When my grandfather came to America, he first kissed the
ground of New York's Ellis Island, then he stripped naked and
coughed hard. Every legal immigrant before 1924 was examined
for infectious diseases upon arrival and tested for tuberculosis.
Anyone infected was shipped back to the old country. That was
powerful incentive for each newcomer to make heroic efforts to
appear healthy.Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they
are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for
lawful permanent residency green cards. Illegal aliens simply cross
our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any
number of communicable diseases.
Many illegals who cross our borders have tuberculosis. That disease
had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene
and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin.
TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those
infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDRTB).
Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major
antitubercular drugs. OrdinaryTB 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 inVirginia 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 incidence. Apparently, 66 percent of all TB cases
coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines, and
Vietnam. Virulent TB outbreaks afflicted schoolteachers and
children in Michigan, adults and children in Texas, and
policemen in Minnesota. Recently TB erupted in Portland, Maine,
and Del Rey Beach, Florida.
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. This 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. After 10 to 20 years, up
to 30 percent will die when their hearts or intestines, enlarged and
weakened by Chagas, burst. Three people in 2001 received
Chagas-infected organ transplants.Two died.
Leprosy, a scourge in Biblical days and in medieval Europe, so
horribly destroys flesh and faces it was called the disease of the
soul. Lepers quarantined in leprosaria sounded noisemakers when
they ventured out to warn people to stay far away. Leprosy, Hansen's
disease, was so rare inAmerica 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 there was a virulent outbreak
of dengue fever inWebb County, Texas, which borders Mexico.
Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic
fever routinely kills.
Polio was eradicated fromAmerica, but now reappears in illegal
immigrants, as do intestinal parasites. Malaria was obliterated,
but now is re-emerging inTexas. About 4,000 children under age
five annually in America develop fever, red eyes, strawberry
tongue, and acute inflammation of their coronary arteries and
other blood vessels because of the infectious malady called
Kawasaki disease. Many suffer heart attacks and sudden death.
Hepatitis A, B, and C, are resurging. Asians number 4
percent of Americans, but account for more than half of Hepatitis B
cases. Why inoculate all American newborns for Hepatitis B when
most infected persons are Asians?
