Tag: refugee health

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.

Minnesota officials questioned about why they withheld information about active TB case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again!  Another case of Tuberculosis (ACTIVE TB) has turned up in Minnesota where officials are being questioned about why they waited so long to notify those who might have been exposed to the communicable disease.
From Michael Leahy, Breitbart’s expert on diseases in the immigrant/refugee population:

Minnesota Health Officials Conceal Case of Active TB in High School for Six Weeks

A student or staff member at St. Louis Park High School in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, was diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in late November, but Hennepin County Department of Health officials and St. Louis Park Public Schools officials concealed that information from the public until the second week of January, six weeks later.

rob-metz
Why did school superintendent Metz wait so long to release this vital information to students’ families? Learn more about Metz here: http://www.startribune.com/rob-metz-to-step-into-superintendent-s-role-in-st-louis-park-on-july-1/208358891/

“Some parents received letters in the mail Thursday saying their teenagers may have been exposed to an infectious disease,” WCCO reported.

“In late November, the school district was notified by the Hennepin County Department of Health that an individual at the high school had been diagnosed with active (TB),” St. Louis Park Public Schools Superintendent Rob Metz wrote in a letter sent to parents of students dated January 11.

The letter was sent in three languages: English, Spanish, and Somali.

Read it all.  Some fishy timing on all of this! Metz has moved on to bigger and better things!
I wondered if there is any criminal liability involved if a student or teacher should contract TB during the period when officials were keeping the revelation secret. If there isn’t, this is something Congress could fix pretty easily!
See all of Leahy’s reports on Tuberculosis here.
And see our extensive ‘health issues’ category here.

Time to homeschool your kids!

Congress must tighten Tuberculosis testing and reporting requirements for refugee flow

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy writing at Breitbart published one more report in his series that extensively analyzes the Tuberculosis problem in the US refugee population. Here we learn that in Illinois, 8 cases of ACTIVE TB were discovered in newly resettled refugees.

tb-symptoms-treatment
If you volunteer with a resettlement agency and spot any of these symptoms report it immediately and protect yourself.

This report demonstrates one of my greatest concerns and that is: how long are refugees with active TB wandering around your towns and cities, going to school,  shopping at Walmart, and otherwise interacting with the community before anyone even tests them?
Here is Leahy:

The Illinois Department of Public Health has confirmed that eight refugees were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) “during the initial health screening or within 90 days of the refugee arrival” in the four years between 2012 and 2015. [Within 90 days! So they are walking around with active TB for months!—ed]

This data was not included in the Reported Tuberculosis in the United States documents published annually by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) between 2012 and 2015. Those reports confirmed 1,565 cases of active TB diagnosed among refugees in the 46 states that reported immigration status upon first arrival among foreign-born residents of the United States diagnosed with active TB.

Illinois is one of four states that do not share this data with the CDC. Arizona, Virginia, and Washington are the other three states.

[….]

“CDC encourages states/jurisdictions to provide as complete information as possible, but there is no requirement that they provide immigration status as part of routine surveillance,” a spokesperson told Breitbart News on Monday.

Limiting reporting of cases of TB diagnosed upon arrival, however, fails to capture the majority of the refugee TB cases which develop and are diagnosed more than a year after their arrival.

And, since we are told constantly that refugees can move anywhere they want within the US, how are those cases followed up?
Please go here to read the rest of the story.
And, to see all of Leahy’s reports, click here.

Where is Congress?

There are many things Congress can do to reform the US Refugee Admissions Program and dealing with the health issues presented by refugees who have apparently not been screened and barred from entry is a pretty easy fix.
Congress could require screening abroad and turn away all with both LATENT and definitely those with ACTIVE TB!  Many with latent TB will eventually become active TB and you, the US taxpayer, will foot the bill for their meds!  You are footing it right now!
And, your health and your family’s health is at risk!

Virginia does not note refugee status in records on active Tuberculosis cases diagnosed in the state; 44 other states do!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

tb-us-surveillance_cases_fb
WTH! Too many people in US STILL have TB! Well, gee, that might be because we keep bringing in new cases!

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart continued his excellent series of investigative reports on the incidence of active TB in the US refugee population with this report from Virginia.  Yesterday we told you about two other Leahy articles on TB in refugees earlier this week, see here.
Leahy on this Virginia revelation:

The state of Virginia refuses to track the number of refugees it resettles who are diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB).

[….]

… the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) does not think it should be a priority to track foreign-born TB cases by category, as do 44 states who have provided the CDC with that data since 2012 (Tennessee became the 45th state to do so in 2014) in its annual Report on Tuberculosis in the United States.

“The Virginia Department of Health does not collect the data you have requested,” a spokesperson for VDH responded when Breitbart asked to know the immigration status upon first entry of the 168 foreign-born residents of Virginia diagnosed with active TB in 2015.

More here.
For more on refugee health see our ‘Health issues’ category by clicking here. And, remember readers, your tax dollars pay for expensive TB medication (if the case is discovered!).
BTW, still have had no one tell me if volunteers, working with resettlement agencies, are trained to spot symptoms or are educated on how to protect themselves and their families from becoming infected with TB when they work with newly arrived refugees.

Active TB showing up more often in US refugee population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You probably got this news the other day at Drudge, but I am posting this and another article about Tuberculosis by Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart to keep our ‘Health Issues’ category up to date.  If you’ve never scrolled through it, we have cataloged 321 posts in the last 9 years on the topic of refugee/immigrant health problems.  Some of our very first posts in the category were about costly Tuberculosis treatment for refugees in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

symptoms_of_tb
TB Symptoms don’t usually show up in the first year of infection. https://www.physio-pedia.com/File:Symptoms_of_TB.png

Here is Leahy three days ago.  BTW the refugee industry is quick to tell you that immigrants with latent TB are permitted entry to the US, but pay attention because these are refugees with active TB.

Between 2012 and 2015, 1,565 refugees were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in the United States, according to annual reports published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The CDC data, which has been public but obscure until now, shows that the number of refugees diagnosed with active TB in recent years is more than three times greater than previously reported by any media outlet.

The number of refugees diagnosed with TB in the United States has increased every year since 2012, the first year the CDC began publishing data on foreign-born cases of the disease by category, when 358 were diagnosed. In 2013, 396 refugees were diagnosed with TB. The following year, 2014, 402 refugees were diagnosed with TB, and in 2015, the number of refugees diagnosed with TB rose again to 409. Data for 2016 has not yet been reported.

Continue reading here.
And, then yesterday, Leahy, who has become an expert on the Tuberculosis problem growing in America, reported that a middle school student in South Carolina has been diagnosed with active TB.  School officials are working hard to keep the story tamped down.  I wondered, when I read this, if parents at the school were told to keep their mouths shut about the status of the student—is he/she foreign born? Is he or she a refugee?
Breitbart:

A student at Castle Heights Middle School in Rock Hill, South Carolina was diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in December.

Officials with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and Rock Hill Schools, part of the York County Public School System, are not disclosing the patient’s country of origin.

“We can’t provide any more information about the individual that was confirmed with the case of tuberculosis,” a spokesperson for the South Carolina DHEC tells Breitbart News.

“We are in the middle of our contact investigations,” the spokesperson adds.

LOL! Leahy’s reputation must be spreading!

“Your reporting on Breitbart.com implies that you will attempt to use this data to indicate the confirmed case of TB is from a foreign-born student connected in some way to the influx of refugees into the United States over the past few years,” Rock Hills Schools spokesperson Frost adds.

“The identity of the student is and will remain private as we are bound by federal law (FERPA) to not release medical or educational information about students. As such, we cannot confirm or provide the birth location of the student involved in this case,” he notes.

Continue reading here. Leahy has much more including many links to related information.
I’ve said it more than once, and will keep saying it: If Islamic terrorism doesn’t frighten you, this (sending your kids to school were Tuberculosis could be found) should!
And, would someone who works for a refugee agency tell us if volunteers are trained to spot symptoms in the refugees they are helping and are given any instructions on how to keep themselves safe?