That is what we would like to know! Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart is on the case. I know most of you are reading Breitbart(right!), but I wanted to be sure we get this latest Tuberculosis news posted to keep our ‘Health Issues’ category up to date.
Also, before you read what Leahy says about this Nebraska case, see our recent post on Nebraska here(3 days ago). Leahy at Breitbart:
A student enrolled at Benson Magnet High School, one of seven high schools in the Omaha, Nebraska Public Schools system, was diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in November.
Health officials said they will now have to test 195 students and 12 faculty members who may have been exposed.
Two hundred thirty seven of Benson Magnet High School’s 1,273 students, or 18.6 percent, are refugees, according to Omaha Public School’s District English Language Learner/Refugee Report, 2015-16.
Officials with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Douglas County Public Health Department are withholding whether the student was foreign-born or American-born.
A number of Omaha’s refugee students were born in countries burdened by TB; Myanmar/Burma (617), Nepal (186), Somalia (140), and Bhutan (84).
As Breitbart News reported previously, foreign-born residents of Nebraska accounted for 82 percent of all cases of TB diagnosed in the state in 2014, much higher than the national average of 66 percent….
I’m wondering if the problems with the US Refugee Admissions Program will hit home once families in resettlement towns and cities find that their kids have to be tested for TB!
And, I’ve wondered for a long time if volunteers who work with refugees are given instructions on how to stay safe and keep their families safe when interfacing with newly arrived refugees. Does anyone know? (For new readers: Yes we admit refugees with TB.)
Our ‘Health Issues’ category (320 previous posts!) is here.
LOL! But New York City dwellers need not worry too much because most refugees resettled in the state of New York go to other towns and cities. New York is virtually always in the top five resettlement states in the nation. This article at City Journal by Jonathan Leaf is a bit strange as one is initially cautioned about using fear mongering on the subject of refugee health, but when you read carefully writer Leaf then tells readers about some serious health concerns and he wraps up with this paragraph:
Regardless of their views of secularism, constitutionalism, or jihad, refugees entering the United States from the Middle East may be vulnerable to or carrying an array of potentially serious ailments. Thoughtful reporting on this aspect of the refugee debate is long overdue.
We have been doing thoughtful reporting on refugee health issues for nine years! For any serious student of refugee health, visit our ‘health issues’ category with 319 previous posts on the topic. We are bringing in 50,000 from the DR Congo at this time. Communicable diseases found in Congolese refugees during domestic medical examinations in 6 states from 2010–2013 (n=2,355)* From the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/profiles/congolese/health-information/communicable-disease/std.html
Here (below) is more from City Journal. I don’t see any mention of huge mental health treatment needed by refugees or any mention of who is paying for all the treatment (that would be you, the taxpayer).
Most of the critical comments in the press—and almost all of the hostile insinuations from our politicians—about the arrival of refugees from the Middle East have focused on the newcomers’ Islamic faith. The persistent question being asked is, “What are the implications of a growth in the numbers of Muslims in our country?” This might be a legitimate concern, but it’s obscuring immediate issues about the health of these refugees. That subject is either ignored or presented in hysterical terms.
[….]
For residents of New York City, afflictions affecting refugees are unlikely to have much immediate consequence. That’s because the federal agency coordinating refugee resettlement is bringing roughly 95 percent of refugees entering the state to locations outside the city. In addition, all refugees entering the country receive two medical screenings. One, which is intensive, is undertaken three to six months before arrival. A much briefer follow-up examination is done just before the refugee comes to our shores. [As we have said previously, having been screened does not mean they are screened out and denied entry!—ed]
[….]
Many refugees now arriving in the United States are affected by potentially serious communicable ailments.Indeed, since at least 2001, health authorities in Minnesota have known that more than one-third of those in the state with active tuberculosis cases were Somali immigrants. This problem has existed among many other immigrant groups as well, according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health, including patients from “Ethiopia, Laos, Mexico, Vietnam, Mexico, Liberia and India.” Thus, by 2014, 73 percent of tuberculosis cases in Minnesota affected the foreign-born, and approximately two-thirds of TB cases nationally are found among immigrants.
[….]
The infected may develop the disease later or act as carriers of the bacillus.
Measles has become endemic in Syria, and Syrians show high rates of infection with highly communicable hepatitis A. Refugees wishing to come to the United States must demonstrate that they have been immunized for these diseases.
Of greater concern is the incidence of parasitic infections among refugees.
On this last point, I agree with author Leaf that the parasitic infections are not being given much attention. Indeed that young Congolese boy who died at O’Hare may well have died from an E-coli infection as a result of severe parasite destruction of his intestines. (Google the story because the autopsy has been released.) Click hereto read more.
One story I didn’t get to this week, is Michael Patrick Leahy’s latest on Tuberculosis (Ticking Time Bomb) in the immigrant/refugee community. Leahy has obviously made it his mission to put the spotlight on what Leaf describes as a legitimate (and under-reported) concern. Warning! Not only should you be concerned for your personal health and your family members’ health who must come in contact with refugees newly arrived in America, but you should be concerned for your pocket books! Obamacare does not have money trees growing in Washington no matter what the Democrats might want you to believe!
It seems almost every day that Breitbart publishes a new investigative report on Tuberculosis in refugees arriving in the US. I will bet every one of you, before Michael Leahy began his series, believed that we screened TB and other infectious diseases out of the legal immigrant flow to America—not so! Here is Leahy’s lateston the state becoming the epicenter of growing revelations about carelessness with refugee health screening.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, most county health departments in the state, and the local Michigan offices of refugee resettlement agencies are hiding refugee latent tuberculosis (TB) infection rates from the public.
Michigan’s culture of concealment stands in contrast to how several other states deal with latent TB infection rates among refugees.
Signs and symptoms to help you determine if someone close to you has TB
As Breitbart News reported, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) does not collect latent TB infection rate data from the county health departments and local resettlement agency providers it hires to conduct initial domestic medical screenings for arriving refugees, nor does it acknowledge its clear legal obligation to do so under the Refugee Act of 1980.
“We do not have that data,” MDHHS spokesperson Bob Wheaton told Breitbart News when asked for data on LTBI infection rates based on the entire population of refugees screened.
MDHHS has hired several county health departments and, in some counties, private refugee health screen services working in cooperation with local resettlement agencies to conduct initial domestic medical screenings of arriving refugees. Under Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and MDHHS guidelines, every refugee who completes such a screening is tested for latent TB infection.
But MDHHS says neither the counties nor the private refugee health screening services share this data with them, and the counties and private refugee health screening services who have the refugee latent TB infection data refuse to make that information public.
In the case of at least one private refugee health screening service, the Arab American and Chaldean Council, which MDHHS has hired to conduct refugee health screenings in Wayne County, Macomb County, and Oakland County, that data is also not being shared with health departments in those counties. Providing that data to local county health departments is a requirement of the Refugee Act of 1980. [Too bad we don’t have a legal foundation devoted solely to bringing lawsuits as the Refugee Act is being violated on a regular basis—ed]
Continue reading here. Embedded are links to TB data from many other states.
See our very extensive Health Issues category with 318 previous posts about refugees, diseases and mental health.
No time to do this justice as I’m dashing out to appointments, but wanted to get this posted quickly….. More newsin Breitbart’s series on Tuberculosis in the US refugee population. This is an update of previous information on Colorado. By the way, Colorado is a so-called Wilson Fish state, one of more than a dozen states where elected officials have virtually no say in how taxpayer money is expended on refugees there. Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper: We love our refugees in Colorado! I wonder did he go to Davos to schmooze with the big international corporations backing the free flow of immigrant labor around the world? A little TB here and there shouldn’t stand in the way of making money! Right?
From Michael Patrick Leahy and just breaking on Drudge:
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment admits that sixteen refugees were diagnosed with active TB between 2011 and 2014.
The admission comes one month after Breitbart News reported ten recently arrived refugees in Colorado were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB). Between 2011 and 2014, 16 out of 7,754 refugees were diagnosed with active TB at the time of their initial medical screening.
[….]
Colorado is one of fourteen states that have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement program. Under the statutorily questionable Wilson Fish alternative program, the federal government has hired a voluntary agency (VOLAG) to run the program there.
Though Tennessee, another state that has withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement program, is suing the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds over the resettlement of refugees in the Volunteer State, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, is unlikely to add his state as a plaintiff in that lawsuit.
Continue reading here. Are health care providers and volunteers who work with refugees being briefed on health threats from newly arrived refugees? That is what I want to know!
This is post number 313 in our health issues category.
This is a great website—Watchdog.org—I wonder how many other states have a Watchdog site like this which goes around the politically correct media spin and digs deeper into important stories effecting citizens in their states. Vermont state epidemiologist attempts to downplay seriousness of active TB in refugee population. Photo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patsy-kelso-97290a78
Here is more on TB following the revelations we reported from Breitbart two days ago here. Watchdog.org is reporting that the Vermont Health Department may not be diligently alerting and testing those who might have come in contact with the recent cases of ACTIVE TB.
Information not disclosed by the Health Department includes how many contact investigations are underway to identify the disease’s potential spread among the general public. Also not disclosed was how many people will need to undergo testing due to contact with the active TB patients.
In January 2015, state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso and Health Commissioner Harry Chen led a well-publicized TB control effort to isolate a single teacher at Charlotte Central School diagnosed with active TB disease. That effort, covered by VPR and WCAX, ultimately tested 500 students and co-workers exposed to the teacher, and identified 19 children and two adults to whom the tuberculosis had spread, according to Stateline.
Kelso, speaking Thursday on VPR’s Vermont Edition, offered a much different response regarding TB disease among refugees.
“It’s not a concern of mine,” Kelso said.
[….]
During the interview, Kelso shared data that show refugee populations are exhibiting a considerably higher rate of TB disease compared to native born Vermonters. “Looking at 2003 to 2015, we’ve seen 77 cases of (active) TB in people in Vermont, and 26 of those were in U.S.-born peopleand 15 of them were in refugees,” she said. Kelso added that the other 36 cases involved immigrants living in Vermont. [Of the 26 U.S.-born people, how many were living in the household of an infected immigrant?—ed]
[….]
While Kelso’s response may have been aimed at allaying public fears about the disease’s spread, the epidemiologist noted that up to 10 percent of latent TB cases advance to active TB disease.That means Vermont’s infectious disease teams can expect to diagnose many more active TB cases as a result of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.
For more click here.
I know I’ve said this before, but until Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart began his investigation of Tuberculosis in the refugee stream to American towns and cities, we had no idea it was this bad. Repeatedly those involved in the resettlement industry have said, oh, only latent TB-infected people can get in and now we learn that is not true. And, if 10% of those with latent TB become active, will they become active in your child’s school one day, or working next to you in a meatpacking plant or serving you food in a restaurant. Are they ticking TB time bombs just waiting to go off? Go herefor our very large archive on ‘refugee health’ (our posts on Leahy’s previous stories are there). 310 previous posts are listed in that category addressing the many health concerns refugees bring to America (for you to pay for!).
