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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Immigration Vote Splits Gang of 8

    By Humberto Sanchez
    Roll Call Staff
    March 23, 2013, 10:15 a.m.

    The Senate’s bipartisan immigration working group split along party lines during a contentious budget vote to prevent illegal immigrants who receive legal status from receiving federal health benefits.

    The Senate early Saturday morning defeated the amendment to the budget resolution which would have put the Senate on record as opposing access to health care under Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act for undocumented immigrants who get a green card.

    The amendment, which failed 43 to 56, was offered by Senate Budget ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

    All Democrats — including gang members Dick Durbin of Illinois, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado — opposed the amendment. They were joined by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. All other Republicans — including immigration negotiators Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — supported the amendment.

    The gang of eight has been negotiating a comprehensive immigration reform package that they hope to unveil when the Senate returns the week of April 8 from spring recess.

    Sessions contended the vote bodes poorly for the state of negotiations.

    “The result of today’s vote places immigration reform in jeopardy,” Sessions said.

    Immigration reform advocates, including National Council of La Raza, said Friday they would be monitoring what they contend to be any anti-immigrant votes and put members of both parties on notice that their votes would be remembered come election day.

    During debate, Sessions argued that illegal immigrants who are given legal status in the future should not be eligible for these health care benefits.

    “If a person is in our country illegally and they are rewarded with some legal status, do they then immediately become eligible for federal health care benefits,” Sessions said. “It’s a different situation than someone who came legally and has got legal status.”

    After the vote Sessions said in a release that the failure to adopt his amendment “will dramatically accelerate the insolvency of our entitlement programs and is unfair to American workers and taxpayers.”

    Menendez said the amendment was not needed because the group was working on a plan that would have to be approved by the Senate.

    “Nothing is contemplated to change what the senator is concerned about in our negotiations,” Menendez said. He added that any change to the immigration laws “would have to come before this body before in fact it could be changed.”

    The Senate approved by voice vote an amendment offered by Menendez that restates current law that illegal immigrants are not eligible for the federal health care programs.

    Menendez also warned that adoption of the Sessions amendment could disturb immigration negotiations and goes against the stated desire of the Republican National Committee, which urged Republicans to do a better job of appealing to immigrants, including embracing comprehensive immigration reform.

    Negotiation on the immigration law “is currently being done in a bipartisan fashion,” Menendez said. “The last thing we need to do in this budget process is to try muck that up.”

    One Old Vet - Veterans, Guns, Illegal Immigration, Border Security

    Immigration Vote Splits Gang of 8 : Roll Call News
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    Senate rejects ban on allowing former illegal immigrants healthcare benefits

    By Ramsey Cox - 03/23/13 12:58 AM ET
    The Hill

    The Senate rejected an amendment to the budget that would have banned illegal immigrants from qualifying for “ObamaCare” and Medicaid during the period of legal status.

    Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Session (R-Ala.) introduced the amendment, which failed on a 43-56 vote. His amendment would have prohibited illegal immigrants, who later gain citizenship, from getting healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act or through Medicaid.

    “My amendment would simply say if you are here illegally and then get lawful status, you do not qualify for ObamaCare and Medicaid,” Sessions said ahead of the vote early Saturday morning.

    Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) offered a counter amendment that restated current law, which says undocumented people cannot receive federal benefits. His amendment passed by voice vote.

    “Current law already explicitly excludes undocumented people from receiving benefits,” Menendez said. “This is not a great way to do your outreach to the Hispanic and immigrant community.”

    Sessions said he wasn’t worried about current law, he was concerned that if Congress passes comprehensive immigration reform later this year, that illegal immigrants who are able to apply for citizenship or get some form of amnesty would then be able to use federal health benefits, costing taxpayers’ money.

    Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) voted with Democrats against Sessions’s amendment.


    The Senate also voted on the following budget amendments:

    - Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) amendment 706, to ensure that carbon emission standards be cost effective, passed by voice vote.

    - Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) amendment 359, to prohibit Environmental Protection Agency funding for greenhouse gas regulations, failed 47-52.

    - Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) amendment 696, would direct the Department of Justice that no financial institution is “Too Big To Jail” and recommends prosecution when a crime is committed, passed by voice vote.

    - Sen. Pat Roberts amendment 187, to prohibit the use of funds for promotional or marketing materials promoting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, failed on voice vote.

    - Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) amendment 619, to encourage more wise coordination for flood loss mitigation programs, passed by voice vote.

    - Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) amendment 152, to provide reconciliation instructions to the Judiciary Committee reduce the deficit by $63.8 trillion over 10 years through medical malpractice reform, failed 43-56.

    Senate rejects ban on allowing former illegal immigrants healthcare benefits - The Hill's Floor Action
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    Senate Democrats Vote To Provide Obamacare To Illegal Aliens Under Immigration Plan

    By John Hill on March 24, 2013
    Stand With Arizona


    Come on in…it’s all free, courtesy of the American taxpayer!

    Joe Wilson is right….again.

    Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and his outburst at Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address? Here’s a refresher:



    Obama said his healthcare plan would not cover illegal aliens – twice. Wilson shouted “You lie!” to the outrage of many, and for which he was later censured by Pelosi & Co. Democrats said it was ridiculous to suggest that illegal aliens would EVER be able to receive Obama Care benefits.

    Wilson was right, of course, as SWA pointed out and way back in August 2011, when we revealed how $8.5 million in HHS grants were going to provide “community health centers” for illegal alien migrant workers.

    And last night Joe Wilson was proven right yet again – but on a far more massive scale.

    Senate Democrats defeated a Budget amendment to deny access to Medicaid and Obama Care to the millions of illegal aliens granted “temporary legal status” under any future “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation.

    The amendment, which failed 43 to 56, was offered by Senate Budget ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

    “If a person is in our country illegally and they are rewarded with some legal status, do they then immediately become eligible for federal health care benefits,” Sessions said. “It’s a different situation than someone who came legally and has got legal status.”

    After the vote Sessions said in a release that the failure to adopt his amendment “will dramatically accelerate the insolvency of our entitlement programs and is unfair to American workers and taxpayers.”


    Sessions’ Amendment also exposed potential divisions in the so-called “Gang of Eight” group working in secret to devise an amnesty plan to shove down our throats.

    All Democrats — including “gang” members Dick Durbin of Illinois, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado — opposed the amendment. They were joined by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. All other Republicans — including immigration negotiators Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — supported the amendment.

    Sessions contended the vote bodes poorly for the state of negotiations. “The result of today’s vote places immigration reform in jeopardy,” Sessions said.

    Amen. When the American people find out about this treacherous vote, it better damn well torpedo the push for massive illegal alien amnesty, or there will be hell to pay come 2014.

    Oh, and Democrats now owe Joe Wilson one big apology.

    Senate Democrats Vote To Provide Obamacare To Illegal Aliens Under Immigration Plan | Stand With Arizona
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  5. #5
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    We are importing health issues. CVS is requiring hat US employees be "weighed", and Mexico, the largest importer if illegal aliens, has the highest diabetes rates in the world.

    Mexico diabetes rates contend for world’s worst

    By Lauren Villagran | November 14, 2011, 7:54 AM PST
    1Comments






    more +


    MEXICO CITY — Mexico stands out on World Diabetes Day, Nov. 14, for its dubious distinction of having one of the world’s highest rates of the disease, ranking second only to the United States.
    Diabetes is the leading cause of death in Mexico.
    An obesity epidemic here is blamed for the high rate of the disease, which affects 24 percent of men and 21 percent of women over the age of 35 years, according to the World Health Organization. Mexico’s health secretariat estimates that 90 percent of the cases of Type 2 diabetes in the country can be attributed to being overweight or obese.
    Doctors and nutritionists blame the obesity epidemic on changing patterns of eating as Mexico modernizes. People are eating more fast foods and drinking more soft drinks.
    In fact, Mexicans consume more soft drinks than people in any other country, chugging down 43 gallons per capita versus 31 gallons per capita in the U.S, the world’s No. 2 consumer, according to Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
    Children are at special risk in Mexico, which also has the world’s highest rate of childhood obesity. More than 28 percent of children between ages 5 and 9, and 38 percent of preteens and teenagers ages 10 to 19, suffer from excess weight or obesity, according to Mexico’s Social Security Institute.
    At food stands, where busy Mexicans eat a quick breakfast of warm tamales or quesadillas or grab tacos or tortas for lunch, soft drinks or sugary juices are the frequent accompaniment. Whether on the crowded streets of Mexico City or on back roads in rural areas, cases of glass-bottled soda and juice are ubiquitous at these popular spots known as puestos.
    Mexicans spend about $14.3 billion annually on soft drinks, according to a 2010 study by a congressional commission.
    Mexico is in a health bind. A 2007-2012 report by the national health secretariat said the country is facing “a complex public health agenda.”
    “We still suffer the sicknesses of underdevelopment, like infectious diseases and malnutrition, and at the same time we’re facing the challenges of advanced nations like cancer, obesity, diseases of the heart and diabetes,” the report said.
    It goes on to say that diabetes is the “major challenge that the national health system faces.”
    Mexicans spend $382 million on diabetes medications annually, according to a report by the Mexico City office of consultant IMS Health.

    Photo: Malias/Flikr
    Mexico diabetes rates contend for world’s worst | SmartPlanet


    A more recent ook.
    MARCH 21, 2013 BY ALFREDWCLARK
    Mexico’s Diabetes Epidemic

    As Steve Sailer has pointed out (here, here and here), Mexico is the second fattest country in the world, next to the United States, and, according to experts, on its way to becoming most obese. I suspect that if you were to subtract the Hispanics / mestizos and blacks from the American data and only compare European Americans with Mexicans, Mexico would already be the most obese country in the world. As was recently reported:
    “With each bite into a greasy taco and slurp of a sugary drink, Mexico hurtles toward what health experts predict will be a public health crisis from diabetes-related disease.
    A fifth of all Mexican women and more than a quarter of men are believed to be at risk for diabetes now. It’s already the nation’s No. 1 killer, taking some 70,000 lives a year, far more than gangster violence.”
    Mexicans are facing a diabetes epidemic, perhaps the worst the world has ever seen. Mexico currently has the second highest diabetes rate in the world, and soon expected to have the highest.
    What the causes of this rapid obesity and diabetes epidemic are, health experts are still arguing.
    First, Mexican food, on average, is extremely low in nutritional value and extremely high in calories. While traditional Mexican meals already were quite high in calories and low in nutritional value, add to these recent popular food items like the chocolate filled Twinkie-like cake called “Gansito” and you have an extremely high-calorie diet.
    Second, recent wealth and more contact with the USA have increased opportunities for Mexicans to eat more Westernized foods, especially fast, junk and high-carb foods. Someone on NPR recently suggested that Mexicans’ diets have drastically changed over the last decade or two.
    Yet, all of this seems to be symptomatic, not getting at the real roots, for even if Mexicans’ diets have changed, they’re eating the same garbage that whites or now many North Asians are eating, yet they seem to suffer more.
    Looking at the racial demographics of Mexico, Mexico is roughly 30% Amerindian and 60% Mestizo (of whom the average admixture, at least for the lower classes, is 59% Amerindian, 34% Spaniard, and 6% black).
    I wonder whether something else might be going on.
    Using Dennis Mangan as a point of departure, the recent increased wealth in Mexico added to increased access to calories might be acting as supernormal stimuli. Mexicans also might have lower impulse-control, making it more difficult for them to withstand the temptation of nearly limitless access to calories.
    Another possibility, given the largely non-European ancestry of most Mexicans, is that Mexicans might not be well adapted to eat Western foods and are suffering accordingly. This would be an interesting study. Already there have been some studies showing that different races gain and lose weight differently.
    Regardless, this could have real consequences in the USA. A recent study found that people with diabetes usually make around $160,000 less over a 40-year period because of complications. Healthcare costs for people with diabetes are around 2.3x higher than for the non-diabetic. Current costs for diabetes in the USA are staggering. Add to this the rising Hispanic population in the USA of whom many will probably develop diabetes and the fact that many Mexicans will come to the USA to try to receive free treatment for diabetes, and there very well could be a healthcare crisis.
    Mexico’s Diabetes Epidemic | Occam's Razor


    From the ALIPAC archives:


    NV-ABOUT $2 MILLION A MONTH:emergency treatment at UMC

    Jan. 25, 2010


    ABOUT $2 MILLION A MONTH: More illegal immigrants getting emergency treatment at UMC

    'The cost to our taxpayers is astronomical,' commissioner says

    By PAUL HARASIM
    LAS VEGAS


    Jose Diaz Ruiz, a 76-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, wipes away tears Thursday as he receivesdialysis treatment at University Medical Center. More illegal immigrants are currently using the dialysis care than in August, when the Review-Journal first spotlighted the issue.
    Photo by K.M. Cannon.

    There are now four more of them regularly making their way to the emergency room at University Medical Center. And doctors say the illegal immigrants coming in for dialysis treatment at University Medical Center are sicker than they were before, making their care even more expensive.

    Six months after the Review-Journal revealed that 80 illegal immigrants with failing kidneys were running up about $2 million a month in bills for dialysis and other medical treatment at the only publicly supported hospital in Las Vegas, the situation for both patients and taxpayers only continues to worsen.

    And despite promises by elected officials to look into the issue, there are few signs it will get better.

    Federal laws that require hospitals to give emergency treatment to patients regardless of citizenship, combined with a lack of enforcement of immigration laws, make the problem insoluble right now, hospital and elected officials say.

    Unable to receive the dialysis treatments that all American citizens qualify for under Medicare, illegal immigrants who need such treatment across the nation have increasingly turned to emergency rooms.

    UMC officials, who project a budget deficit of more than $70 million for fiscal year 2010, say that encouraging illegal immigrants to return to their home countries for dialysis treatment hasn't worked.

    In August, Jon Summers, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the senator promised to find more funding to aid hospitals that help the indigent.

    None has been forthcoming to UMC and Summers said recently that Reid now believes only health care reform and immigration reform can address UMC's dilemma.

    And talk between local elected, hospital and foreign officials about addressing the issue hasn't materialized.

    With nothing being done to correct its situation with dialysis patients, UMC officials say taxpayers can expect to pay more to wait longer for their own emergency services. Nearly every day, about eight illegal immigrants show up at the UMC emergency room hoping to receive dialysis care, hospital officials say.

    "The cost to our taxpayers is astronomical," said Lawrence Weekly, the Clark County commissioner who also serves as chairman of the UMC board of hospital trustees. "Many people are justifiably outraged. If this kind of thing goes on, we might have to close our doors. But we're governed by federal law on this issue so some way the federal government has to help us out. We just can't stand by and let people die in the streets. We wouldn't want that on our conscience."

    An hour after Weekly made his observations, 76-year-old Jose Diaz Ruiz, who freely admits he is in the country illegally, sat inside UMC Thursday afternoon tethered to a dialysis machine. He sat in one of fourdialysis chairs designed for hospital patients who suddenly become ill, and not for those in need of chronic care.

    A weary Diaz Ruiz, who could barely keep his eyes open, wept as he talked through an interpreter about how his kidneys began to fail about a year ago. The longtime agricultural worker in Idaho said he was on his way back to Mexico when his deteriorating health wouldn't permit him to continue traveling.

    The vast majority of illegal immigrants receiving dialysis treatment through UMC's emergency room are from Mexico, hospital officials say.

    Though he had no insurance or money to pay for treatment for his medical problems through a doctor, he heard from friends that UMC's emergency room treated people regardless of financial circumstance.

    Often, he said, his condition worsens to the point where doctors must put him in the hospital for two or three days. He said he is grateful to the doctors and nurses at UMC for treating him so he can still spend time with his wife, two grown sons, and grandchildren.

    What would he do otherwise?

    "Die," he said.

    Under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which was enacted in 1986, any patient, regardless of citizenship, who shows up at an emergency department requesting an examination or treatment for a medical condition must be given an appropriate medical screening to determine whether there is an emergency. If there is, treatment must be provided.

    When the Review-Journal contacted Nevada's congressional delegation for this story, all said they recognized UMC's problem and that they must play the lead role in solving it. U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., put it this way: "The system is being abused by people using the emergency room for ongoing care, including dialysis services ... But this is about more than just access to care or the cost, it's an immigration issue that must be addressed. That is why we need comprehensive immigration reform that includes a humanitarian provision where we can repatriate patients to their country of origin with the guarantee that care will continue once they are home."

    But no member of the delegation has any idea when the immigration issue will be addressed. And although this is a topic that has received press attention across the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have not taken action.

    "ICE arrests are prioritized, based on specific leads, evidence and information, and are made at the appropriate time and place," ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley wrote from her California office.

    Asked if ICE would ever deem the abuse of emergency rooms by illegal immigrants as significant enough for her agency to make arrests, Haley read the statement she had e-mailed.

    Dr. Dale Carrison, head of UMC emergency services and a former FBI agent, said arresting illegal immigrants in need of medical treatment isn't seen as "politically viable," either by top Republican or Democratic officials.

    U.S. citizens with end stage renal disease automatically qualify for Medicare to cover dialysis costs and generally receive thrice weekly treatments through private dialysis clinics, the best way to manage the condition both medically and financially.

    But because illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare, they have figured out a way "to at least stay alive," Carrison said.

    "They realize we'll dialyze them if they're in bad enough shape," he said.

    Using emergency rooms this way is costly and dangerous, Carrison said, adding that a full screening with lab tests is done each time an individual comes to the emergency room.

    Patients on Medicare who go to private dialysis clinics, Carrison noted, don't need expensive tests repeated because their private doctors are carefully managing their conditions.

    Carrison said unless an individual with failing kidneys has a true emergency, meaning that person could die without treatment, dialysis isn't done.

    "That means when they come back a few days later, their bodies are in really bad shape," he said, adding that it often results in expensive hospital stays in intensive care.

    Carrison said private hospitals in Southern Nevada often send illegal immigrants to UMC for dialysis care.

    "They could be doing this far more than they are but they send them here," he said.

    Sunrise Health System officials said uncompensated care for dialysis for illegal immigrants' cost nearly $1.1 million for 2009. They denied steering illegal immigrants to UMC.

    Valley Health System officials said they have given dialysis treatments to illegal immigrants but won't reveal the number of treatments given.

    In August the Review-Journal interviewed dialysis patients who had to be hospitalized for up to two months because they waited too long to get the care.

    The cost of care over that period would be at least in the tens of thousands of dollars, with the final cost dependent on the life-saving measures that had to be taken.

    Brian Brannman, UMC's chief operating officer, has said the billed costs at UMC per visit for dialysis done on illegal immigrants can run into the thousands of dollars.

    With four new illegal immigrants now having their dialysis done at UMC's emergency room -- and monthly visits jumping from 216 in August to 243 currently -- the billed charges for the 84 illegal immigrants are now at about $2.4 million a month -- or $28 million a year.

    Actual costs -- in other words, UMC's costs for carrying out the dialysis care -- is about $700,000 a month, or about $8.4 million a year. That doesn't include, however, costs for extra care because the patient has become more ill. Brannman said that kind of analysis hasn't been done because hospital officials "haven't seen a need."

    Private hospital officials generally don't divulge actual costs of treatment, considering the information proprietary to their business model. But under the law, taxpayer-supported hospitals have to be more transparent.

    Brannman said UMC has never tried to help illegal immigrants who are dialysis patients relocate, noting there appears to be little interest. He did say the hospital, in conjunction with the Mexican consulate in Las Vegas, has helped to get Mexican nationals back to their homeland for care in other emergency situations, such as serious accidents.

    Brannman said UMC social workers repeatedly counsel illegal immigrants on the benefits of getting dialysistreatments in their homeland. He said the social workers are in constant contact with the staff of Mariano Lemus Gas, the consul for Mexico in Las Vegas.

    "The patients aren't interested in going back," Brannman said.

    Gas said in August that UMC leaders should meet with him personally to talk regularly about the problem.

    "I will do all I can to see if we can get people from our country to leave Las Vegas and return to Mexico for their health care," he said.

    But Gas said last week that no UMC leader has contacted him about Mexican nationals receiving dialysiscare at UMC.

    "I thought that problem was over because so many Mexican nationals are going back to Mexico because of the bad economy here," he said. "The hospital needs to talk about this on a high level if they want results."

    Gas has said his country provides some funding to send Mexican nationals back for some medical treatment.

    Brannman said he never met with Gas because he didn't think it would do any good, seeing as the hospital's social workers have unsuccessfully brought the message to illegal immigrants about returning home.

    County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said he was stunned when he learned top UMC officials have not met with Gas.

    "I asked them to make sure and do that when I saw the consul really wanted to help out," he said. "When you've got somebody who says he'll try to work out a problem with you, you've got to take him at his word."

    Sisolak also said he wants to explore subcontracting out the dialysis treatment for illegal immigrants. Although the cost for dialysis would essentially be the same, it may be the thing to do because patients would be seen on a regular basis and not become sick and require costly extra care, said hospital spokesman Rick Plummer.

    Brannman said it doesn't seem right, however, to enter into a legal contract that benefits illegal immigrants. It may seem, he said, that Las Vegas condones the behavior.

    But Sisolak said that the reality is that taxpayers are paying for health care for illegal immigrants.

    "Whatever saves taxpayer money, we should be for," he said.

    Brannman noted that the hospital receives no reimbursement from federal, state or local sources to provide the life-saving treatments for people who have entered the country illegally.

    Health care costs for illegal immigrants, a hot-button issue in the health care reform debate, vary widely because of the difficulty in obtaining accurate information on illegal immigrants. But all estimates run into the billions of dollars.

    Diaz Ruiz didn't want to talk about money as he received dialysis at UMC Thursday.

    "I only want to live," he wept.

    Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com


    http://www.lvrj.com/news/more-illegal-i ... 79442.html

    http://www.alipac.us/f12/nv-about-%2...nt-umc-176874/


  6. #6
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    I can't believe this is cheap to treat.

    Chagas Disease Becoming ‘New Aids’ Of The Americas


    Posted: May 29, 2012





    A disease like AIDS is scary enough by itself but what about a disease that can be just as deadly and is transmitted by insects, that disease is called Chagas and researchers are warning that its being quickly spread throughout the Americas, much in the same pattern as the early HIV/AIDS epidemic.

    Chagas is caused by parasites carried by blood-sucking insects and so far more than 8 million people in the Americas have been infected, including people in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia. It is also suspected that nearly 300,000 people in the United States, mostly immigrants, also carry the Chagas parasite.

    Once infected many patients never know they have Chagas because symptoms never form for 75% of patients, however the remaining 25% can develop fatally enlarged hearts or intestines which can ultimately lead to a painful and unexpected death.

    Aside from a simple animal bite Chagas can be transmitted in blood transfusions. According to researchers in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, like the AIDS virus, Chagas, also known as American trypanosomiasis, has a long incubation time, is hard if not impossible to cure and because it is a “disease of the poor” little money is spent on prevention or finding new treatments.

    It’s not as if Chagas is a new parasite, some researchers believe a bug that bit Charles Darwin gave him the disease which eventually led to his death, how’s that for survival of the fittest.

    While not quite the same as the AIDS virus which effects a larger number of people once inside their blood stream, Chagas is following a similarly scary pattern of infection and with its easier to transmit capabilities it could grow into an epidemic. Just take a look at the Central American bug Rhodnius Priloxius (shown above), that little insect is the main spreader of Chagas in Central America, proving that it doesn’t take much to spread the potentially deadly disease to one in four people it attacks.


    Read more at Chagas Disease Becoming ‘New Aids’ Of The Americas

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