While we fixate on a terrorism threat coming from not thoroughly vetted refugees, could there be a more likely security and safety risk with the myriad diseases permitted entry into the US in the refugee population (and in the stream of Unaccompanied Alien Children)?
In fact, when I first began writing RRW, it was a shock to learn that the Allen County (Indiana) health department was being overwhelmed by the number of TB cases among the newly resettled Burmese refugees. Treating them was breaking the health department’s budget.
New “welcoming” communities (Reno***, Rutland, Missoula, Ithaca?) have you considered the cost and the health risks to your citizens?
Be sure to see the Minneapolis Star Tribune of only a week ago where we learn that after 20 years of decline, the US TB rate is moving upward. Reporters begin their story with a Spanish teacher in Vermont who learns she has TB!
So, what has changed in 20 years? Could it be the massive flow of migrants from TB hotspots around the world into America?
Reporter Michael Patrick Leahy has been reporting at Breitbart about Tuberculosis over the last week. Here is his story from yesterday. And, don’t miss the earlier one about the high levels of latent TB in the Somali population in Minnesota, here.
Leahy yesterday:
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, is criticizing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for allowing refugees to enter the United States without screening and treatment for latent tuberculosis.
Seven of the agency’s own public health experts said such screening and treatment “would potentially save millions of dollars and contribute to United States TB elimination goals” in a research article published in December.
“Admitting people who might cause an epidemic makes no sense whatsoever from a public health standpoint,” Orient tells Breitbart News.
“It suggests that those who favor it do not care about the cost in suffering, death, and expense to Americans,” Orient says, adding she agrees with the public health experts currently or formerly employed at the CDC who concluded that screening of refugees for latent tuberculosis and successful treatment of those who test positive for the disease prior to their entry into the country is the proper public health policy for the United States.
But the political leadership at CDC does not appear to be following the screening and treatment recommendations of the study done by its own experts, and has not yet responded to inquiries from Breitbart News whether it plans to change course.
“If for humanitarian reasons we wish to help people fleeing persecution, there is still no need to release them into the general population of susceptible individuals. Officials who place politics above the health of Americans need to be held accountable and removed from positions of authority,” Orient says.
Be sure to watch the video linked in this next paragraph and consider the FACT that you, the US taxpayers, are paying for this expensive treatment for Drug Resistant TB, so that these people can move to your towns!
Even those refugees treated for active Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, as shown in this video of Burmese refugees who have the disease being treated in a refugee camp in Thailand, are allowed to enter the United States despite recent studies that indicate that between 4 percent and 5 percent of those deemed successfully treated experience a recurrence of tuberculosis within 2 years.
There is much more, continue reading here.
See our extensive ‘health issues’ category with 292 previous posts by clicking here.
*** In that Abstract we discussed a week ago for the new resettlement site in Reno, the Abstract indicates that the wait time for health screening of refugees arriving there will be 15-30 days. I doubt that refugees are quarantined during the wait time!