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 Health & Beauty | October 2007 
A Deadly Disease Makes an Unwelcome Comeback
 Pam Meister - Family Security Foundation
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| | A tuberculosis patient at a hospital in Agartala, India. Two international drug funds - UNITAID and the Stop TB partnership - have stepped in to provide 26 million dollars in life-saving tuberculosis treatment for three quarters of a million people in poor countries. (AFP) |
A lot of media time has been given to covering incidents of staph infection at schools throughout the country within the past week or two (including one in my town). Unfortunately, that’s not the only heath risk on the rise today in America.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious disease that, like the common cold, is spread through the air – but with much more serious consequences than a few sniffles. TB is a bacterial disease that affects mainly the lungs (known as pulmonary TB), but can also spread throughout the body, attacking many different systems. It is potentially fatal.
Incidences of what used to be a dreaded disease here in the United States have gone down steadily within the past 50-60 years due to the development of vaccines and treatment, including antibiotics and chemotherapy. 2006 was our best year yet, with only 13,767 cases reported. However, there are some populations within the U.S. that are affected by the disease more than others:
"Tuberculosis continues to have a significant and unacceptable impact on minorities and immigrant communities in the United States," said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. "Blacks and Hispanics have tuberculosis rates that are about eight times higher than that of whites, and the rate for Asians is more than 21 times that of whites. Foreign-born individuals living in the United States have nearly 10 times the rate of TB as those born in the United States."
Why would TB have “a significant and unacceptable impact” on immigrant communities? It could be due to the influx of illegal immigration within the past 15-20 years. Although the occurrence of the disease has been low in the U.S. in recent decades, that situation could change if we continue to ignore the illegal alien problem that plagues our nation. Worldwide, 2 million people die of TB each year. Mexico has a TB rate 10 times that of the U.S., and many countries in Africa and elsewhere (including Afghanistan and Indonesia) have rates that are 100-150 times higher. The idea of America’s TB rates skyrocketing to match those of less developed countries is a frightening scenario.
As mentioned above, regular cases of TB can be treated with good results. However, there are new strains of the disease that are resistant to known cures. Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) is not only highly contagious, but resistant to the two first-line drugs used to treat TB. Even more worrisome is extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), which in addition to being resistant to the two first-line drugs, is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs. And it’s these two strains that are on the rise in the U.S.: the Center for Drug Control (CDC) reported in 2006 that cases of MDR-TB were up from 113 reported cases in 2003 to 128 cases in 2004. As for XDR-TB, the proportion of reported cases went up from 3.9% during 1993-1996 to 4.5% during 2001-2004. As reported by the Washington Post, “These findings appear to be driven by the growth of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB overseas and in recent immigrants to the United States.”
According to a report from World Net Daily, health officials in Texas are worried about MDR-TB coming in from Mexico. Incidents of MDR-TB went up 25% between 2004 and 2005 in the Rio Grande Valley, near the Mexican border. It costs $2,800 to treat the standard TB patient for six to eight months, but the more resistant strains run $250,000 for two years.
Writing for OpinionJournal.com, Dr. Katrina S. Firlik describes a man from Guatemala who was admitted to Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut with MDR-TB, but without insurance, papers or knowledge of English. He was treated to the tune of $200,000 (not counting individual physician’s fees). She says:
How many other diseases are being brought in by how many other undocumented and unexamined workers? Somehow, here, a social worker was able to track down the friends and relatives who came to the U.S. with this patient. They all tested positive for TB, and were all working behind the scenes in local restaurants.
Do you see a connection?
The account of an American citizen with XDR-TB, a highly infectious (and drug-resistant) form of the disease, made headlines earlier this year when he made two trans-Atlantic flights – even though he was advised against it. It’s possible that he could have infected up to 80 people. Yet, as Alan Cantwell MD and Dr. Lawrence Brockmeyer MD point out, it seems silly to make a big fuss about the “healthy-looking young white male lawyer” when a “TB study sponsored by the CDC in Los Angeles County during 1992-1994 concluded that foreign-born immigrants comprised 64% of all reported cases. Half were born in Mexico or in Central America. Screening procedures at that time also identified a large proportion of cases among recently arrived South-east Asians.”
Part of the reason for screening potential immigrants to America is not only to bar the criminals and shiftless benefit seekers, but to keep out people with serious diseases. Many of us, when learning about Ellis Island, heard of the “cruelty” of Ellis Island health officials who turned away immigrants who had spent all their money crossing the Atlantic simply because they may have had a weird rash or runny nose. With medical technology being what it is today, obviously no one would be turned away for a simple case of eczema. But if illegal aliens with diseases like TB are streaming over the border, there is no way to know about it until it’s too late.
• In April, a community college student was diagnosed with TB and may have exposed as many as 200 students and faculty in Linda Vista, California. Interestingly enough, the exposure happened in an “English as a Second Language” class.
• In August, 17-year-old Francisco Santos was told by his doctors that he had active, contagious TB, but he wouldn’t believe it and refused treatment. What’s more, he announced upon leaving the medical facility that he would return to his home country of Mexico. Gwinnett County (Georgia) officials made the official decision to jail Santos, whose immigration status was “unknown” at that time.
• Also in August, the Putnam County (New York) Sheriff’s Department held a Guatemalan man in custody for refusing to take his TB medication. He was among a number of illegal aliens in an East Eatonton home had been receiving treatment by the Health Department, and he had discontinued the treatment. Sheriff’s deputies and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detained 11 people from the home, and had to isolate Jamie Romero. One other man who had stopped his treatment was missing.
• This month, it was reported that a Mexican national with MDR-TB crossed the border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights within the past year. While CDC policy is to alert airlines of possibly affected passengers if a flight is eight hours or more, other doctors assert that infection can occur in minutes, especially in persons with low immunity.
• Also this month, 160 workers at a poultry plant in South Carolina were diagnosed with active TB after it was discovered that one employee at the plant had the disease. Coincidentally, he was “born outside the United States.”
Poultry plant workers diagnosed with TB? Remember our friend who was treated for TB at a Greenwich hospital. Do you remember when 300 Olive Garden patrons were taken ill with gastroenteritis? Several employees had also been ill. How about the outbreak of hepatitis A in western Pennsylvania that was traced to scallions imported from Mexico? If these illnesses can be spread by handling food, could it be possible for TB to be contracted in the same way?
Regardless, the fact that it’s spread through the very air we breathe should be of major concern, including the fact that cases of TB are increasingly being reported at schools.
And TB is not the only illness on the rise:
• In 1997, it was reported that locally transmitted malaria (caused by malaria parasites) is on the rise after being absent for some 30 years.
• Drug resistant staph infections are becoming more prevalent.
• Leishmania mexicana, a non-lethal (but painful) skin infection caused by a parasite, has been diagnosed in a handful of people in Texas. What’s odd about it is that the parasite is usually found in South America. It cannot be spread by human contact, but why would a parasite normally found in South America be found in Texas?
America isn’t alone in facing outbreaks of worrisome diseases. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, worries that a “superbug that causes infections from large, boil-like lesions to hemorrhagic pneumonia and, in rare cases, flesh-eating disease is poised to ‘emerge in force.’” Immigrants to Canada are also arriving with dormant cases of TB, which could eventually become full-blown cases.
How much of this truly is due to the presence of illegal aliens? With the advent of “sanctuary cities” and other illegal alien-friendly policies, it’s difficult to know if medical personnel are unable to report on the legal status of patients. With the case of staph outbreaks in hospitals mentioned above, 17 states now have laws in place requiring hospitals to report infection rates, but California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a bill that would have required hospitals there to do the same.
Illegal immigration has been called a “victimless crime.” Yet with increased instances of illegals not only committing crime and creating conditions that are favorable to unscrupulous employers (but unfavorable to American workers), and now increased cases of MDR-TB, XDR-TB and other diseases that were all but eradicated in America, it’s time to start asking when we’re going to stop feeling sorry for those who break our immigration laws and start putting the needs of American citizens and legal residents first.
Our very health could depend on it.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Editorial Director Pamela Meister is a former radio broadcaster, a recovering liberal, a contributor to AmericanThinker.com and a formidable blogger at blogmeisterusa.mu.nu. |
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