Thread: Clinton, GAO blast DHS for letting TB-infected men slip thru

I find this extremely ironic since Hillary pandered endlessly to the OBL crowd. And add to that her husband signed NAFTA into law which got us into this mess in the first place. And how about the recent loosening of restrictions on HIV infected immigrants?

Clinton, GAO blast Homeland Security for letting TB-infected men slip through border
By GEORGE EARL, Enterprise Staff Writer
POSTED: November 15, 2008

Email: "Clinton, GAO blast Homeland Security for letting TB-infected men slip through border"


SARANAC LAKE - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's process for screening people with dangerous diseases at the border is deficient, according to a report issued Wednesday, requested by the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

The report, called "Public Health and Border Security," was done by the General Accounting Office, the investigating arm of Congress. The report focused on two cases, including that of Andrew Speaker, an American citizen who crossed the Canadian border in Champlain undetected in May 2007, even when health officials knew he had a rare drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, and Amado Amaya, a TB-infected Mexican national who flew across the border and back undetected 21 times in April and May of 2007 despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

"The TB incidents documented in this report expose glaring vulnerabilities in our border security and ability to protect the public's health," Clinton said in a press release. "This report confirms what we have long suspected: There is a dangerous lack of communication and coordination between federal agencies and with state and local governments."

Tuberculosis is highly contagious, and although it can be effectively treated, it still poses a threat to public health, according to Brian Turner, spokesman for the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, which has been researching the disease since the 1850s and sprang from the TB-curing industry on which Saranac Lake was founded in the 1890s.

"We can treat the disease," Turner said, "but it can morph into drug-resistant strains, so it is still quite a concern. We have not annihilated TB; we have a handle on it. That's why people in the U.S. aren't too worried about it."

He said tuberculosis is a major problem in underdeveloped places, like Africa, but not in the U.S.

"The disease is defined by living conditions and health. (In the U.S.) we're healthy, so in general, our bodies are able to fight it. A lot of people have it, and it never rears its ugly head - our body keeps in in check."

Contact George Earl at 891-2600 ext. 25 or gearl@

adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.co ... l?nav=5008

"The TB incidents documented in this report expose glaring vulnerabilities in our border security and ability to protect the public's health," Clinton said in a press release. "This report confirms what we have long suspected: There is a dangerous lack of communication and coordination between federal agencies and with state and local governments."

What about our southern border in which she and her colleagues refuse to secure. You think anyone with TB ( or God know what else) is crossing that border and infecting Americans?

She's worried about the exception when the rule is killing us!