Thread: U.S. immigrants pose TB threat From coast to coast

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Sunday, October 22, 2006

INVASION USA
U.S. immigrants
pose TB threat
From coast to coast, more cases found
raising fears of new drug-resistant strain

Posted: October 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – The worst forms of a drug-resistant killer tuberculosis bug, rapidly spreading throughout the world, have been gaining ground in the United States along with record legal and illegal immigration levels, alarming public-health officials over a disease once thought vanquished.
Although the number of confirmed drug-resistant TB cases in the U.S. is relatively small – still measured in the dozens – health officials say visitors from other countries are bringing in the deadliest mutations.
The only visitors to the U.S. who are screened for tuberculosis and other medical conditions are immigrants who enter the country legally. There is no easy way to screen millions of tourists and illegal migrant workers.
Worldwide, TB kills 2 million people a year, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia, but recently the European Union issued a warning that the threat there is considerable.
The drug-resistant TB recently killed more than 50 people in South Africa. It has been found in limited numbers in the U.S. – 74 reported cases since 1993. The strain is nearly impossible to cure because it is immune to the best first- and second-line TB drugs. It is as easily transmitted through the air as the old TB.
There is another form of TB concerning U.S. health officials. It is called "multi-drug resistant." It responds to more treatments but can cost up to $250,000 and take two years to cure. This is the strain increasingly common throughout the world – rising more than 50 percent from about 273,000 in 2000 to 425,000 in 2004, according to a study published in August in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
In the U.S., 128 people were found to have it in 2004, a 13 percent increase from the previous year.
(Story continues below)
The states with the highest numbers of multi-drug resistant cases in the last decade were New York, California, Texas and Florida, according to the CDC – states with the highest populations of new immigrants.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs. TB is more common in urban areas. It is highly contagious and caused by bacteria. Many people infected with TB have no symptoms because it is dormant. Once it becomes active it may cause permanent damage to the lungs and other organs. TB is spread through the air by inhalation.
Over the last 30 days, TB has been discovered in dozens of states:
Last month, six employees who work inside Detroit's AT&T building tested positive. Investigations into the outbreak are ongoing.
In Oklahoma City, hundreds of patients and hospital workers may have been exposed to tuberculosis by a health-care worker, and at least 10 people caught it. A letter sent to 1,650 patients and 350 workers at Integris Southwest Medical Center in Oklahoma City warned of their potential exposure and urged them to get skin tests to determine whether they were infected.
In Alabama, 22 LeFlore Preparatory Academy students and faculty members tested positive for tuberculosis infection and are undergoing further examination to determine if they have an active case of the disease, Mobile County Health Department officials said last Monday. The people who tested positive were among 909 who elected to be screened after a student was diagnosed with the disease.
In Florida, public health and school officials said they had confirmed a case of tuberculosis at a Manatee County middle school. Seven months ago, it was announced that a school district employee whose job required visits to several campuses had active TB.
In Cincinnati, a student and teacher visiting a high school became infected.
In Connecticut, health officials are trying to figure out whether a University of Hartford student has tuberculosis.
In South Texas, a second group of students and staff at McAllen's Zavala Elementary School were forced to undergo skin tests today after a student was discovered carrying the contagious airborne disease.
In Pennsylvania, hundreds of Upper Moreland High School students had to be tested after the Montgomery County Health Department notified parents in the district that a male student had become infected over the summer.
In Mississippi, more than 10 percent of the 102 Meridian firefighters have tested positive for the tuberculosis antibody, but state health officials say there is little cause for concern.
In South Georgia, Mitchell County health officials are investigating a case of tuberculosis at a major chicken processing plant.
In California, more than 6,000 inmates at California State Prison-Solano are being tested for tuberculosis after two inmates were discovered with the disease.
In Wisconsin, nearly 100 students and staff may have come into contact with a West Allis day care employee infected with tuberculosis, health officials report. The employee, who had active TB, is being treated and is no longer at the center.
Canada has also been hit with the disease – especially the Indian populations, but also increasingly among new immigrants from nations where the disease is endemic.
"With the shrinking of the global community with the transient nature of the world's population, TB has the potential to come to Canada time and time and time again," says Bob Dickson, a Calgary medical doctor and partner with RESULTS Canada, an NGO dedicated to fighting poverty and disease in the third world.
The World Health Organization reports that one-third of the globe's population is infected with the airborne bacteria that causes the disease.
The general symptoms of the disease include feelings of sickness or weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats. The symptoms of TB disease of the lungs also include coughing, chest pain and coughing up blood. Symptoms of TB disease in other parts of the body depend on the area affected.
It is generally spread when someone with the infection coughs, sneezes or talks to another person, but prolonged contact is usually needed. People most at risk of developing tuberculosis include children and older people, smokers, those living in overcrowded conditions, those who have a poor diet, the homeless and those who have a weakened immune system.
Antibiotics are used to treat the infection, but they must be taken for at least six months to be effective.
The occurrence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis is also on the increase in Eastern Europe.
Health officials in Finland are particularly concerned because the multi-drug resistant form of tuberculosis has already found its way to Estonia and St. Petersburg.
About 450,000 people get infected with tuberculosis each year in the Europe region, including Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to Pierpaolo de Colombani, a tuberculosis control medical officer for the World Health Organization.
Nearly 70,000 of these contract strains of the easily-spread respiratory ailment that resist the two main tuberculosis drugs, raising the likelihood that the disease could lead to epidemics in Western Europe on the scale of that seen in the 1940s.
"The drug resistance that we are seeing now is without doubt the most alarming tuberculosis situation on the continent since World War Two," said Markku Niskala, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Our message to EU leaders is: wake up, do not delay, do not let this problem get further out of hand," Niskala said.

And this one from 2005 on Leprosy:

Are illegals making
U.S. a leper colony?
'This is a real phenomenon. It's a public health threat. New York is endemic now, and nobody's noticed'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 22, 2005
5:11 p.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com



Leprosy is curable with proper treatment (photo: Columbia News Service)

Leprosy, the contagious skin disease evoking thoughts of biblical and medieval times, is now making its mark in the United States, and many believe the influx of illegal aliens is a main factor.

"Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country – tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example – and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to illegals," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., told the Business Journal of Phoenix. "For example, in 40 years, only 900 persons were afflicted by leprosy in the U.S.; in the past three years, more than 7,000 cases have been presented."

"This emerging crisis exposes the upside-down thinking of federal immigration policy," he continued. "While legal immigrants must undergo health screening prior to entering the U.S., illegal immigrants far more likely to be carrying contagious diseases are crawling under that safeguard and going undetected until they infect extraordinary numbers of American residents."


The number of cases of leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease, among immigrants to the U.S. has more than doubled since 2000, according to a news report from Columbia University.

While the overall figure is small compared to other countries, some researchers fear the trend could lead to the disease spreading to the U.S.-born population.

"It's creeping into the U.S.," Dr. William Levis, head of the New York Hansen's Disease Clinic, told Columbia News Service. "This is a real phenomenon. It's a public health threat. New York is endemic now, and nobody's noticed."

Levis thinks America could be on the verge of an epidemic.

"We just don't know when these epidemics are going to occur," he said. "But we're on the cusp of it here, because we're starting to see endemic cases that we didn't see 25 years ago."

According to Steve Pfeifer, head of statistics and epidemiology at the National Hansen's Disease Program, only about two dozen new cases are found each year in U.S.-born patients, with that number remaining stable for decades.

But Pfeifer suggests many aliens are coming to the U.S. specifically to get treated for their skin condition, due to the short time between many immigrants' entry to the U.S. and their diagnosis with leprosy.

"They're coming to be treated because they get treatment free and probably get better treatment here," he told Columbia. "Somebody down there diagnoses them and says, 'Hey, you've got leprosy, and your best course of action is probably high-tailing to the U.S.'"

The fear is that since the disease remains contagious until treatment is commenced, a surge of diagnosed-but-untreated patients could mean a spread of leprosy into the population of those born in America.

Pfeifer said he had not issued an official report on the dangerous trend, fearing that anti-immigration groups would become vocal against centers providing free health care for illegals.

"A lot of our cases are imported," said Dr. Terry Williams, who treats leprosy victims in Houston. "We see patients from everywhere – Africa, the Philippines, China, South America."

Williams confirms that some of his patients came to the U.S. specifically for treatment, telling Columbia, "Certainly we do see some of that. We've had even a couple of patients from Cuba who were put on a boat by Castro just to get them out of the country – they made their way here through Mexico and Central America basically just to get treated. ... We treat them; our job isn't to be immigration police."

But not all experts have such a gloomy outlook.

Dr. Denis Daumerie, head of the World Health Organization's leprosy-elimination program, thinks claims of immigrants causing a spike in U.S. leprosy are overstated.

"There is no risk of an epidemic of leprosy," he told Columbia. "There's absolutely no risk that the few immigrants who are affected by the disease, if they are diagnosed and treated, will spread the disease in the U.S."

I avoid being around illegals as much as possible. I am very careful where I eat. There is one place that I often eat lunch at as I see who is preparing my food and that they are wearing gloves.
I wash my hands more often that I used to. I also try to keep my distance from people who cough no matter who they are as you don't know who they were in contact with. This is what I learned in Canada as they had a big problem with TB and other diseases brought over from Asia and Africa.
It is sad that we alomst have to live in isolation and worry about our produce.

The article on the TB investigation was in the Gazzette - but was not put on line. According to the paper a teacher was infected and all of these investigations involve grade school and middle school children and their families. Tb is becoming a problem in many communities

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:RbhR ... 2&ie=UTF-8

EL PASO COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT 2006 ANNUAL REPORTPAGE
4“Protecting and Promoting Public Health and Environmental Quality in the Community through People, Prevention & Partnerships

”During the production of this annual report, El Paso County gained distinction as the largest populated county in Colorado, with over 575,000 people. Amidst consistent growth, Colorado Springs annually ranks among the healthiestcities in the nation—proving that healthy lifestyles and a healthy environment lead to a healthier community. Follow-ing, is a sampling of services initiated by EPCDHE in 2005 in the spirit of promoting public health throughout El PasoCounty:

•Conducted inspections of over 2,400 food-service establishments, including more than 300 plan reviews for newrestaurants.

•Monitored for nearly 70 reportable communicable diseases ranging from animal bites to influenza; fielded nearly1,100 communicable disease case reports—including 10 new active Tuberculosis cases—requiring over 400 case investigations.

•Trained over 2,700 students, faculty and parents—representing 17 schools and 8 districts—on suicide risk and prevention measures.

•Partnered with the State Health Department to conduct a randomized, control intervention study to increasebooster seat use among 4-8 year-olds representing 40 Colorado Springs child care centers.

•Immunized 3,679 children, 877 adults and 1,900 international travelers to safeguard the community againstpossible infectious diseases.
•Educated nearly 1,100 pregnant women regarding appropriate weight gain to promote healthy newborns.

•Conducted over 45,000 lab tests—ranging from food-borne illnesses to West Nile Virus—and performed over 6,800 water tests in the interest of maintaining a healthy community.

•Facilitated over 1,800 water inspections and more than 600 air quality inspections to help ensure a safe environ-ment. In July 2005, Environmental Health Services identified and educated the public concerning the county’sfirst break in EPA national standards for ozone quality over a 15-year history.

•Managed six countywide bubonic plague outbreaks—primarily among the prairie dog population—and conductedover 50 plague-related tests.

•Issued some more than 746 residential and commercial septic permits in keeping pace with El Paso County’sbooming population.

•Dispersed nearly 3,000 tobacco quit kits to county residents interested in smoking cessation.

El Paso County Department of Health & Environment301 S. Union Blvd. Colorado Springs, CO 80910Phone: (719) 578-3199 Fax: (719) 575-8644Website: www.elpasocountyhealth.orgYour Health Department and the SouthernColorado Clean Hands Coalition Remind You...

It is a problem in South Florida as well. There have been articles in the paper about people who may have been in contact with the person in a certain location to go see your doctor to be tested. It is also a problem in the jails. In fact there have been both legals and illegals who have showed up in court wearing masks to avoid spreading the disease.
What scares me is that the politicians and rich don't care because they have very little if any contact with them and therefore it is not an issue to them.

Mmmmm.....alll this disease talk makes me want to go out and eat where illegals are cooking!!!

But seriously. The guy next door to us and his wife sleep in the garage (it is not a converted garage) and we have ours converted to a room and we use it as a bedroom. So...for a long time we would hear this guy coughing up a storm, all night long, and especially during the early morning hours. He does not smoke, so that is not the issue.

It seems to have "subsided" for now, but my brother, who was a sheriffs deputy for a while, said that they were taught about TB and other communicable diseases, that TB's symptons will come and go, making the person infected think they have recovered, when they have not.

So not only is this enough to freak me out (although I do not think TB can be spread through the walls!), this man handles his one year old granddaughter all the time.

We have seen many illegals in our area who in the winter seem to have terible coughs, especially their kids. Although people get colds and flu's, these coughs we hear are different, they are heavy, and have that "croupy" sound. Makes me keep my distance.

If they cough like that and don't smoke and are very thin, I would be freaking out too. Make an annoymous call to the health unit or family and child services and make sure that they don't say anything to implicate it is you. I would as if you catch the disease you need to take medication for a whole year and some strains are actually antibiotic resistant. Also people who test postive in a TB test which shows that you were exposed to it and not necessarily infected, must go on antibiotics.

I went on the mayo clinic website and looked up TB under one part it talked about what causes it to be spread. It mentions overcrowded living conditions, immigrants and illegals who don't finish treatment when they come here and become antibiotic resistant.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/tuberc ... DSECTION=3

Well this guy next door isn't thin, he's pretty "healthy" looking.

I personally have no health insurance myself, so I would be hard pressed for how to cover those cost's.

Most of the countries country clinics will pretty much pay 100% of those cost's for illegal's one of my friends said (she found out from her family doctor in some kind of discussion), however with American citizens, they will ask you to pay according to their sliding scale. I am unsure how the doctor knew this, and also unsure how any county medical clinic could get away with not giving someone ,who was low income, required medication to cure an often fatal and highly communicable disease?

The illegal labor debate is real. Real problems require clear thinking. Scare-mongering, hysteria and obvious propaganda are not effective tools in this Republic as most people will be put-off by this obvious attempt. Do you disagree with me? Then consider the fact that this government is doing very little against illegal immigration. The tactics are NOT working in the same way the have not worked in the case of illegal drugs. Such ranting as in this thread will fall dead on arrival and will only cloud the issue. That is the problem, our own side is busy muddying the issue.

First, let's get our facts straight if we have any hope of fixing the real problem. The real problem is immigration from Mexico. There are a few illegal immigrants from other countries, but the vast majority constitutes illegal labor from ONE geographical region: Mexico and Central America. Go look up and see how bad TB is from this region.

Second, the people immigrating illegally from these regions are not the well-to-do middle and upper classes, who tend to be of European-descent. They are predominantly if not exclusively of Amerindian descent. This has been born out genetically. These people are a culturally distinct people. The problem is from a single source! Why muddy the facts?

Third, these people are actually HEALTHIER than our own demographic longevity models predict for their level of poverty. Much of this is attributed to their hard-work, lean-meat, maize and beans diet. Here is a link to one recent report: http://www.globalhealth.harvard.edu/

Fourth, scratching around this issue will only get academics to bring up the point that European immigrants wiped out 90% of indigenous people of this continent is the years from 1520-1620 by introducing Eurasian-based diseases. Here is the minimum list of such European-sparked epidemics: smallpox (1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (155, diphtheria (1614) and measles (161. The number of Amerindians killed is estimated at 10 million to 110 million depending on the demographic model used.

This type of propaganda makes our side look bad, amateurish and is hurtful to the cause. Mexican hotel maids do not pass on bed bugs while they are making these beds. It's the ritzy hotel patrons who put their heads on these pillows that are to blame.

We need to stop d*cking around!

Endorse the two point platform everywhere and at all levels:
1) Raise minimum wages, and
2) Enforce labor laws.

There is no shame in a simple platform. Stop conflating the issues. This is not a medical problem; it is a labor laws enforcement issue PERIOD!!!!