Small Towns Grapple with Diseased Immigrants
Sunday, December 9, 2007 1:28 PM
By: Tom Squitieri

The incidence of a Somali meat packer in Kansas who died from tuberculosis has officials calling for better health screening for the waves of unskilled immigrant workers flooding smaller American communities.

In the wake of the January death at a Tyson Foods plant in Emporia, Kan., public health officials found 160 cases of latent TB among the facility’s 500 Somali workers, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Local officials say the case represents only a small part of the growing problem of foreign-born, unassimilated communities with high rates of communicable diseases such as TB and HIV. Many say they need help from Washington, which has been silent on the issue for too long.

“We have not really gotten Congress to engage, which I would like to see occur,â€