DISEASE and Immigration : Are We Killing Ourselves ????????

      It's been reported by highly credible health and medical authorities that immigration (especially illegal immigration) has been causing the rates of harmful diseases to rise in the United States.  In some areas, where illegal immigration is higher, the introduction of diseases which are unusual to us here in the USA are alarmingly high.

   In testimony on behalf of the American Medical Association to the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Laurence Nicker, director of the El Paso health district said : "Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also states that leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ... People have come to the border for economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public water systems, environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being of people on both sides of the border."

   It was reported by the Houston Chronicle that "The pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging from seizures to death. ... The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north to find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sickness-cystercicosis its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death".

    These incidents haven't been only limited to the Mexican border areas.  The Fairfax Journal (Virginia) reported "Typhoid struck Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1992 when an immigrant from the Third World (who had been working in food service in the United States for almost two years) transmitted the bacteria through food at the McDonald's where she worked. River Blindness (Onchocerciasis), malaria, and guinea worm have all been brought to Northern Virginia by immigration.

In articles by the Washington Post and LA Times it was reported "Contrary to common belief, tuberculosis (TB) has not been wiped out in the United States, mostly due to illegal migration. In 1995, there was an outbreak of TB in an Alexandria high school, when 36 high-school students caught the disease from a foreign student. The four greatest immigrant magnet states have over half the TB cases in the U.S.

Examples of other diseases not common in the United States but quite common in various 3rd world areas are:

Bubonic Plague - remains endemic in many countries in Africa, eastern Europe, the Americas and Asia including 10-20 in the USA (caused by immigrants ?)

Typhus - occurs in parts of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.

Cholera - in the 1960's a new strain (EL Tor) spread through many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.

Puerperal Fever - Asia and Africa.

African Trypanosomiasis (Sleeping Sickness) - Africa.

Chagas' Disease - Mexico, South & Central America

Lymphatic Filariasis (Elphantiasis) - Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Pacific islands.

Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia) - China, Africa, Lain America.

Hookworm - sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, China, and Latin America.

Measles - Africa.

Yellow Fever - Africa, South and Central America, some Caribbean islands.

Dengue Fever - Southeast Asia, Pacific region (incl. Queensland, Australia), Caribbean, South America, Africa, and parts of the Middle East.

Polio - India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Ebola - Africa.

                  For more information see "Illegal Immigration and Public Health (fairus.org).