barred from voting.

 

[OCA]

What about compassion for the others trying to enter? the data is from the government, I'm sure the methodology is explained at the CDC site. I really don't have a problem with the born here stuff, that's me. However, make no mistake, that was a reconstruction amendment passed to make sure that all former male slaves couldn't be barred from voting.

The data is from the government...................my point exactly.

Ok and the left argues that the 2nd amendment was meant so that the citizens could arm themselves against a foriegn army, mainly the British. You see my point? We can't pick and choose which amendments are open to interpretation. I'm not arguing this point with you, just want you to recognize some hypocrisy from the right.

I saw the crap on the babies on Fox news last night, I almost went through the roof!