Illegal Immigration Tuberculosis Crisis
By Frosty Wooldridge
The American Lung Association makes the claim it “wiped out” tuberculosis in the United States. That esteemed public health organization celebrated its 101th birthday in June.
However, last fall, at the Air Force Academy in Colorado a cadet tested positive for tuberculosis. He is not alone. In Michigan, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Colorado, Texas and dozens of states around the country, tuberculosis pops up daily at health clinics.
It’s a growing crisis suffered by parents of kids in classrooms, work places and food retail outlets. How and why is this disease that was ‘extinguished’ in the United States by the mid 1990’s back?
According to the Center for Disease Control, 14,871 new cases of active TB in the United States
“…occurred among people born abroad to non-U.S. born parents.” What do they have in common? They immigrated to America. Tuberculosis rears its ugly head with the advance of illegal immigrants massing across the United States.
How did they get past health officials at the borders? According to U.S. Border Patrol officials, over 4,000 illegal aliens make successful bids to cross America’s borders nightly in Arizona alone. Once inside the U.S., they move into the general population where they spread tuberculosis to American citizens. How many infected illegal aliens breached America’s borders in the past five years? According to a report by Dr. Kevin Patterson in the March issue of Mother Jones News, “Patient Predator,” an estimated 16,000 cases of MDR mycobacterium tuberculosis traveled over U.S. borders from Mexico in the past five years. This new ‘multi-drug resistant’ TB, at this point, is incurable. Worldwide, tuberculosis kills two million people annually.
Let’s connect the dots. On April 24, 2004, “Anatomy of an Outbreak,” the Santa Barbara Press-News carried a story on an illegal alien migrant who infected 56 people. He had to be arrested and confined to stop his spreading the disease. (more….)
