Category: health issues

Minnesota Dept of Health needs $5 million to fight infectious diseases in immigrant population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hey, since many of the refugees and other immigrants now causing expensive infectious diseases to spread in the state are a result of Obama’s migration policy, maybe he could contribute his $3 million speaking fee to Minnesota as a partial payment to handle the crisis!
Here is the latest news generated by the recent Measles epidemic in Minnesota. As of Tuesday there were 50 diagnosed cases, most (45) are in the ‘Somali community.’
And, we are told that refugees don’t cost state and local taxpayers a dime!
From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart:

Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger sounded an alert on more frequent and costly threats to the public health, referencing measles, tuberculosis, and even the Zika virus and syphilis, according to a statement released by the MDH on Wednesday as reported by Hometownsource.com.

Remember this story! Gov. Mark Dayton: If you don’t like our Somali refugees, get out of Minnesota because they are here to stay! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/16/mn-governor-dayton-dont-like-immigrants-get-out-of-minnesota/

“In recent months, state and local public health officials have had to respond to a series of infectious disease outbreaks including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, hundreds of new cases of syphilis, and now, the largest measles outbreak the state has faced in nearly 30 years. These outbreaks come on the heels of extensive public health efforts in 2016 for the Zika virus response and in 2014-15 for Ebola preparedness,” he added…..

[….]

Minnesota is currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of measles in over twenty years. As of Tuesday, 50 cases of measles have been diagnosed in the state since the first case was reported on April 11, 45 of which have been diagnosed in Somali Minnesotans.

As Breitbart News reported previously, 90 percent of the 168 cases of active tuberculosis diagnosed in Minnesota in 2016 were foreign-born, much higher than the 67 percent of foreign-born cases that accounted for the 9,287 cases of active TB diagnosed in the United States in 2016.

Fourteen of those cases were from newly arrived refugees, eleven of whom were diagnosed with active TB in medical screenings overseas but were nonetheless allowed to resettle in Minnesota by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Continue reading here. The article is chock full of important information and links to follow.
See my ‘Health issues’ category, here, where I have archived 329 previous posts about health issues (including mental health issues) involving the refugee flow to America.
I wondered here if this Measles outbreak started with a newly arrived refugee from Somalia (or from elsewhere in East Africa since a large number of our Somalis come from UN camps in Kenya).
BTW, Slate had a hysterical story the other day claiming this Measles outbreak is Trump’s fault—not because he is admitting infected Somalis, but because he hangs with “Anti-vaxxer pals.”  Huh?

Can we call Minnesota Somali Measles outbreak an epidemic yet?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has been doing great work digging in to the Minnesota Somali measles outbreak which we first reported here on April 20th.
Health officials in Minnesota predict it is going to get worse before it gets better and you can bet it is costing the state taxpayers a bundle to track and treat.

Kris Ehresmann is director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health. Photo: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/10/16/ehresmann

Did you know that Measles was considered eradicated in the US in 2000?  I didn’t!
New cases are coming in with the new immigrants, most likely the refugee flow that Trump has not curtailed!
Here is Leahy yesterday:

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced on Friday afternoon that the number of confirmed cases of measles in the state has now increased to 44, three more than had been confirmed 24 hours ago, and ten more than had been confirmed 48 hours ago.

Of the 44 total cases, 41 are in Hennepin County, two are in Ramsey County, and one is in Crow Wing County.

Forty-two are “confirmed to be unvaccinated.” Two “had 2 doses of MMR.”

Forty-three of the cases are “in children ages 0 through 10 years,” while there is “1 case in an adult.”

MDH reports that “38 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan.”

[….]

“Once measles begins to spread in unvaccinated populations, it can be very difficult to stop,” Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease control for MDH, said in the statement.

“We would not be surprised if we saw additional cases in other parts of the state where there are clusters of unvaccinated people before this is over,” Ehresmann added.

[….]

“Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but it is still common in other parts of the world. Ehresmann noted that Europe is currently experiencing a significant measles outbreak. [Gee, I wonder why?—-ed]

Continue reading here.

So where have Trump’s Somalis been placed in Minnesota?


When trying to figure out the source of the initial case of Measles in the state, the first group to be analyzed should be refugees admitted to the US in recent months! 
As we have reported on many occasions, the US State Department and DHS do not weed-out sick refugees.
The Minnesota Department of  Health should find out which Somalis entered the state within the disease’s incubation period.  Of course they will have trouble finding out who is ‘just visiting’ since there is no travel ban in place and as far as I know there is no way to track those who get in as visitors.  And, never forget, Somali, so-called refugees, are traveling back and forth to Africa all the time (so much for fearing persecution!).
For your edification, here (below) is where 193 new Somali refugees were placed in Minnesota since President Trump was inaugurated.
Overall (as of today, May 6th) Trump has welcomed 1,394 Somalis since inauguration day. Minnesota is the number one state, but as we reported here, some placed in other states pack up quickly to get to Minnesota as ‘secondary migrants’ to join their own kind of people and avail themselves of the more generous welfare that they get in MN.
(I am having trouble with screen shots these days, so forgive the lousy shots below).
From Wrapsnet:


For new readers, we have 328 previous posts in our ‘Health Issues’ category, click here to learn more about the many diseases, parasites, and mental health issues involving the refugee flow to America. You will see that TB is an especially big problem in the refugee flow.

Measles outbreak in Minnesota Somali community; Muslim parents refuse to vaccinate children

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This article at Mic Daily makes it sound like it is all about a fear that vaccines cause autism in vaccinated children.  However not mentioned is the Islamic prohibition on the use of vaccines.
Here is the story at Mic Network Inc.  Golly gee, why can’t we get our message heard, say health officials.

Minneapolis Doctor Madlon-Kay: We aren’t making any headway in convincing them that vaccines are safe.

Minnesota’s Hennepin County is in the midst of the state’s largest measles outbreak since 2011. Nine cases have been reported since last week, and officials expect the number to rise.

So far, all of the cases are among unvaccinated children. They have something else in common too: The affected children are all part of Minneapolis and St. Paul’s Somali-American community. According to a health department official, Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community has been a particular target of the anti-vaccination movement, colloquially known as “anti-vaxxers.”

“They’re very much engaged with and targeting this community,” Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease division director at the Minnesota Health Department, said in a phone call Wednesday.

According to Ehresmann, anti-vaccine groups began to target the Somali community around 2008, amid concerns about autism among Somali-American children. Anti-vaccine groups started reaching out to the Somali community and showing up at community health meetings, she said, disseminating misinformation linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR.

Since then, the population has seen a “steady decline in MMR vaccine rates.”

[….]

She [Dr. Diane Madlon-Kay, a practicing physician who has studied the low vaccine rates among Minnesota’s Somali community] and other doctors who serve that population have had little luck dispelling myths about autism and vaccines that travel quickly though the community via word-of-mouth, she said.

“We don’t seem to be making any headway with that at all,” Madlon-Kay said.

Despite countless studies indicating there’s no connection between vaccines and autism, Madlon-Kay doesn’t have much hope that science will change the minds of scared parents within the Somali community anytime soon.

Continue reading here.

What about Islam?

Not a word in the story about Islam and vaccines which is likely the bigger reason why health officials can’t educate the Somalis.  In only a few minutes search, here is one of many articles about “religious” prohibitions in Islam.

Islam and Medical Science Must Oppose Vaccination

The case against vaccination is first an Islamic one, based on Islamic ethos regarding the perfection of the natural human body’s immune defence system, empowered by great and prophetic guidance to avoid most infections. The case against vaccination is also a medical and health-related one. Incredible evidence, unbeknownst to most, has emerged in the West regarding the many serious health hazards that affect those who have been vaccinated.

For inquisitive minds, we have hundreds of articles about refugees and health issues (including mental health issues) in our ‘Health Issues’ category, here.  Measles is not the worst illness you will find there.

Brazil: JBS and another BIG MEAT company raided in tainted meat scandal

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So how does this affect you in America? It doesn’t directly, but it gives me another opportunity to educate new readers!
The story, which I first heard on my regular early morning scan of CNN, is about JBS, the Brazilian meat giant, that is changing American small cities because of it voracious desire for refugee labor!
Meatpacking companies get the cheap labor.  American towns get the cultural upheaval.

I took this photo of JBS headquarters in Greeley this past summer on my 6,000 mile tour of refugee-overloaded towns. JBS is a Brazilian owned company benefiting from cheap refugee labor. Our tax dollars (welfare) subsidize those wages, so our meat is not cheap!

For new readers I have contended for years that the US Refugee Admissions Program is more about supplying large global corporations with cheap/captive labor than it is about ‘humanitarianism.’ 
Wages are low and we (taxpayers) subsidize the workers’ families through welfare. What a business model!
JBS (BIG MEAT) and other companies it owns (BIG CHICKEN) are changing towns like Greeley, Colorado where a large influx of Somalis have moved to the area to work for the global corporation, or have been directly resettled there by federal refugee resettlement contractors.
Be sure to see this story by Bloomberg about BIG MEAT and the Trump refugee slowdown.
Although this happened in Brazil, it places, once again, front and center the question of our food safety!
From the New York Times (emphasis is mine):

Brazil’s Largest Food Companies Raided in Tainted Meat Scandal

RIO DE JANEIRO — Federal agents raided the operations of Brazil’s largest food companies on Friday over accusations that their employees oversaw a scheme that included bribing inspectors to allow rotten meals to be served in public schools and salmonella-contaminated meat to be exported to Europe.

The investigation by Brazil’s Federal Police, an agency similar to the F.B.I., deals yet another blow to the country’s business establishment, which is struggling to recover from colossal graft scandals around Petrobras, the national oil company, and Odebrecht, a huge construction company.

In the newest corporate scandal, investigators said that employees at two food-processing giants, JBS and BRF, paid federal inspectors to ignore the adulteration or expiration of processed foods.

Inspectors also falsified sanitary permits, and bribes were channeled to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party of President Michel Temer, according to the authorities.

Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendências, a consultancy in São Paulo, called the meatpacking inquiry “one more element that will add to the picture of political instability.” Brazil’s political establishment was already reeling from an array of other graft cases.

The meatpacking investigation also casts doubt on Brazil’s agribusiness industry, a relatively resilient pillar of the nation’s weak economy. JBS is one of the world’s largest meat producers, with the United States chicken processor Pilgrim’s Pride among its foreign subsidiaries. BRF is a major exporter of meat to the Middle East and Asia.

Continue reading here.
See my tag ‘meatpackers’ for many more stories on the industry that once paid a decent salary and employed Americans.
You should know that then Senator Jeff Sessions (now Trump AG) called out meatpacking lobbyists behind the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty legislation in 2013, here.
Endnote: If you live in a state with a lot of meatpackers/refugee labor, be sure to investigate how much your elected officials are getting in campaign donations from the meat/poultry companies.

Magic March 3rd was yesterday, refugee flow should now be shutting down

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I checked the numbers at Wrapsnet this morning and see that since I reported last on Wednesday (March 1) we had admitted 296 additional refugees.
 

congolese-refugees
The UN asked the US to help clear out their camps for the DR Congolese and as of today we admitted 37,913 in just over 3 years. 50 arrived since Wednesday.

 
Readers will recall that the US State Department notified its refugee resettlement contractors to expect the flow to stop on about March 3rd.  Clearly it hasn’t stopped yet.
Of the 296 admitted since Wednesday, 105 were from four of the seven countries identified in the so-called “travel ban.”
None came in the last few days from Libya, Syria or Yemen (but readers should know that in the last few years only tiny numbers, if any, came from Libya or Yemen).  But, it was a surprise to see that Syria was down to zero in the last couple of days.

The big winner in the gang of seven countries was Somalia which sent us a whopping 77 refugees since Wednesday.

Other big winners, among the usual sending countries, were Burma (97, 12 of those were Muslims) and 50 came from the DR Congo. 

DR Congo! The UN said take 50,000 and we said yes, master!

Long time readers will remember that we promised the United Nations, here in 2013, to admit 50,000 from the DR Congo over 5 years. Only a small number of those are Muslims, but they represent some very traumatized women (with lots of children) who will require expensive mental health treatment, here. Their contribution to the US economy will surely be a negative one as we are clearly importing extreme poverty in this case.

I see that as of this morning we have admitted 37,913 from DR Congo since FY2013!

This is a prime example of a key reform we expect the Trump Administration to make. If we are going to admit some refugees….

We should decide which ‘refugees’ we take, not simply jump when the United Nations tells us to!

Did your state get Congolese?  Here is a map from Wrapsnet showing where the DR Congolese were distributed since FY13:
 
screenshot-389

screenshot-390
If you can’t read Florida, it is 1,329. Alaska is 72 and Hawaii 0. A reminder: Wyoming is the only state that never started a refugee resettlement program.

 
The top three receiving states are Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina.

Tell President Trump to stop jumping when the UN tells us to help them clean out their refugee camps!

Endnote:  I suspect the delay in the new travel ban announcement is that the State Department is waiting to clear the last refugees through airports world wide.
This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’
My DR Congo archive is here.